EXPERT FLY "SWATTERS."

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19808, 1 December 1927, Page 12

EXPERT FLY "SWATTERS."

/ A MELBOURNE COMPETITION, CHILDREN KILL 3,0-00,000. (from our own correspondent. ] SYDNEY. Nov. 25 With the advent of summer each year. ; a Melbourne newspaper conducts, in conjunction with Health Week, a competition for boys arid 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 ollice for their "bags" to be counted. Kiddies brought flies in petrol tins, paper bags, and (Mixes. 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 Palnmara, who proudly produced evidence tlmt he had "swatted' 266,000 flies during his week of slaughter The second prize went to a boy who accounted for 98.000, and the third to another boy, who killed 64,000 Winners oi consolation prizes had collections-ranging from .50.000 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 tlife tangle. Then he hung the bundles in a shed. Every evening lie would put a bag over the hanging ropes. Then he would close the bag at the neck with 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 tjn with dead flics.