A Primitive Alarm Clock.

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 10 April 1914, Page 2

A Primitive Alarm Clock.

! Alarm clocks aYe ch«ap enough : nowadays and well within (he limited mean1-; even of a. farm la--t border ; yet there is still in regular morning use in the cottage of a. Welsh agriculturist a primitive ■early-rising device, invr-nie.d by an ingenious . grandfather . .1" his up- ; wards of a century ago. J A thread is tied round a candle at a. point, which I lie name will reach at the desired tini-; of rising, and to the I hread is attached an old snuffbox, filled with equnilv old big "Brown Hess" bullets. The candlestick is phired upon the edge of a. tall chesl of drawers, and an ancient tin tray is placed on the floor beneath. The flame duly readies the thread and . burns through it. Down falls the released and lidlr-ss box- of bullets into the trr.iy, six feet below, with a startling H:.tU-r ; and up jumps the old man. a^ he and his I fathers have jumped of nmoming I for nearly a century and a half.