A Fantastic Rumour.

Greymouth Evening Star, 6 August 1946, Page 7

A Fantastic Rumour.

The British Control Commission in Germany has found it necessary to issue a denial of a story that cannibalistic Poles in Hamburg, are butchering German babies for meat for a black market, says Reuter’s correspondent at British Headquarters. Such rumours are current in German villages, where peasantry have been circulating a story that Poles were accustomed to cannibalism in concentration camps, and are enticing children with gifts of chocolate. The Control Commission is also having to counter rumours that German wheat and butter are being exported. London, August 4.

M'echanical Telephone Operator. The Swiss have a remedy for an unanswered telephone call. They have devised an invention that will, answer when a telephone-rings, give the resident’s name,-ask. the caller to speak, and then record a message up to 30 minutes long. As the caller may be surprised by the “robot,” it waits 12 seconds in order to give him time to recover, and then again asks for a message. Owners need not return home to get the message, but by ringing up their own house and giving a code number can- listen in to the record. The instrument, it is stated, can be connected to an ordinary telephone, and firms using it in Switzerland pay £ 8 a month. —London, AuI gust 2.