Zinc plate used in the simple cell is not pure so impurities present in it provides a conducting path for the flow of charge. This makes zinc wasted. It is called the local action. It can be removed by using pure zinc or amalgamated zinc rod.
That's the cool thing about free fall. The amount of time it takes to fall remains the same.
In this case, a ball that is simply dropped from rest will fall at the same rate as a ball that had some umph in the horizontal direction.