ORGY OF DESTRUCTION.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 106, 7 May 1929, Page 10

ORGY OF DESTRUCTION.

BOYS IN CORDIAL FACTORY. JABS AND BOTTLES SMASHED. DAMAGE ESTIMATED AT £200. (By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.) NAPIER, Monday. Two small boys on Saturday afternoon reduced Messrs. W. Plowman and Sons' cordial factory in Hastings to a state of chaos, and caused damage etsimated at £200 at least. Six men had to work all day to clean up the factory. The two boys forced open one of the sliding doors with a great iron bar, and made for the essence room upstairs. There they started on tins of powder, which they threw through the windows. Next a hundredweight barrel of tartaric acid was broken open and the contents spread on the floor. On top of this were broken gallon jars of valuable essences, some of which cost up to £4 a gallon. On tba heap of acid went jars and essence. Then a broom was brought into operation and the whole heap was swept through a hole in the top floor' to the bottom. In the fall jars were smashed, and syrup and acid flew in all directions. This, however, was'only the start of the boys' operations. They went downstairs and threw dozens and dozens of bottles of cordial, valuable syphon bottles and thousands of labels in all directions. . The floor became a sea of syrup. . 3 Having neatly loaded up the firm's big lorry with empty cases and broken bottles, the boys' next move was to take a couple of dozen quart bottles of lemonade to the lorry and unscrew the cap of the benzine tank. They were in the act of starting to fill the tank with lemonade when the wife of one of the firm's, employees, who had been puzzled by the strange noise, entered the building, caught the boys and sent for the police. • The boye' ages ara nine and. ten y ears - " ' ' .".