A TALL THEFT

Greymouth Evening Star, 30 October 1931, Page 2

A TALL THEFT

LIGHTNING CONDUCTOR’S TIP. [BY CABLE —PBEBS ASSN. —COPYBIGHT.] (Received October 30, 11.30 a.m.) BERLIN, October 29. A tall theft in every sense of the word, is reported from Zanzhausen. An unknown unemployed mdn climbed a sixty feet factory chimney via the lightning conductor, and severed the valuable platinum tip of it, substituting a wooden dummy. The theft was not discovered until the dummy was blown to the ground.

There is a man working for the Public Works Department at Kotemaori, says the Wairoa “Star,” who, in his small way, is something of an inventive genius. He baches alone in his hut, and as he has not the money to buy a stove to do his cooking, he has, in his spare time made one out of concrete, which answers the purpose very well. His work is some distance from his hut, and so that he will save time by boiling his billy, he “sets” the kindling in the stove, and with an “automatic switch” composed of a match, a mouse-trap and an alarm clock, which is set for noon, his- billy is boiling when he arrives home. The switch works in this sequence: Twelve o’clock striking releases a cord fixed to the mouse-trap, which in turn goes “off,” ignites the match in the kindling, and billy boils!