MULTUM IN PARVO.

Otago Witness, Issue 4032, 23 June 1931, Page 67

MULTUM IN PARVO.

' Fortune-telling ” by means of astrology, tealeaf reading, crystal-gazing, and the cards is enjoying a great “ boom ” in New York.

—ln a recent show of fancy mice held, in St. Albans, England, over seven varieties were represented, many of the exhibitors being women who were also breeders.

Compared with pre-war prices in England, beef now stands at an increase of 61 points, flour 12 points, tea 28 points, milk 85 points, eggs 43 points, and fish 116 points. —Receptacles for litter in the Dorking (England) district bear the legend. “Post your litter here.” On more than one occasion letters, addressed and stamped, have been found in them.

—By July of this year there will be no fewer than 29.300 miles of air services in the British Empire, as against 24.650 for France, 17.900 for Germany, and 16.700 for Holland. America has 49.550 miles of aii' service.

- One famous restau-ant in PiccadillyLondon. pays £ll.OOO in rent and £3500 in rates and taxes every year. —-1 he British ?Jinistrv of Heal’h estimates that in the middle of 1930 there were 1.838 050 children between the ages of two and five in England and Wai s.

—lt is estimated that 45,000.000 to 48,000.000 gallons of crude benzol, yielding about 32 000 000 gallons of mo*or fuel, were produced in 1930 from British coal in Great Britain.

—When Holland has completed hetwork of draining the Zuyer Zee she will have added 550.000 acres, or th? equivalent of 10.000 farms, to her area. —Forms of crime which show the greatest increase on the average for 1914 are frauds by agents, falsifying accounts, ialse pretences, and house and shop breaking.. —ln 1918 there were 112.329 deaths f om influenza in England and Wales. Tn 1923 the number was 8461. in 1927 22.263, in 1929 29 084, and in 1930 only 5002. No one can give any explanation for this extraordinary variation.

On January 31 £2.193 956 was standing to the credit .of the Miners’ Welfare Fund (England and Wales). The amount paid out during 1930 was £1,361.466. —Washbasins with hot and cold water, comfortable beds, table, seat, and hanging accommodation for clothes are provided in every- cell in a new women’s orison in New York.

--Britain spends £150.000 a vear on medical research ami £1.250.000 on poison gas research.

One murderer out of every- four in Britain commits suicide after committing the crime.

—Dutch agriculturists have to pay heavy taxes and rates. While their rates of wages are very little lower than in England, they score over the British workers in their much more efficient system of marketing. —Brighton (England) children show a serious vein in their choice of librarybooks. among the favourite subjects being wireless telegraphy, electricity, natural science, natural history, and Empire and colonial history. —Claimed to be the shortest railway’ in the world, the line one mile and threequarters long between the docks and warehouses on Governor’s Island. New York, is to be swapped. It is the remains of an eight-mile system built for war use. —There are 120.000 University electors in England. If they were ordinary electors they would be entitled to send two members to Parliament. As it is they return 12. —The total number of staff on the establishment of the British Chemical Warfare Research Department is 553. —The number of liquidations of companies and bankruptcies in Britain in 1930 was 3589, of which 3024 were voluntary liquidations of companies. —Turkey’s first woman surgeon is a young married lady who had to perform a very delicate operation before 15 male surgeons to receive her diploma. —“ Baby ” cars are being turned out at the rate of 100 per working day, in addition to 200 larger cars every week, from one Birmingham factory- alone. —The average weekly cash earnings of all workers employed in the coal mines of Great Britain during the nine months ended September, 1920, ivere £4 6s lid. During the 11 months ended November, 1930, they- were £2 4s 4d. —Between December. 1924, and June. 1929, 1148 coal pits in Great Britain, employing 93,600 wage earners, have closed and not been reopened. During the period January 1 of this year to the present date 71 pits, employ ing 9400 wage earners, have been closed.

—The lists of one prominent film company in Hollywood, which contain the names of 2460 girls, show that blondes are most popular, there being 1022 enrolled. At the other end of the scale come 20 red-haired belles.

—Among the “accessories ” at a recent American wedding were half a mile of sausages, two orchestras, sauerkraut by the barrel, and 1000 violets for decoration, in honour of the bride, whose name was Violet.

—The amount paid out by the British Exchequer in subsidies to the beet sugar industry was £492,040 in 1924, £2,854,239 in 1928, £4,229,729 in 1929, and £6,000,000 in 1930.

—On November 24, 1930 (the last date for which figures are available), the number of people in receipt of unemployment benefit in England and Wales was— Aged 18 to 40: Women. 378,000: men, 880,000. Aged 55 to 64 : Women, 17,000; men, 237,000.

—London and Lancashire both recorded an exceptionally high number of marriages in the final quarter of last vear. There were 13,899 in London and 13,508 in Lancashire, compared with 10,000 in Yorkshire and 4504 in Middlesex.

No more indefatigable collector of specimens ever lived in the Dominion than the late Sir Julius Vori Haast, who was responsible for the creation of the Canterbury Museum (says the Christchurch Sun). He roamed our island from the east to the West Coast. On these journeys, bearded and roughly clad, he superficially gave little indication of the scientist. Once on a trip to Mount Cook he called at a farm house. The woman who answered his knock eyed him up and down, and disliking his appearance made to shut the door. Then noticing his geologist’s hammer at his belt, and expecting the visit of a carpenter, she grudgingly invited him to enter. “That carpenter man has come,” she told her employer.