Moon blindness. 1907.

After the sad news of the death of Neil Armstrong I though I would do a bit of a search for moon articles in the old newspapers.

Fitzroy City Press 27 Sep 1907 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article65663703

It didn’t surprise me to find that there were some strange superstitions regarding the moon, not the least of which were terrible crimes committed by people claiming to be under the influence of the moon.

I am not saying that the moon has no influence over humans. Anyone who has worked in a hospital emergency department or law enforcement will probably have tales of strangeness that seem to peak around the full moon.

Regardless of that, I think it is safe to say that blindness caused by allowing the rays of the moon to fall upon your eyelids is something that I can point the finger at and call ridiculous.

This article from 1907 suggests that the blindness inflicted upon the captain of a ship was attributed to him falling asleep on deck and the moon shine blinding him. Didn’t he have a cabin? Why was he asleep on deck?

Maybe it was the moonshine that caused his blindness.

I am thinking more along the lines of home-brewed moonshine though. Depending on the ingredients used, something like that could cause blindness and a perfectly good cabin to spend the night empty, as the good captains legs might have felt the befuddling effects of the ‘moonshine’ as well!

Not so wonderful for the goat. 1907.

I wonder who wrote the title for this article. “A Wonderful Story”. It isn’t an entirely wonderful story, is it?

Geraldton Guardian 22 Feb 1907 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article66221175

A miner, Joe Bourke, of Landlock Bay, Alaska, had noticed some of his blasting powder had gone missing, and started a search. As he was doing so he noticed a few sticks of dynamite lying on the path ahead.

Just as he started towards them a goat came out of the bushes and ate it all up.

Joe shouted at the goat and gave chase, so naturally, the goat started running.

Unfortunately for the goat he had supposedly also swallowed a blasting cap. This caused the dynamite to do its job perfectly, and the goat disappeared in what I can only imagine would have been a red mist….

The ‘wonderful’ part of the story is that the goat had conveniently exploded right at the point where a valuable vein of cuprum (copper) ore was. The blast caused a seven-foot deep hole to appear and revealed it to the world.

The only one it was lucky for was the miner. He landed in a snow bank 40ft away and was unhurt, but obviously considerably richer.

I am not sure I would want to do much mining there though until there had been a good hard rain, you know, to wash away all the bits of goat… ick……

When you are rich, being bored is a whole different thing. 1907.

I was getting a bit bored with my old theme after a year, and my regular readers will notice that I have changed it. Please let me know if you preferred the old one though!

Worker 23 Feb 1907 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article70866204

I looked for an appropriate newspaper article about change and didn’t really find anything that grabbed me. This article though, showed me the difference between being bored when you are normal and bored when you are rich.

I was bored so I changed my blog theme and rearranged some furniture. I’m easily amused….

If your name is Rockefeller and you get bored you build a lake to amuse yourself. It is a bit of a sad life though when your newly built lake has a watchtower for your bodyguards to keep a look-out.

I now have a mental picture of hundreds of heavily armed guards surrounding the lake, all looking outwards for an imaginary enemy. A lonely figure is out skating on the frozen lake without a single person watching or caring.

I suspect that the negative newspaper articles about the life of J. D. Rockefeller are more about the press wanting him to be sad and lonely than him actually being so. Early on Rockefeller was a driven businessman and did his best to monopolize the oil business, driving competitors out and indulging in a bit of price-fixing. The press waged a campaign against him and, realizing he was so disliked, later in life he became a noted philanthropist, that is what he is remembered for now. When you are obscenely rich you get to buy your way into the favour of the populace!

Trapped Trapper. 1907.

The North Western Advocate and the Emu Bay Times 5 Dec 1907 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article65209624

As soon as I read this article I just had a vision of the bunnies holding onto the ears of William Thomas and laughing manically while he struggled. It sounds just the kind of end the bunnies might hope for a trapper to meet really.

Sadly for the bunnies I am on the side of the trapper at the moment, you would be too if you saw the state of my remaining tomatoes.

Yes, some of them survived the onslaught of huge hailstones I posted about the other day only to be munched on days later by a rabbit. I don’t mind sharing the veggie garden with the birds, they at least have the manners to wait until the veg show signs of ripening before they move in for the kill. That just means it is a matter of timing and me paying enough attention in order to beat them. I’m ok with that, it means nothing gets wasted.

The stupid rabbits though, well they just munch bits off anything within reach no matter how unripe it is and wreck it for both the birds and I. They haven’t noticed the lovely zucchini growing at the moment so I am off to the hardware tomorrow for some star pickets and chicken wire to fence them off before they fall victim to the evil chompers too.

Killer Wasp. 1907.

Examiner 5 Oct 1907 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article45833394

I haven’t had an unusual death post for a while so here is the unexpected end to the long life of Mrs Cox, felled at her 105th birthday party by the sting of a wasp.

I wonder if it was blood poisoning or, more likely, an allergic reaction. Had she made it all the way to 105 without ever being stung before? I wonder if in 1907 it was less likely to reach the age of 105 or to be killed by a wasp?

After Christmas poem. 1907.

The Age (Queanbeyan) 31 Dec 1907 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article31185513

In 1907, just as today, we are all complaining about the same thing after Christmas. We saved up all year and now it is all gone. We just have to start again!