OSTRICH OUTDONE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23002, 3 October 1936, Page 13

OSTRICH OUTDONE

MAN SWALLOWS DOOR KEY LONDON, Sept. 24 At a hospital in Trieste, reports the Trieste correspondent of The Times, an Italian labourer, aged 47, complained that he could not go home because he had swallowed the front door key. He was disbelieved, but persisted with his story. An X-ray examination then revealed 11 pencils, three fountain pens, a fork, a screw, five keys, and several coins in his stomach. It also gave a glimpse of other undefined indigestible articles. The complete inventory was obtained only after an intricate operation, which yielded, to the amazement of the surgeon, 13 ordinary keys and four coins, a large door key, a screw, a sardine-tin opener, three cigarette holders, two needles, a piece of glass and a key chain The operation was perfectly successful, though the patient’s first words afterwards were a question whether the coins swallowed had been salvaged. The Belgrade correspondent of The Times reports that an unemployed man undertook to swallow two leading Conservative newspapers for 20 dinars as a bet. The hungry man fulfilled the bargain to the letter and survived. In a leading article The Times ponders the principles animating the protagonists. It considers that the Serb’s achievement was the more admirable, and asks how readers assimilate The Times shipping intelligence, which is saltier, or The Times law reports which are drier than the rest. It is convinced that the eater is no longer poor, because the journals concerned were doubtless generous towards one so full of “inside” information.