BOMBING GADGETS.

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 362, 17 February 1937, Page 2

BOMBING GADGETS.

FOR THE HOME. What Advertisements Tell Us To-day. The most disagreeable impressions of our day and age are not necessarily conveyed by the people who consciously set out to horrify. A General remarked last Tuesday in an after-dinner speech that in the next war, the British Army 'Would be needed, not to fight battles overseas, but the control the. civilian population when it went mad in gas-masks. We have an automatic resistance which we can oppose to that sort of thing. “The General is trying- to scare us,” we say, and turn to the Test match scores. The real shock comes as one realises (or is reminded, as the case may be), that the General's Vision of Judgment is already the motif of shopping-catalogues. Advertisements to-day in European papers tell you where to buy a lof'of gadgets useful in the home during bombing. Here is a copy of the “Neue Zuercher Zeitung,” newly arrived In Sydney, from peaceful and beautiful Switzerland. Two pages of close print discuss editorially the subject of "passive air defence.” There is the usual picture of a human being looking incredible in a gas-mask. There are al|so illus’j atlons by an architect of how a bomb-proof shelter ought to be constructed. Then we come to the “ads.”

We’re going to furnish a home. We shall, of course, require special blinds. These will prevent any gleams of light from lending assistance to the bombers. They may be had from E. Ziegler-Huber, manufacturer, 65 Liinmat-street, Zurich 5. Mr Ziegler-Huber commends his product as “cheapest, most suitable, and of Swiss make . . . officially tested and'approved by the Feel oral Air Defence Station at Berne.”

The Heinrich Hatt-Haller Company is prepared to build either above' or below ground level. (Call telephone 38630); while Jul. Haedrich is ready to install “gas-proof doors, windows, blinds and splinter-proof shelters.” Eug. Fontaine, stocks—for your airbomb refuge—a collapsible bed of steel and canvas, vitich can be set up within two minutes and requires no mattress or pillow. As many as three of these beds can he mounted cne above the other. "B.ti Nichtgebrauch minimal Raumanspruch”— “Takes up the least possible space when not in use” (that is, when hell isn’t loose above the rooftops) Naturally, excellent fire extinguishers are offered at reasonable prices . . .

No, General! Your speech <as less impressive. In shear .macabre quality, it yields pride of place to such announcements—simple, naive, unforced!