STANDARD X

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 174, 20 April 1937, Page 6

STANDARD X

A Spare-time Column

NEWS AND NOTES FOR YOUNG PEOPLE

What is Standard X? This question you must answer for yourselves, for the answer really depends upon you. Standard X is any standard and every standard—any form or class you happen to be in. Do not read this column until your set lessons are done and posted to your teachers. Then, and only then, you are invited to enter Standard X.

Different Anzac Day. Anzac Day this coming Sunday will be different from every other Anzac day for Wellington children, because they will not be allowed to parade in honour of the dead soldiers. The epidemic has to be remembered, but special children’s services will be broadcast and we hope all of you with wireless sets will tune in.

Healthy School Children. A very important conference is to be held in Wellington to-day. The ActingPrime Minister, Hon. P. Fraser, who is also Minister of Education and Health, will meet education authorities, doctors and teachers and others to talk over systems of physical education in schools. Every year, people are realising more clearly that school should not be all work and no play. Bookworms often have tired, lazy bodies because they do not give them enough exercise, and beside, you cannot think (so well unless you feel healthy.

Dread Disease of Cancer. One of the most terrible diseases in the world to-day is cancer. Not long ago. men used to die in thousands from smallpox, malaria, sleeping sickness and all sorts of illnesses, but brave men, who were not afraid to test their cures on themselves first, found ways to fight the diseases. Cancer is one of the few that still defy the doctors, although they are still hopeful of success in the end. Some New Zealand doctors came home yesterday after going to Sydney to discuss experiments with Sydney doctors.

Dog Saves His Master. If you have ever owned a dog, you will know how faithful and brave they can be. There is a farmer in Waibi, near Auckland, who is very grateful to his dog because it has saved him from being gored to death by an angry bull. He was working in his milkshed when the bull charged him and knocked him down. His dog sprang at the bull’s head and made so much commotion that it forgot about the man and chased the dog. A friend dragged the man away, and now be is in hospital with a broken leg, but if his dog hafl not come to the rescue he might have been killed. Wellington Like Fairyland.

Wellington will be like a fairy eity on May 12 when King George and Queen Elizabeth are crowned in Westminster Abbey in London, where the kings of England for hundreds of venrs have taken the oath of service to their Empire. There will be gaily-coloured lights and flags and bunting on the big buildings here, and men are going to paint pictures of the King and Queen, as big as real people, to stand at the entrances. Even if we are 13,000 miles away, we can still celebrate the Coronation. Cat at the Pictures.

In the Wellington Opera House there lives a cat, and sometimes the audience sees it. While a moving picture was being shown on Friday night it walked along the top of the balustrade at the front of the dress circle, slowly, with its back arched and its tail straight up. Then it curled up where it had been walking without fear of falling on the heads of the people below. During the performances of the ballet it sometimes walked among the people in the stalls. Theatres often have cats, and sometimes they go where they should not, perhaps walking across the stage during the performance. They are kept to keep away mice and rats. Once a rat ran on the platform during a concert in Wellington. The pianist and violinist who were playing did not know that it was running round the legs of the piano, but they probably wondered whnt was taking the minds of the audience off the music.

The Aga Khan’s Money Supply. Those of you whose fathers are keen on racing will have heard of the Aga Khan, who owns a great racing stable in England and whose horses have won the Derby twice. Though he is an Indian Moslem and fabulously rich, very few people know that the Aga Khan is prince of no territory in India and comparatively few of his followers live there. His wealth comes from 109.000,000 faithful Ismaili who live chiefly in East Africa, Iran and Arabia, and worship him as a saint. He visits them on not verv frequent occasions.

Fads of Animals. Half the fun of a visit to the Zoo lies iu giving food to the animals, but sometimes the wrong food is given and then the poor animals suffer. The new kangaroos which have come to Wellington from Australia will enjoy peanuts or juicy grass, but keepers have to be careful lest foolish people or naughty boys give them pennies or other harmful things. But monkeys are the ones tint are fed worst by visitors. They like bananas, carrots, peanuts, and lettuce. The elephant, another sufferer from queer meals, can be given fruit, potatoes, carrots, turnips, and beans. In the London Zoo there are leopards who like parsnips, biting, them in half and washing their faces in the juice. But no animals like strong perfume. It is said to cause even peaceable animals to fight. A World Record.

How would you like to ride a motorcycle at 178 miles an hour? A British rider called Eric Fexnihough has beaten the world record by going at this speed at Budapest, in Hungary. Where Iron Comes From.

The purest iron known comes from the sky. It is found in the meteors which sometimes dash through the air, then fall to the earth. But meteors do not often strike the earth, so there is very little of this iron. Most iron comes from the earth. You can see signs of it yourself, for it gives a reddish colour to the soil and rocks. Long ago, when the surface of the earth was being formed, iron was also formed. As the years passed, it was slowly separated from the soil and finally deposited in pockets, where water had washed away softer substances. Buried away in the earth in many parts of the world, there are deposits of iron ore.