GENERAL NEWS

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 96, 13 October 1911, Page 2

GENERAL NEWS

A motor-body builder was working at a factory in Melbourne a few days ago when his chisel suddenly stopped and snapped. The keen edge had cut into a bullet which had been fired during a Kusso-Japanese skirmish in a Manchurian forest. The cxplantion is simple enough (says the Angus). The firm by which the body-builder is employed imported a large consignment o'f Manelmrian ash for ear-building. Since the discovery of t)*e first bullet several others have been found. With the bark on nothing unusual was noticed in the logs, but when they were being sawn into pinnies the teeth of the saw frequently struck something harder than a knot, while some of the planks were found to be scarred in many places. Upon closer investigation numbers of bullets wore found embedded in the wood. In two instances portions of shells were discovered. The body-builder had cut into an isolated bullet in a large plank. The logs in which the bullets and shells were discovered by the saw had evidently been in a much fiercer engagement. Enquiries were made from the captain of the slu'p which brought the timber, and it was ascertained that the logs were cut in a forest not far from Port Arthur, where battles raged during the Russo-Japanese war.

The enterprise of a moving picture emu-era sent a sixty-ton schooner to the bottom of Great South Pay to tli-e terrific tune of ISO pounds "of exploding dynamite (says the New York American). With all sail set. the. good but aged vessel known as the Robert (Iraham was taken to a point off Bayberry Paint, Islip. Four moving picture cameras were trained on the schooner from four flat-bottomed boats, and about 400 ft away was a float from which the dynamite experts set off the blast that destroyed the vessel. Hundreds lined the shore to witness the scene, which, when reproduced throughout the land in picture theatres, is expected to thrill thousands. When the electric spark set oil' the dynamite there, was a great pull' of smoke, accompanied by a era siting explosion. The sails of 'the schooner were torn to shreds. The hulk seemed to rise out of the water and then sank slowly until the waves washed over the tops of the masts. And all tlie while the camera men calmly wound their reels of films. Tlio schooner was 00 years old. Tt had been purchased by the moving picture men for GftO dollars from Captain AVilliam Stammee. who undertook to tow his old boat out into the bay. where she was to meet her doom, the captain, however, did not think it necessarv, under the circumstances, for him to <*o down with the ship! °