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New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Issue 1545, 4 December 1919, Page 30

Motorists'! Don’t forget a copy of the Christmas Number of the “New Zealand Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic Review.” It will open your eyes to the possibilities of your country.

When speaking of the immense possibilities of air defence in the case of future attacks from the sea, Sir Joseph Ward, in a speech at Bluff last week (says the “Southland Times”), let drop a remark about “a certain bomb that the public know little about,” which piqued the curiosity of his auditors. Later, he let them in a little to the mystery, explaining that he had his information from one of the highest military authorities in the Old Land. A few months before the end of the war one of the enemy Powers discovered a poison which had such a permeating effect that if half a dozen two-pound bombs were dropped over, say, Trafalgar Square, and there were 10,000 people sheltering in the tubes, they would all be dead in a very short time, although the bombs did not touch them. The British authorities had been advised of the discovery fairly early, and at once set about getting a sample. But the Germans, before a bomb was secured, became possessed of the idea that the British had attained their end. This, according to Sir Joseph’s informant, saved the position, for the Teutons were afraid of reprisals with their own medicine over Berlin. As battleships, airships and all manner of fighting machines in the future would probably be armed with this deadly weapon, stated the narrator, some idea could be gained of the. intensified deadliness of another conflict.