GENERAL NEWS.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2139, 14 March 1908, Page 3

GENERAL NEWS.

The Lancet gives some striking examples of the importance of littlo things: “AYe know what infinite,simally small quantities of certain substances will put an end to the great : vital processes, and we know also how endless appears to bo tho action of the enzymes, or ferments, which render food assimilablo so that the same vital processes are sustained. A thirtieth part of a grain of aconitine will kill the human organism; one part of an enzyme will transform 190,000 parts of cano sugar into invert sugar; tile enzyme of malt will convert a thousand times its weight of starch into sugar, and so forth.” Nor is the enormous action of infinitesimally small quantities confined to the organic or organised world. Even certain materials devoid of life_ nro found' to exert a similar action. Such effects, the Lancet adds, are impressive, and they are calculated to impress us still more when we contemplate the number of nrocesses going on in the human machine which are dependent upon tho action of small things. A cheque for £2, written on a strip of leather, has been presented and cashed at a Pittsburg bank. A manuscript bible was written in the time of James 11. by an apprentice boy named Newman, who, having a presentiment that all bibles were to be collected and destroyed, sat up many nights and made a copy in manuscript of the entire Scriptures, hoping that when called upon to give up his bible, lie might secretly retain bis written copy. The Sunday-closing movement in Europe, which recently became operative in France, says the “Literary 'Digest,” is extending its sphere of activity. England is agitating to complete the tale of its suspended activities on Sunday by an all day closure of the public houses, while Frankfort has proved that it can get along without the Continental Sunday, and has instituted something of an English Sunday. Under the auspices of the touring club of France, Monsieur liavaillior exhibited on the Seine, in June, an automobile canoe capable of going either on land or on the water, and of passing from one to the other without delay and without the necessity of dismounting. The inventor thinks that this machine could be used to advantage wherever rivers are to be crossed without bridges, provided that the banks are not too steep. By operation of a lever, the driver changes the application of the motor power from the wheels to a propellor fixed at the rear of the boat shaped body. The rudder and the forward wheels can also bo used to direct tho course when afloat. On land, this machine of twelve liorse-power, lias made more than twenty miles an hour, and in the water about five and a half miles. The mouth of February, 1886, was in one respect tho most’ remarkable in the world’s history. It had no lull moon. January had two full moons, and so had March, but February had nono. This has not oceurcd before since the creation of the world, xlnd it will not occur again, according to the astronomers, for two and a half million years. The greatest danger to the peace and prosperity, of South Africa, remarks an exchange, is the prospect of intemperance. Tho last effort lias been to persuade the mine owners to allow every native in their employ a quart of Cape wine daily. An exchange well remarks, “In loss of life, in damage to morals, in real and abiding harm to the whole land, the letting loose of the drink fiend amongst tho natives will bo unspeakably worse than the terrible three years war.”

Air. Nathaniel Moore, of the Rock Island Railway, U.S.A., celebrated his inheritance of £150,000 by giving a dinner which cost £4OOO. The men quests were presented with favors of gold and diamond sleeve-buttons, and the women with pearl necklaces. The Glasgow Trades Council has passed ai resolution calling on the Scots Education Board to instituto Esperanto classes in the day schools, and that facilities bo given for studying it in the night classes. An inq-uiry instituted, by school masters unci mistresses of Berlin into the domestic conditions of their scholars has revealed the fact (says tlio “Telegraph”) that there aro in the citv 14,000 children who get no other food at home than bread and cogee.

It is a -popular fallacy Hint fountain pons arc quito a modern invention. As a matter of fact, an old work of reference published >lll 17Jo contains nil illustration of a jfountain pen, the nppearnneo of which is very much diko those sold uifc tho present time. Its construction, however, was somewhat elaborate and clumsy, tho pell consisting of various pieces of metal, which had to be screwed and unscrowed boloro the pen could be 'used. . The Italian war office notes vi fitcady deterioration in tho strength of tho youth of flint country—thirty per cent, of the young men of twenty years of .ago being now rejected us unequal to the moderate fatigues of tho military pervico. Tho enso is n'l-ib-ifcd to the drain of emigration, ,(• a, j, ,; drawn away tho more robust h sexes, leaving the.propagation .( t' r raco to tho weaker ones loft 1 During the course of tho annual meeting of the Surgical Aid Society at tho Mansion House, London, eloquent testimony was given ito tho Society’s usefulness. The report makes' interesting- reading, especially that part of it dealing with tlio distribution of appliances during the past your. Of artificial tooth, tor instance, 1‘,322 sets have been given and of eyes 520. Three artificial noses, fifty arms, forty-five foot, two ‘palates,’ and ono car nro also among the appliances distributed. In ..all, 38,041 appliances havo boon sent out. a singular Denmark institution. It is confined to tho nobility, and the nobleman, as soon as a fomalo child is born to him, enrols her name on the company’s hooks and pays in a certain sum /and thereafter a fixed annual amount, to tho (treasury. AVhen tho young girl has roachod the ago of 21 silio is ontitled to a fixed income and to an elegant suite of apartments, and this income and this residence, bolfch almost princely,;aro'hors until slm oithor marries or dies. The society has existed for generations. It has always prospered. Thanks to it poverty-stricken old maids aro unknown amongst tho Donmark nobility, but every maiden lady is rich and happy.