 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
baths to the other... I was almost drowned in the pool twice.'
Bennett also records that at Christmas the verandah posts in Hannan St were decorated with
gum-tree branches, whose fragrance when their leaves were fresh scented the air. Bands played
in the broad streets, which were wide enough "to turn a camel train in", or a train of bullocks,
and crowded with carts, carriages and shoppers. In the cooler evenings there were parties and
concerts and raffles: of ducks, wine, hams, beer and cakes. Saffron cake was favoured as a
Christmas treat by those of Cornish ancestry. The Bennetts' Christmas lunch included duck,
ham, and a Christmas pudding boiled in a cloth and 'sprinkled' with small silver coins. 'We ate it
piping hot'. But it was not as hot as it was outside. Sometimes a sudden thunderstorm flooded
the gutters and made rivers of the streets.
Sporting activities were many and various. Besides football matches on Sundays, and horse-
racing, foot, camel and bicycle races, there was: 'Roller-skating, goat-racing, rifle-shooting,
whippets, trotting, hockey, lacrosse, lawn bowls, and not least golf, tennis and cricket... When
the motor-car began to become popular (the first appeared in 1902) there were car races on
the clay-pan north of the town.' There was also much drinking, betting, and some cheating at
these sporting carnivals - possible in the early days, as no fences or
inner rails lined the dusty tracks. Horses that bolted disappeared in the bush; some races were
wiped out by dust-storms.
On 5 December 1906 two sprint champions, Arthur Postte of Queensland and Beauchamp Day
of Ireland, competed for the title of world champion over several distances, from 75 to 300
yards. Postle, known as the Crimson Flash, placed £235 on himself to win. His training sessions
were keenly observed, by another future world champion amongst others. For the little boy who
carried Postle's gear from his hotel to the track was Walter Lindrum. Some 15,000 people
crammed into the Recreation Ground to witness the actual event, which was resoundingly won
by Postle, together with a fortune in gold sovereigns.
On Saturday nights the streets were thronged, the hotel bars packed, brass bands played and
the brothels in Hay St, at the southerly end of Brookman St were bulging with clients. Fights
were commonplace, and so, to a lesser extent, were hold-ups, robberies, muggings and murder.
A woman out shopping met a man she knew. 'Good morning,' she said. 'How's the wife
today?' 'Just snapped her neck like a bloody carrot,' he relied.
Most rife was the pilfering of gold from the mines. According to AN Bingley: 'One of the perks,
so to speak, among mine's wishing to add a little to their income, was to keep a little of the
precious stuff they mined for themselves. There are many fabulous tales as to how they
concealed and disposed of it, and obviously efforts were made to prevent their various activities
by the gold detection staff. Now and then someone would be set up and the odd prosecution
effected, with the usual result being six months jail in Fremantle... No one in Kal took the matter
very seriously, and even the law seemed to turn a blind eye to it, as they did with Two-up and
the local ladies of ill-fame... Few successful businessmen at one time in their careers had not
been involved in some way in such activities. The revenue thus created was of considerable
benefit to the prosperity of the gold-fields.'
Prosperous they were, and in the 14 years before 1908, the Eastern Gold-fields, covering some
600 square miles, produced a total output of nearly 1 million ounces of gold.
On 25 February 1908, a tornado and the subsequent downpour devastated Kalgoorlie. Street
lights, tram and electricity power-lines were brought down, and shops and buildings wrecked.
 |