JOHANNESBURG was adorned with newspaper placards on Sunday trumpeting the latest atrocity of the criminal classes: “The burglars that use gas.”
Those with the five rand required to be entertained by the newspaper were entertained by the disclosure that the good people of Lenasia have been reduced to a state of panic over the latest ploy by thieves.
“Sophisticated burglars” were pumping gas into the homes of their victims, it reported, rendering the inhabitants unconscious while they made off with their belongings.
Police, we were told, have been advising the local community to “plug their basins and baths and fill them with water to stop gas coming through the water pipes.” The gas is so efficacious, recounted one victim, that instances had been recorded of householders waking up on bare floor-boards — having had their beds stolen from under their very bodies.
Unfortunately the newspaper is unable to disclose the nature of this wondrous gas. We would suggest nitrous oxide.