NOVEL INVENTION FOR SHOCKING HOUSE FLIES

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 15, Issue 6, 6 March 1950, Page 4

NOVEL INVENTION FOR SHOCKING HOUSE FLIES

Of all the insects in New Zealand the ordinary comihon house fly must be the housewives greatest pest. In the Bay of Plenty especially flies appear to centre for the summer holidays and even D.D.T. does not seem to hold any terror for*- them. Perhaps, for this reason a show of European inventions which included a simple fly catcher will be of interest to New Zealanders.

According fo the inventor it hangs from the ceiling and has a coiled metal stem ending in a metal bowl that looks rather like a lamp. The idea is that flies land on the stem and get a se;sfer electric shock. This makes them faint and they fall into the bowl itself. 'i

And then there is no hope for them, for in the bowl is a red-hot coil, which first kills and then cremates the fly. And then there was the anti-bag-snatching invention, which was something of a two-edged weapon. This w,as a container of gas which, placed inside the satchel in which a bank. messenger may be carying a large sum of money, is released if and when the bag is snatched. The gas immediately affects the criminal, who falls to the ground unconscious and lies there till the police arrive. Should the messenger be unlucky enough to let the gas out himself by mistake, it is presumably he who lies unconscious until the criminal arrives to stedl his satchel.