MULTUM IN PARVO.

Otago Witness, Issue 3832, 23 August 1927, Page 62

MULTUM IN PARVO.

—lt is now possible to fly from London to Constantinople direct in 70 hours. — When taken from the River Iweed a large salmon had a full-grown herring —England imports about £250,000 worth of flowers every year, but ten times as many, are grown and sold at home. There are now about 2,250.000 licensed listeners-in in Britain, compared with .1,906,000 a year ago. — The earlv Romans at first had only one name, later.three, called praen-men, nomen, and cognomen. . — Crocodile leather in various bright colours is being -tried in the manufacture of men’s shoes. — Many of the splendid abodes ot the aristocracy in Britain are being dismantled owing to heavy expenses of upkeep. , . r —As a plea for rain, the people ot Angola, on the West Coast of Africa, cut off a man’s arm at the shoulder, and plant it in the ground with the hand sticking up. , — The English telegraph system has never paid since it was taken over by the Post Office in 1870. — Milkweed is used in paper surgical dressings, textiles, glucose, cattle food, fertiliser, and rubber. — More than 300 peerages of the United Kingdom are without an heir or have only ’an heir presumptive. — General Chang lias ordered 4500 Bibles and 66,000 New Testaments for the officers and men of his army. — Fur seals are among the greatest rovers in the world, animals marked in the Arctic having been found in the — Two fine banana plants, 12ft high, have been grown in a garden near Swansea, Wales. . . -— Babies seem to flourish in London, where the infant mortality rate is marvellously low. <—ln the City <of Paris there are stated to be more than 100,000 trees, only one of which is an oak. -—The International Labour Office at Geneva used 23 languagesin its correspondence last year. i—Aeroplanes are to take photographs of. London traffic to help the authorities in- mastering its problems. -—An omnibus service will shortly be established between Glasgow and Liverpool, 250 miles, for £1 2s. : —A Hull (England) boy looking out of ah' upper .floor! window was struck by a shoe kicked off' by a passing horse. — There were 269 launchings of lifeboats of the National Lifeboat Institution last year, and 361 lives were saved. — Out of the total number of traffic accidents in Great Britain last year, nearly one-sixth were due to pedal bicycles. — The London Underground has just beaten all its own records by carrying 7,000,000 passengers in a week. — Every Boy Scout on Tristan da Cunha received a new uniform by the last boat, and every boy on the island is a Scout!

-— In the regular shopping list ” of the London Zoo appear large quantities of sunflower seeds, mealworms, condensed milk, and dried flies. — Practically all varieties of medicinal plants and shrubs grow in ■ Jugo-Slavia, which country exports them extensively. — Probably the oldest factory, of its kind in England, the Fulham Pottery, London, has been turning out its wares; for 250 years. —To retain housemaids in London some families are offering 10 weeks’ vacation. eggs and bacon, radios, arid the use of the fapiily car. — The early Romans made cement as good as or better than that of the present day, and the Saracens manufactured an excellent steel. — Measuring 703 ft long, the motor liner was recently launched. Firing the Italian flag, its tonnage is 33,000, with a speed of 22 knots. — During the past three centuries 190,000 persons have lost their lives through volcanic eruptions, 176,500 of fatalities beihg in the Pacific area. . —French' or foreign firms established in France who wish to employ a worker who is not of French nationality must now get permission from the French Ministry of Labour. — London footballers are asking for pitches totalling up to more than 500 ac^ e ®, ‘ e^ cess of the space which the E.C.C. 1 arks Committee can devote to tne sport. — Some scientists think that petroleum is the result of purely chemical action on inorganic substances, others that it results from animal remains, and others that it comes from vegetable remains. — inspectors in ordinary private clothing are now on duty, keeping an eye on buses 1 '’ 01-8 and cond,lctors of London — During one week-end at Hull Innrmary England, patients were treated tor swallowing a plum stone, ' a safetvpin, and a halfpenny. • ' ■ - B^ SiX K Li ‘ neash ’re towns—Blackburn, n i , B "r nl ey. Oldham, Bolton, and have all decreased ’in population, according to statistics. 1 —Among the specimens of. British docFs’ W^n r found ' the tendon ffike tle Wa i are tro(lt - roach, backs; bream ’ ee,s ’ cai ’P> arid stickleofth? Se a Pl’ I >’ i . n S for the post England -it hospital at Grimsby, cantfins’ 1 a year, were admirals, caPtams, barristers, doctors, and clcrgy-Br-i<lf^rd° r - cars are more numerous in Bradford, in proportion to population shir U e , -city y h Other Britisll city ’ The habitant? aS ° ne Car to every 50 in ' de^ionfd Pa f W XH Cie i nt j St is R i lid to have sill- in rU ? I P for reclaiming the "silk if °i d ?tockmgs and gowns. The silk is chemically changed into a «nh stance which ca „ j, e drawn into threads'p.-, ,Twenty-five per cent, of New York n ys P°PB^ a ti»n is American bora, 17 per cent. Russian, 14 per cent. Italian, i’X Ce ? 10 per cent - German, cent. English, and the rest “ scat-