A boy, a magnifying glass and fireworks. A recipe for disaster! 1936..

The Advertiser 28 Apr 1936 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article35427469

Some kids use a magnifying glass to investigate the world. Some use one to bring fiery death to ants. Others, like this kid, take their destruction to a higher level and use it to ignite the fuse of an explosive.

I expect this is something most boys are guilty of, only looking for entertainment and not really thinking things through. What did he really expect would happen? Did he not notice that he was standing on the other side of a large pane of glass? I think he and his friends were lucky that the glass was tougher than the back of the display.

I wasn’t sure what a basket bomb was and in my searches in the internets I was unable to find a picture of one, only the description of them being a ‘powerful cane-bound explosive’. I did find another news article dated 1937 titled ‘Fireworks Must Be Banned In The Future’, describing the destruction one was capable of. Apparently they were powerful enough to ‘rend a solidly framed iron letterbox to shreds’. Eeek! I wouldn’t want to be standing on the other side of the glass, that’s for sure!

Dead, eventually. 1906.

Barrier Miner 23 Jul 1906 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article44507175

Poor Mr Langdon. It certainly was a long and drawn-out death. Eighteen years. Doesn’t sound like he was on his deathbed the whole time though.

You can look at it from the angle where he could have died earlier from falling under a cart or being eaten by a shark or some other unexpected end that can befall any of us at any time, and say he had a pretty good life anyway.

Eighteen extra years of life, even if he was slowly losing his arm with each bit of surgery, is better than being a sharks dinner or falling down a mine shaft. I wonder what the recurring lump actually was?

Rackarock. 1909.

Northern Star 12 Oct 1909 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article72228455

Suicide as an ‘I’ll show all of you’ kind of thing is never going to succeed really, is it? You aren’t going to be around to get any benefit out of your tantrum.

I had never heard of rackarock before and although it was clearly some sort of poisonous substance with a name like that it could have been anything!

Rackarock is a kind of liquid explosive made up of potassium chlorate and mono-nitrobenzene, and should never be kept on the nightstand. Not really the type of nightcap anyone would recommend….

A Drunken Ghost? 1929.

Geraldton Guardian and Express 14 Mar 1929 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article67205180

I loved this story. I can just see the neighbourhood kids telling each other scary stories about this house and daring each other to run up and knock on the door. Did the phantom distiller wear a white sheet and glide past windows saying ‘woooooo’ at night or were the strange noises more of a shattering glass and muffled curses type?

I think these days if I went to the police and told them I thought a local house was haunted they wouldn’t send out a unit to break down the door and investigate, they would just send me on my way convinced I was a loony…

A Novel Defence. 1905.

The North Western Advocate and the Emu Bay Times 28 Feb 1905 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article64643291

After the post yesterday about unexpected things falling from the sky, or in the case of poor Mary Bailey, unsuspecting people, here is something we all wish would fall from the sky. Money. Unfortunately this money was counterfeit and didn’t fall from anywhere other than Lum Lip’s hand.

I wish there was a higher power who caused money to rain down on me! Well, maybe not actually on me, somewhere in my vicinity would do…