SWATTING FLIES

Greymouth Evening Star, 10 December 1927, Page 2

SWATTING FLIES

CHILDREN KILL 3,000,000. With the advent of summer each year, an enterprising Melbourne newspaper conducts, in conjunction with Health Week, a competition for boys and girls for the champion “swatters” of flies. “Swat that fly”—a course so earnestly advocated by the Australian health authorities—becomes the slogan of hundreds of homes, where there are boys and girls. On the day that this year’s competition ended, hundreds of youngsters flocked into the newspaper office for their “bags” to be counted. Kiddies brought flies in petrol tins, paper bags, and boxes. When at length dozens of checkers had completed this task, it was found that the kiddies’ efforts had been responsible for ridding the world of more than 3,000,000 flies. The winner of the competition was a ten-year-old boy, Vincent Palamara, who proudly produced evidence that he had “swatted” 266,000 flies during his week of slaughter. Second prize went to a boy who accounted for 98,000, and third to another boy, who killed .64,000. Winners of consolation prizes had collections ranging from 30,000 to 48,000. The winner of the competition told an ingenious story of how he had caught his “bag.” He made five bundles of rope and placed meat and fish bones in the tangle. Then he hung the bundles in a shed. Every evening he would put a bag over the hanging ropes. Then he would close the bag at the neck with a string, shake it hard, and pull the bag off. He would then beat the bag with a stick. For four days he worked hard at his scheme, and slowly filled a kerosene tin with dead flies.