MULTUM IN PARVO.

Otago Witness, Issue 3842, 1 November 1927, Page 62

MULTUM IN PARVO.

—A giant turtle, weighing 7501 b. has been caught off the coast of Brittany. — Only one out of every 1000 married couples live to celebrate their golden wedding. — The firing of guns in Morocco has been plainly heard at Gibraltar. — The average temperature of the entire globe is 50deg Fahr. — Lost 12 years ago. a diamond pin has been found in a garden near Burgess Hill, Sussex.

— Jack Hobbs, the well-known English cricketer, has had a new variety of dahlia named after him.

— Siamese cats, which are worth anything from £2O upwards each, are firstrate vermin destroyers. —At a London police station the other day a live mouse jumped out of a man’s pocket and ran across the floor.

-—A New York millionaire has advertised in the papers for public advice as to how he should dispose of his millions. — Londoil contains 5593 public houses. This works out at one for approximately every 8000 of its inhabitants.

— Rats are responsible for a loss of £70,000,000 worth of food every year. This is apart from the damage these rodents do to houses, barns, warehouses, etc.

— Butterflies and grasshoppers have besv. recorded to come to rest on the surfacs of the water during long transoceanic flights.

— The parchment used for banjoes, etc., is made from the skins of asses, calves, or wolves, those of the last-rgmed being considered the best.

--In rtivcing a common length of step ifc 36in. Few women can take a step so long, hence their inferiority in running compared with men.

—l, s estimated that temperate men li’-j 17 years longer than drunkards. — Out of 24,350,000 families of the United States over 11,000,000 own their own homes.

— The red grouse is found nowhere outside the British Isles, except where it has been exported. —A silver candlestick has been stolen from the altar of the Harvard Chapel in Southwark Cathedral.

. -• Piibably the longest gun in the world is piat situated on Long Island, U.S.A, which is 89ft in length? —A flowering plant is said to abstract from the soil two hundred times its own weight in water during its life. — Rheumatic diseases cost England's various industries an annual loss of more than 3,900,000 days.

Although aged 82, William Noon has just been appointed rat-catcher to Bulkington (Warwickshire) Council. — Water boils at 212 deg in a - ?tal vessel, but in a glass vessel does not show ebullition until the temperature Teaches 214 deg. — Picked up as a “stray ” in the street, a eat appeared on the show bench at a recent Siamese cat championship in London.

— Sent up at Shardlow. in Derbyshire, a toy balloon was found the following day, still inflated, floating on a mill pond at Strasbourg, in France. —Although he is 74 years old, Mr Hannant plunged, fully dressed, into a dyke 10ft deep, in Norfolk, and saved a little boy from drowning. — If one second of time could be saved at each stop of the London County Council traincars, it would mean an economy of no less than £2OOO a year. — Hollowed out for use as a water main, a section of an oak tree recently dug up from beneath a London street is estimated, to be 300 years old. — Onlj- two English towns have the right to display a Standard of Honour gained through a long connection with royalty. These are Launceston and Hertford. * —A stone hot water bottle, if slightly cracked, can be filled with sand and heated in the oven., thus doing its duty quite as well as if filled with water. ■ —Meals will be served on the new Rolls-Royce aeroplane, the most luxurious in the world. Another huge ’plane is being designed with sleeping berths for the passengers. — Motor cars in the United States of America were responsible for 19,000 deaths and 450.000 injured people in 1924. In England the death roll was 3631 in the same year. — The average length of life for the people of New York State. U.S.A., is estimated to have risen to 30| years, as compared with 244 years ih 1840. — When the post of superintendent of the general market of Newport. Mon., with a salary of £260 a year with uniform, was advertised, applications were received from army officers, ministers, and professional men. x —With the appointment of the now Bishop of Ripon there are now nine unmarried bishops in Great Britain. The Archbishop of York is also a bachelor. — Each child under school age, after the first two, will mean a rebate of 6d a week to tenants in the houses built Vv.the Guildford Rural Council, if the British Ministry of Health agrees. Houses built by the London County Council since the war now number over 10,000, and the waiting list of anxious tenants is how well over twice that number. — The world’s loudest loud sneaker is now being built in Germany. When completed, this huge affair will have three bell mouths, each measuring 40ft across and 110 ft in height. . — A statistician affirms that the majority of pepple who attain old age have kept late hours. Eight out of ten who 1 each the age of 80 have never gone to bed until after 12 at night. — Women fill the positions of ratecollector. church clerk, postmistress, postwomen, and school mistress in the Essex village of Lawford, which has about 800 inhabitants.

— France has received' so many inhabitants from other countries since the war that a proposal has been put forward whereby all foreigners who stay on French soil beyond a certain period will be compelled to become French subjects. — Sajnples of milk taken by municipal Authorities go to prove that adulteration occurs more frequently on Sundays than »n other days? The assumption is that •here is a greater demand on that day. •nd there is a tendency to increase the ripply to meet it by adding water.