NEWS OF THE DAY

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIII, Issue 6, 8 January 1942, Page 6

NEWS OF THE DAY

Fine Lightning Display.

The disturbed weather of the last few days had its culmination last evening in a magnificent lightning display. For nearly two hours from 9 p.m. the southern sky was illuminated by almost continuous flashes which appeared to come from a far distant thick bank of clouds. No thunder was heard, and towards 11 p.m. the display ceased. A number of people hazarded the suggestion that it was an auroral display, but there was no mistaking the fact that it was lightning. Subsequently the weather changed' from the I north-westerly to the southerly type, and it is at the time of such changes that Wellington experiences thunderstorms or has lightning displays. Paper Taken From Windows. Assurances that strips of paper gummed to windows are of little or no j practical value in preventing glass from flying if bombs are dropped in the vicinity, have evidently been accepted by one large firm in Queen Street, Auckland. Armed with buckets of water for damping the paper strips, and scrapers for removing them, men and women were busy on Tuesday taking the elaborate brown paper patterns from a qmmber of large display windows. No Danger from Zoo Animals. "I don't think there is the slightest danger of the animals here escaping," said the curator of the Newtown Zoo, Mr. C. J. Cutler, in answer to an inquiry whether anything was to be feared from the larger animals in case of raid upon Wellington. "The cages are not like circus cages, but are fitted with iron bars three-quarters of an inch thick. Also, these animals are not nearly so hard to handle as many people seem to imagine. The most important point, however, is that if a bomb sufficiently powerful to burst open one of the cages fell in the Zoo it would almost certainly kill the animal outright, or render it unconscious long enough for it to be killed by the keepers." ._...„