MULTUM IN PARVO.

Otago Witness, Issue 3899, 4 December 1928, Page 73

MULTUM IN PARVO.

—A piano with walnut case was sold for 3s at a Weybridge (England) auction. —lt is possible in Glasgow to travel 23 miles on the tramways for 2d. —ln shaving the blade of a razor travels over the face at something like 30 miles an hour. —ln Berlin’s newest store there is a dining room for patrons’ dogs, whom the waiters attend with bowls of food and drink. —ln New York city last .year 479 lampposts were broken by motor cars and motor buses. —Motorists in Surrey, England, paid £15,650 in fines during the financial year ended March 31 last. -—Over £15,000,000 were paid for over 1,000,000 motor licenses in Great Britain last year. —Stephen Lebon, the last survivor of the army of. Louis Kossuth, the Hungarian Liberator, has died at 97. —The London ambulance service has received over 40,000 calls at its 13 stations in the past year. —Bozeat, Northants, England, with a population of 1100, has 250 residents named Drage. —One inch of rain on an acre of land Would fill more than 600 barrels of 45 gallons capacity each. - —Taxation in Great Britain per head of the population is £l5 2s Bd, the next European figures being France £8 5s lOd and Germany £5 6s sd.

—Among the Moors, if a wife does not become the mother of a boy, she may be divorced with the consent of the tribe, and can marry again. —When Queen Victoria came to the throne in 1837 there were 1600 boys under 16 years of age awaiting transportation from England for petty crimes. —Although only 13 miles from London, the Kentish village of Keston suffers from an overdose of foxes, the inhabitants being kept awake at night by the howling of the animals. —There will be 20 altars in the new Abbey church of the Benedictine Order at Woolhampton, Berks, England, when it is completed. The church will be known as Douai Abbey. —An 86-year-old agricultural labourer, W. Vince, of Chattisham, Suffolk, has been employed on the same farm for 70 years, and has lived in the same cottage for 62 years. —Over a quatrer of a ton of broken I glass has been picked up on the beach at Skegness, England. —lt is now possible to leave New York by aeroplane at noon and reach San Francisco next day in time for tea. —Canada has now 1,000,000 motor cars. Twenty-five years ago she had 220, and I 30 years ago none at all. — The gas plant of the Gas Light and Coke Company at Beckton, England, produces 100,000,000 cubic feet of gas a day. I —American air mail postage rates have been halved. —Goldfish are descended from the common carp, and originated in China and Japan. —German youths are not so tall now as in the pre-war days, the general decrease being at least IJin. —lt has been stated that there are over 40 miles of greenhouses in and around Worthing, England.

—British and German airmen who were antagonists in the war have dined together in London. —A meat van delivered £25,000 worth of gold and silver at the Bank of England, London, a short time ago. —ln the last 40 years the astronomers of Oxford and Greenwich have photographed more than 15,000,000 stars. —Four eggs in a blackbird’s nest were broken when a cricket ball fell into it during a match at Southborough, in Kent. —ln Great Britain an acre of good fish-

ing will yield more food in a week than an acre of the best land will yield in a year. —A young man climbed up a 30ft wall at Grimsby Corn Exchange, England, and released a pigeon caught by its leg in the gutter-pipe. —Hughenden Almshouses, near Lord Beanconsfield’s church, which have been unoccupied for some years, are being converted into a parochial hall. —The curious dress of the Beefeaters at the Tower of London is said to be due to the desire of Henry VIII that they should look as stout as he did. —A rabbit became lodged in the main water supply pipe at Cottingley, in Yorkshire, England, causing the village to be without water for a -whole day. —ln a month a caterpillar will devour 6000 times its own weight in food. It will take a man three months before he eats an amount of food equal to his own weight. I —Subsidies paid by the different nations to forward flying are: Germany. £1,079,000; France. £634,300; United States, £411,500; Italy, £375,000; and Britain, £230,600. —ln Morocco the face of a bride is painted white and red, and her hands and feet are dyed yellow with henna. —After spending 57 of his. 77 years at Westminster Abbey, Mr Thomas Wright, clerk of the works, has retired. —A boy charged at Willesden Police Court, England, with stealing a bicycle said, “I took it to get to Australia.” —Two thousand young pheasants have I been drowned in a flooded field a few miles from Keswick, England. —Madrid, the capital of Spain, has inI creased its population from 746,000 to nearly 1,000,000 in the last five years. —lt has been estimated that it requires the annual production of four rubber trees to provide rubber for one motor car tyre. — One of the finest walks in Devon, from Salcombe to Hope, is brought into I the hands of the National Trust by the I public purchase of Bolt Head. I —At the present rate, the system of I marking cars now in use in Great Britain I will be completely exhausted in two years’ time. New systems are being discussed. I —Three engineers are occupied on the Monte Generoso (5590 ft Italy, in studyI ing the possibility of harnessing the electric power produced by thunderstorms.