Explosion That Did Not Come Off

Manawatu Times, Volume 64, Issue 132, 7 June 1939, Page 7

Explosion That Did Not Come Off

BOY ADMITS BREAKING MAGAZINE LOCK Per Press Association. AUCKLAND, Last Night. A 12-year-old boy who lives with his parents at New Lynn has confessed that on Monday aftornoon ho broko the lock from the explosives magazine at the local premises of the Amalgamated Brick and Pipo Company, Limited, and made a pile of gelignite and detonators, aggregating 801 b. in weight, with the intention of setting it off. Experts said that had tho boy been successful tho resultant explosion would have shattered every window in the district and that had the pile been close to tho w'orkß extensive damage would have been done.

Two lucky elements in the incident are that when the boy ran away the wind blowing across the paddock extinguished the candle that was to ignite the fuse and that the explosives wero 100 yards away from the factory walls. Late on Monday evening Constable Boag learned the identity of the boy who had given three other boys some aluminium detonators while they were at a picture theatre. He went to the boy’s home and in & drawer in the chest beside the boy's bed he found flve detonator*?. In the presence of his mother, tho boy admitted his attempt at touching off the explosives and that he had givon detonators to other boys. He said ho had used an iron bar to force the padlock from the brick magazine which housed the gelignite.