STANDARD X

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 176, 22 April 1937, Page 8

STANDARD X

f 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. Stan- • dard X is any standard and every stan- ■ dard—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 A’. A School for Heroes. In addition to its normal reputation, Cannings’ College. Bath (England), seems to be rapidly qualifying as a school for heroes and heroines. In July last one of its students, Hazel Cross, aged 13, was awarded a parchment by the Royal Humane Society for her heroism in rescuing a boy from drowning. Now comes news of a similar heroic action on the part of Donald Crane, aged 19, a former student, who, at great personal risk, accentuated by the fact that he had only just recovered from an attack of pneumonia, saved a woman resident of Bath from the flooded Avon. Both these students learned swimming at Cannings’ College, and an endeavour is being made to obtain for Donald Crane the same public recognition as that which was accorded to little Hazel Cross. The rescued woman is a widow with seven children, and, it is stated, she would undoubtedly have lost her life had it not been for the courage and presence of mind of Donald Crane. Mrs. Bonney Changes Course. The Australian airwoman, Mrs. Harry Bonney, whose solo flight of 14,000 miles from Darwin to Cape Town we have, been following in .Standard X, has had to change her course because the people along her former route are sick from a deadly disease called cholera. She left Penang for Rangoon on Tuesday. Memorial to King George V. In New Zealand, people are raising money to establish health camps as a memorial to King Georga V, one of the best Kings England has ever had. They are establishing memorials of a different sort in England, and on Tuesday the new King, George VI, who is very like his father in appearance, drove to Wellington barracks in Rondon to unveil the first memorial. Many people in England want King George VI to grow a beard go that he will be even more like his father. X-Rays for Oranges. X-rays can tell a real from a cultured pearl, a precious stone from “paste,” and now they have been applied to the .detection of really good oranges from indifferent ones. The oranges are carried on an endless band which passes over an X-ray tube, in front of which is a fluorescent screen on which an image of the fruit is thrown. A ripe, juicy orange appears dark-, while a frgjen one, in which the fruit is often grghula/.ed, appears very light. A photo-electric cell detects the light ones from the dark, and operates an automatic arm which flicks the bad oranges from the band into a basket, while the good fruit is carried forward. Rugby Players To-day Are Good. Nowadays, we hear so much about the magnificent Rugby football players who , used to kick the 'leather before we went to matches or were even born, that it is good to hear someone say that the presentday players are really just as good as the men who went before them. Mr. It. J. Smith, president of the New Zealand Rugby Union, said at the annual meeting yesterday that all this talk about the giants of the past was inclined to make people feel inferior. He said the Springboks who are coming from South Africa are supposed to be supermen, but they will need to be to beat our team.

Sixty-seven Loops in a Glider. Even if you are one of the lucky young people who have been up in an aeroplane, you probably have never looped the loop. Onfy very capable pilots in very good machines, flying at a certain height, are allowed to do it, because accidents can happen otherwise. Much more frightening than looping the loop in an aeroplane is loopiug iu a glider, which has no engine to regain altitude, but relies on air currents and swoops about like a bird. An English flying officer named Flight Lieutenant Mole has just set up a world record by looping 67 times in 34 minutes in a glider which he flew at Cairo, in Egypt. When he camo down he felt rather sick, and said he wished'he had not had prawn mayonnaise for Ifinch. t

Naval Squadron Gone. The Australian naval squadron, which fiome of us inspected when it was at Wellington, left Auckland yesterday to go back to Australia. Its visit cost about £lO,OOO, which was spent in New Zealand shops by the men and the ships’ cooks. Exhibition Plans.

The exhibition at Wellington in the summer of 1939-40 should be one of the best things we have to look forward to in the way of fun and interest. It is to be held at'Rongotai, and men are already getting busy with arrangements, although it is still two and a half years before it comes.

A Big Wash. The biggest church in England is having the biggest wash .in history. Last month men well supplied with hot water and soft soap mounted scaffolding erected in York Minster and attacked the grime of centuries, now ingrained in the stonework. They are doing the work thoroughly, for the pile of the Minster is tw precious for scamped or hurried workmanship. The work will not be finished for many years, and it is thought that some of those who have begun it may not live to see the end. One part of the wall, near tho famous Five Sisters Window, has already been washed free from dirt and whitewash of centuries, and now stands out a pure, pale yellow.