French-Polished Hives and Police Court Bees. 1894.

Mornington Standard 1 Nov 1894 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article65812224

Bees seem to have quite varied taste as to where they will settle, sometimes defying logic. The start of this article is a great example of that. I wonder how the posties horse felt about going back to that shop for the next delivery? I expect that it was a little nervous about it!

I would have loved to see the seven french polished hives owned by the man in Melbourne. He is wonderfully described, not as eccentric, but as a ‘person having no wife to bother his life, but paddled his own canoe’.

He would never have felt as though he was sleeping alone with the resident hives in his bedroom. Do hives hum at night? Maybe he was scared of the dark…

Obviously this man was ahead of his times as these days keeping hives in the city is becoming more popular. Organizations like Melbourne City Rooftop Honey encourage the establishment of hives in the city and suburbs but I don’t expect there are any such polished and pampered indoor hives around today!

The rest of the article clearly shows that the author of this piece was not very sympathetic to the courts, he was pretty happy to see them inconvenienced by the arrival of the bees. I am sure he wasn’t the only one cheering on the bees in the police-court that day!

She should have walked. 1900.

The Argus 5 Feb 1900 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article9047707

I wonder why a hopeless alcoholic like Christina Holt decided to take up bike riding? Of course, brandy has probably never been something that has ever helped with good decision-making, so, there you go. I suspect that her brandy consumption might have been part of the reason she crashed the bike in the first place.

Little Lonsdale Street is not somewhere you would consider taking your bike riding lessons these days as it is pretty much in the centre of the city of Melbourne. The only bike riders there are the much-maligned bike couriers rushing from building to building.

I found the article about the inquest and it reports that Christina and a companion were learning to ride gentlemen’s bicycles with the assistance of the owners, whom they did not know, when she crashed into a kerbstone, fracturing her ankle.

Little Lonsdale Street would have been an interesting address back in 1900 though, not one known for health and fitness, but certainly one known for liaisons between men and women. From the late 1800′s this was a street known for its variety of brothels. Perhaps Ms Holt had a good reason to drink!

Interestingly there were further articles about this unfortunate death bemoaning the way doctors treated those with the ‘disease of drunkeness’. It was suggested, quite obviously you would think, that tapering off the drink instead of a total stop would be a far better way to treat those afflicted, as complete withdrawal often ended in death. I wonder how many unfortunate souls died this way?

Bendigo Swap Meet, a long way for an icy pole.

The man of the house is restoring an early seventies era Ford. That means he is forever searching for new shiny bits to replace old broken ones. This weekend was the Bendigo Swap meet where car lovers from around the state flock to look for that elusive part that their two or four-wheeled baby needs. We live quite a way from Bendigo and love a weekend sleep-in so the kids and I were still a little asleep as he stuffed us all into the car for the long drive there.

stall at Bendigo swap meet 2011

I love watching the crowd at an event like that. You can see the die-hard swap-meet attendees, blokes that have home-made trolleys to carry all their treasures back to the car, old wooden soft-drink crates on wheels, battered nanna trolleys or mini-trailers large enough to fit the treasures and a whiny child. The stalls are just as interesting to see. Many make it a family affair and most people sleep on their site for the few nights they are there, so there is quite a diversity of vehicles. Some have tents, or an old caravan, others a small truck stuffed with mattresses and doonas.

It was quite hot and sunny, so hats were the one accessory worn almost universally, and the drink and icy-pole vendors were doing a roaring trade. Each time the water truck trundled by, spraying the dirt roads to keep the dust down, the crowd was quick to get in behind it and cool down.

As usual, the list of things we went all that way hoping to find was far beyond what our budget could handle and, really, the man of the house just wanted to go for a look more than to actually spend. That was just as well. We found the front grille mounts he has been chasing, but at $200 for two small bits of metal that live somewhere no-one can see them, he is willing to fix the slightly damaged one he already has! We did find some plastic clips he was in need of, and came home with a bag of them.

So, it would appear that we did a 450km round trip to buy the kids icy poles and $5 worth of plastic bits we could have got from a shop that is only 40kms from home. It kept the kids off the Wii for the day though, so I consider it time well spent!

Oh, the things we do for love of old cars….

PS: if you know where I can get him some cheaper XW grille mounts please let me know!!

Remembrance Day. 1929.

Today, on the eleventh day of the eleventh month, at 11am, hopefully you stopped what you were doing for a moment.

 

The caption reads;

AT THE ELEVENTH HOUR.

In the city at 11 o’clock yesterday morning all work ceased and noise was stilled. Thousands of persons stood bareheaded in the streets, and vehicles stopped. In the intense silence the city clocks slowly chimed eleven. For two minutes there was silence, and then as suddenly as activity had ceased, it recommenced. Melbourne had observed Armistice day for the eleventh year. The illustration of the scene on State Parliament House steps when the National Anthem was sung after the two minutes silence. Inset is a picture of the bugler who sounded the Last Post at Anzac House

The Argus 12 Nov 1929 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article4049490

Elizabeth Street flood. 1928.

We have had a fair bit of rain in the last few days. I have put in this extra post today as there is not any point saving it until tomorrow. Melbourne weather being what it is, there is every chance it will be bright and sunny, regardless of the forecast, causing a rainy day article to be entirely inappropriate!

The Herald-Sun newspaper website has a few photos of inappropriately attired office workers caught in the rising waters on Wednesday on the corner of Williams and Lonsdale streets. This article is from 1928 with a photo of the floodwaters in Elizabeth Street, just a few blocks from there. The skyline is very different these days!

The caption reads: This photograph, taken during a flash of lightning from the steps of ”The Argus’ office, shows the flooded state of Elizabeth street at the height of the storm. The tramcar could not proceed owing to the flood water.

The Argus 20 Jan 1928 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article3905045

Singed cocky. 1935.

The West Australian 18 Feb 1935 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article32853103

The cockatoo was very lucky to walk away from this little incident. I can only imagine the oaths it was muttering as it walked away, it did come from a hotel after all.

I can just see the bird stomping off cursing a blue streak, a wisp of smoke rising looney-tunes style from its blackened yellow crest.

Sir Charles Hotham Hotel and the Queens donkey.

Morning Bulletin 14 Jan 1950 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article56930194

Once I finished yesterdays post about the Sir Charles Hotham Hotel I couldn’t help myself and kept looking for the follow ups on the articles I used.

The article I put in about James Creely being found dead in the loo of the Sir Charles Hotham Hotel in November 1949, had a twist when a 27-year-old labourer named Albert Anderson was arrested for his murder in December 1949.

Further articles tell me that in early March, after two trials in two weeks (the first jury failed to reach a verdict), he was finally aquitted of the murder and the death of Creely was found to have been caused by a fall. Two trials in two weeks! The wheels of justice move far more slowly these days.

When I read the article yesterday about the miner having his thirty pounds worth of gold stolen I wondered what he was doing with that much gold in his hotel room. It would appear that the gold, like the miner, never made it to the hotel room and that the miner was too drunk to know where he had been robbed that night. I wonder if he had been robbed at all, did he just leave the gold-filled bag in a gutter and stagger off for the next drink?

This article also has a reference to the Queen’s donkey and her ‘strapping gillie’ so I get to add a buried word to this post. A gillie is a Scot word for a hunting or fishing guide and also used for the male attendant of a Highland chieftain. A gillie is also a shoe without a tongue, but I doubt the Queen took a special shoe with her everywhere she went. I wonder why the Florentines thought her gillie was a male ballet dancer. Muscular calves?

The donkey part of the article was a surprise to me. Queen Victoria was a large lady and suffered from rheumatism and had donkeys that she used with a donkey-chaise to transport herself around instead of walking.  The donkey and chaise were transported with her on all her journeys abroad and one of her last acts before her death in 1901 was to drive her donkey-chaise around the grounds of Osbourne House.

The Argus 9 June 1893 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article8562406

Sir Charles Hotham Hotel. 1897.

Barrier Miner 11 Nov 1897 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article44200487

The man of the house and I spent the weekend in the city at a work function arranged by his employer. Not our usual kind of thing, we don’t spend time in the city, and we would have looked like real hicks as we wandered around the streets looking up as though big buildings were something new to us.

Whenever we go to the city we love looking at the buildings hiding behind the modernized shop fronts, and, really, everything over the level of the ground floor. It is like a different world. When you look up, you see what the building looked like originally and get an idea of how different the city was in its early years.  I wonder how many people walk past these old buildings every day and only see the modern cafe or boutique clothing shop and don’t have any idea of the true age of the building.

Sir Charles Hotham Hotel, Melbourne.

The Sir Charles Hotham Hotel on the corner of Flinders and Spencer Street was a perfect example. We were crossing the lights and I whipped out my camera and took a photo, vowing to look it up on Trove when I got home. Apologies for the quality of the photo but I was trying to pretend that the 7 eleven that made up the ground floor didn’t exist. When people drop in there for a packet of fags or the paper do they notice the age of the building, or do they just see the bit they use at the bottom? I am sure the people who stay in the upstairs accommodation notice that the building is far from modern, but I bet they just moan about it and never wonder about all the things that have happened there.

I found quite a few articles reporting events that have occurred in this building. Among others, it was 114 years ago that those cricket lovers were assaulted from above and 118 years ago the miner Edward Murphy had a small fortune (for the time) in gold stolen.

The Argus 8 June 1893-nla.news-article8561663

The death of John Creely in 1949 may make you feel uncomfortable if you ever have cause to use the loo out the back.

The Argus 25 Nov 1949 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article22794130