SHOCK FOR SMOKER

Taranaki Daily News, 12 January 1935, Page 8

SHOCK FOR SMOKER

PIPE EXPLODES IN MOUTH. CARTRIDGE UNDER TOBACCO. Timaru, Jan. 10. When the pipe he was smoking exploded with an earsplitting report, blowing the bowl to fragments and leaving only the stem between the astonished smoker’s teeth, a Timaru resident received a severe fright and leameJ the danger of carrying smoking material in the same pocket or container as live ammunition. As a result of the detonation the man’s face was coated with gunpowder and tobacco ash. It was at first thought that he was the victim of a harmless practical joke, but subsequent investigations proved that he had narrowly es-iped severe injuries if not death. The incident happened after the smoker had returned from a shooting expedition. Many conjectures were made .as to the cause of the report, but nothing threw any light on the matter until it was discovered that while tlie man was shooting one of the pea rifle cartridges which he was carrying loose in his pocket became lodged in the bowl of his pipe, and that later he unwittingly packed. tobacco on top of it.