Show LITTLE GUNNER JL Spider Gives an English Garrison n Scare Cape Town South Africa claim the honor of giving birth to th smallest creature ever known to be ome a gunner In the Royal Artillery > r any other artillery in the whol world At the Castle Cape Town there is a magnificent gun worked by electricity used for giving the midday mid-day and evening time One fine day all the military and civilians In Cape Town were astonished to hear the gun go off at 1030 in the morning an hour and a half before the proper time 12 being the usual hour for firing Messengers came from the general commanding the station the brigade major commanding officers of each regiment and battery stationed in Cape Town and from everybody interested inter-ested but the answer was that no person had been near the gun nor had anybody interfered with the wires battery or source from which it was fired All the officials were fearfully fear-fully puzzled at the extraordinary occurrence but could give no explanation explana-tion whatever The general in command com-mand of the station became furious and said that there was mismanagement mismanage-ment somewhere and gave orders for a strict search to be made by the officials for the guilty party Search was made but nothing resulted re-sulted to throw any light on the extraordinary ex-traordinary affair although the greatest great-est possible pains were taken to solve the mystery They had practically given the search up when suddenly the news came from the officials stat lug that the culprit had been caught and arrested It seems the electric current for firing off the gun is supplied sup-plied by the Royal Observatory of Cape Town and goes there by means of an instrument known as a relay that is in the central tel prraph o < noe of the station th distance being about 500 yards The action of the current going through the instruments instru-ments main moves a sort of light tongue which is very finely set so fine that the least little thing would nffpofc it This forces the current flf r rtlv into what thv term the time fuses which have the power of firing the gun at the Castle On examining the instrument one of the officials found a big brown spider inside It appears that while having an exploring trio around the instrument instru-ment the unfortunate snider must have touched this tonaue sufficientlv to move it and ooiiseauentlv it fired off the gun The general commanding ototir or > nt fi < 5r > i 5 < to tho Cnr > D Town museum where he is now to be won with a can underneath him entitling him The Little Gunner and pivipf a full account of bin adventure ad-venture with the Cape Town middnv time gun which proved his last adventure ad-venture however New York World |