MULTUM IN PARVO.

Otago Witness, Issue 3864, 3 April 1928, Page 33

MULTUM IN PARVO.

— Ramsgate and Rochdale (England) Town Councils have passed resolutions against greyhound racing tracks. —“ Go by the thermometer rather than the calendar ” is a safe rule in deciding how much heavy clothing to wear. — Woodstock Rural Council has asked for powers to reject plans of buildings which threaten the beautj’ of the countryside. — Paris milliners are now making hata so close fitting that they look like the wearer’s hair. Feathers of all colours are used for them. — Samples of Belgian hosiery sliow'n to a recent Board of Trade Committee were made entirely from waste cuttings and floor sweepings rcspun. —A gun used in German West Africa during the Great War was actually made in 1680. It is to be seen in the Imperial War Museum, London. —lt is said that there are 30,000 British bookmakers, with an annual turnover of £300,000,000 —-£1.000,000 spent every working day on betting! — Footprints, taken on the lines of our finger-print system, are being used for identifying criminals in Ceylon, -where a great part of the population go barefoot. —lt is possible to feed a man sufficiently to maintain life by massaging him with a mixture of fat, proteid, sugar, and other ingredients. — Red oxide of lead, petroleum, sienna, and carbon are some of the chemicals used in manufacturing beauty creams and other aids to “ make-up.” —A school of English Church music is to be formed, in which Sir Walford Davies and Mr Nicholson (late organist of the Abbey) are interested. — There are said to be no fewer than 16,837 different ways of earning a living as shown in a British Government publication dealing with occupations. — Jewish children show the best attendances at London elementary schools; but they are behind their Gentile companions on the sports ground. —A chemical process for rendering fireproof the paper used for bank notes, cheques, and other important documents is one of the inventions we want. — Dr Anna Kugler, who has twice been honoured by the Indian Government for her services as a medical missionary, is now returning to work in India, aged 72. - — Winter thunderstorms occurred somewhere in the British Isles at the rate of one every two days during the six months from October 1, 1926, to March 31. 1927. — Including fees for exhibition dancing at hotels and clubs, instructors at the top of the tree may make as much as £3OOO a year. —By next summer a complete road "ambulance service, with first-aid equipment, will be stationed along all main roads in England. —Australia will have a future population with dark hair, dark eyes, and olive complexions, if the prediction of some scientists is fulfilled. —A march has been composed in honour of 32 Viennese tramwaymen who have driven their ears ever since electric trams were introduced into Vienna 25 years agef. — Worcester Cathedral bells are in such a bad condition at present that they cannot be rung. — Two lives were lost in a motoring accident in Kent caused by a driver throwing away the end of a cigarette. — By using oil to lay the dust in London schools, instead of having the floors scrubbed regularly, it is hoped to save £12,000 a year. — Westminster Abbey, London, and St. George’s Church, Windsor, are both outside the control of the bishops in whose dioceses they are built. —Asked to bring one potato each for Mansfield Hospital, England, the school children responded so liberally that over six tons of potatoes were collected. — Gleaning, one of England’s oldest country customs, is dying out, as most of the corn grown is sent to steam mills in towns, and the cottager cannot get his corn ground locally. — The longest long-distance telephone cable in the British Empire is now being constructed in Canada. It will ultimately connect Toronto and Buffalo, by way of Hamilton. Grimsby, and Welland. — Eighty years ago chloroform was used at an operation for the first time. Its use as an anesthetic was due to Sir James Young Simpson, the son of a Linlithgow baker, who lived to beepme one of the most eminent physicians of his period. —Among the manufactures how being carried on at Slough are concrete, ironfounding,. engineering of all sorts, printing ink. joinerj’, ointment, surgical dressings, printing, sweets, jam. and soap. All these have been established within the last seven years. —Artificial legs to the number of 109,000 and 27,000 artificial arms have been supplied to disabled ex-service men by the British Ministry of Pensions. — Sheffield, which now has a population of 500,000, was once a little Norman settlement, and later, as recently as the seventeenth century, a pleasant country place. —A set of Scott’s “ Waver ley,” just as it left the printer’s hands, recently brought £6OO at auction. Another first edition, which had been rebound, sold in 1926 for £5. — M’s.P. have queer hobbies, some of them; but the nueerest appears to be that of Captain Sidney Streatfield, M.P. for Galloway in the House of Commons, who is a diver. He is occasionally to be found patrolling .the bed of a dock in the heavy boots, rubber kit, and win-dow-ed headpiece of the professional diver, when patrolling division lobbies does not call him. Captain Streatfield first went down in 1914. He was at that time going in for mining engineering.