FOR THE YOUNG FOLK

Northern Advocate, 16 November 1929, Page 6

FOR THE YOUNG FOLK

PETER, SMALL DOG. I

Tin-re is a little 'black-bordered 1 a Memmiain. notin' on a wall near Kensington Gardens, where The Refer, the Reter Ran we know so well, lives. It says that Peter is dead. i But this Peter was an Aln-ideeii te.r-' rier. well known in Bayswater road. in.ister lived in a grand house, but Peter preferred the taxi rank. Hej loved taximen, and day after day he! would join them, no nrattar what the weather, remaining till the last taxi went home at midnight. No douot Peter eould have had delicious food at home, but ho chose to share the cabmen’s meals. Kvery man knew and loved him. When Peter's master went on a holiday he left his pet in the taximen’s eare, and then Peter got more spoiled than ever.

This 1 rieml hip went on for years, till Peter grew older and feebler, and at last his owner said it was merciful to have him destroyed.

Only people who have loved a dog can guess how much those taximen miss Peter. They say no other dog /will ever be like him. And they have

put up an In Memoriam notice to their small friend.

100,000 SQUARE MILES,

The doctor in this country who has twenty square miles to cover in his practice thinks himself a hard-worked man, and perhaps there is small wonder that the famous society knowri as the “Regions Beyond’’ Missionary Union can hardly get a doctor for thou 1 stations in 'Central Africa, for the area he will have cover is bigger than England, Wales; and Scotland, together.

The mission has seven station in the Belgian Congo with nearly live hundred outposts, and it is served 'by 40 European missionaries, three native Congo pastors, and (588 native evangelists and teachers. But although many of the white missionaries do grand healing work for the body as well as for the soul, and have taken what is known as the Livingstone Course, which extends

over a year and comprises a most useful knowledge of medicine and surgery, there is no fully qualified doctor among them.

“Wo must have a qualified man or woman,” said the Director of the mission, “for we have just begun building a hospital at Ikau, in the. Province of Lulonga, on the River Lulonga: The doctor who would be in charge of the hospital would have an immense area of something like 100,000 square miles to cover, but the task is not as terrible, as it sounds, for numerous waterways, tributaries qf the mighty Congo and its rivers, flow in all directions and make transport easy.

“One of these medical missioners Mho has .just come homo on furlough was in charge of the temporary medical station at Ikau, ami it was quite a usual thing for her to have nearly a thousand patients in a week.”

CONUNDRUMS,

These are simply catches in which the sense is playfully cheated, and generally founded upon words capable of double meaning. Where did Charles the First’s executioner dine, and what did he take.' — He took a chop at the King’s Head. When is a plant to be dreaded more than a mad dog?—When it’s madder.

What is majesty stripped of its externals? —R is a jest. (The m and {he y. externals, are. taken away.) Why is hot bread like a catcrpiller? Because it’s the grub that makes the lint ter flv.

Why are bankrupts more to be pitied than idiots? —Because bankrupts are broken, while idiots are only cracked.

A GOOD GAME

ONE YOU CAN MAKE YOURSELF.

It is sometimes hard to find something new and interesting to do in the evenings. One evening you might make a game for yourself —one that you will he able to play many times with your friends.

You need a big sheet of white cardboard or paper —cardboard for preference, because it won’t get crumpled, but will keep nice and flat.

This sheet yon must mark off into two-inch squares. Make these’ plainly by inking them in, and the squares should be painted in different colours. Of course, you’ll have fo repeat the colours, but that all adds to the attraction of the game.

Now to play you need some counters —you can borrow them from your iudo or tiddleywlnks set. If this is not possible make some counters from discs of cardboard, shaping them by a half-penny and colouring them to match the squares on the board. To play the game yon must place the board at one end of the table and stand at the other. Then you throw up the discs, trying to get them on to their corresponding colours. Each player who gets a counter right in a corresponding square counts two. To get it partly on a square counts one, and the player who scores the greater number wins the game.

Jimmy had been absent from the history class for seyeral lessons. When ho returned, the master said: — “You have a lot to make up. How long have you been absent?” “Since the Hundred Years’ War, sir. ’ ’

The little group of country folk had been watching the band play for several minutes. They had never seen a trombone before, and the player of that instrument received particular interest. Finally one rustic nudged another with his elbow, “Come on,' ’ he said, “It's a fake. He doesn’t swallow it every time.”

A VERY GALLANT MAN.

A noble profession lias lost one of its most gallant members. Dr George Allan Maling, V.C., has died. He went to the Great War, and he won the Victoria Cross in 1915 by his gallantry in the Battle of Loos. There was heavy fighting near Fanquissart on 25th September, and the doctor was working incessantly for 23 hours, collecting and treating in the open, under heavy slud! fire, more than 300 men.

Only soldiers can realise what the words “in the open, under heavy shell fire,’’ mean. Civilians can but guess at the terror and horror of it, and the young doctor's magnificent courage.

At about 11 u.m., on the 25th, he was flung down ami rendered unconscious for a while by the bursting of a largo high-explosive shell. When he recovered, he found that it had wounded his only assistant and killed several of the men under Jus care,

He carried on single-handed. Boon after a. second shelf covered him with debris. He struggled free, dug out his instruments, and went on with his work as if he walked a hospital ward. When every instinct in his body bade him crouch and take shelter he walked out into the open, seeking men who needed him. When his reason told him that he was justified’ in retreating from almost certain death, lie remained in the thickest of the danger. Day and night he toiled,'"forgetful of Ms human need, because he thought only of others. Such a thing is man at his best.