by Eddie

Son, we need to talk

The effects of onanism on the body

The effects of onanism on the body

Parents have two main fears about their children. One is they might be molested by a stranger. The other is that they might touch their own genitals.

Of these, every parent will understand, the second is by far the worse. And the good parent will do everything in their power to stop it happening.

Wait. What?

Dodgy Perth has been reading parenting advice from 1917. And we have come to the realisation that we did not bring up the Dodgy offspring correctly.

First of all, the statistics. 150 Perth boys aged around fourteen were interviewed as to whether or not they had abused themselves. 60% confessed they had indeed spanked the monkey at least once. However, scientists suspected the figure could be at least nine out of every ten.

Nearly every fourteen year old boy had been exposed to pornography, and all except two of them knew where their local brothel was to be found.

So what can we do to stop this outbreak of compulsive onanism?

Firstly, every parent should read the recommended book, Toward Racial Health. Already done that? Good, then we’ll go on.

Parents should not be shocked if their child confesses they have chocked the chicken. If they have, of course, it is entirely the fault of the parent for not having intervened earlier.

For example, if a boy of fourteen is innocent of the crime he will have no problems with his mother being in the bathroom while he showers.

But what should we do if our child has already buffed the banana?

Well do not rush to the doctor immediately. That can come later. Instead make sure he sleeps with his hands outside the sheets, and not on his back. If he feels the temptation coming on, he must have a cold shower. (You knew that one was going to be in there didn’t you?)

Encourage him to sleep on the verandah, and don’t dress him in thick pyjamas. Night clothes should be as thin as possible to prevent overheating.

If he still shows tendencies to fish with the trouser trout, cut down on the meat and never ever feed him pork.

In conclusion, don’t shirk your responsibility by handing your boy some book on ‘what a boy ought to know.’ Talk to him yourself. You will find it quite easy once the ‘ice is broken.’

And that’s not a euphemism.

by Eddie

There’s no cure for stupidity

child_vaccinationHarold Martin, of 315 William Street, was very very angry. He had just sat down to breakfast and opened the newspaper.

There, in June 1906, Harold read Dr Harvey Astles sneering at opponents of vaccination as being misinformed at best and positively dangerous at worst.

Well, Harold was one of those opponents of vaccination. He believed it was a “pernicious, disgusting foolery”. Oh, it was also a “cruel, filthy, unnatural heathenish operation”.

He wasn’t a doctor like Harvey, but Harold knew that vaccination was dangerous. All he needed was a proper diet, good habits, pure air, and abstinence from all kinds of medicine.

Warming to his theme, Harold warned that vaccination did not stop smallpox, it was actually the cause of that disease. Dr Astles was responsible for spreading disease, and he was the one who called himself a medical man.

Further, Harold wanted a law passed making vaccination a criminal offence. He called on the society for the prevention of cruelty to children to save the poor helpless little mites, who will all suffer and die if doctors are allowed to inoculate them.

In conclusion, we would all be better off if every physician, surgeon, midwife, chemist, and drug were wiped from the face of the Earth.

So what does this story teach us? That vaccination sceptics have been around since inoculation was invented. And they were no less stupid then than now.

h/t Museum of Perth

by Eddie

The theatre and its knockers

We can't help admiring the hats on the right

We can’t help admiring the hats on the right, November 1939

A couple of weeks ago we wrote about the first stripper in Perth, who performed at His Majesty’s. However, we were slightly wrong when we said she was probably the first nude on the Western Australian stage.

In fact as early as 1939 some critics were saying that audiences were getting bored of turning up to His Majesty’s just for nudity and were now seeking higher quality plays. This was, of course, far too optimistic, and Perth’s grandest theatre was still trying to entice you with ‘beautiful nudes’ in the 1950s.

Naked women on stage were not illegal unless—and this is the bizarre bit—they moved. So for several decades, audiences at His Majesty’s were treated to a series of motionless ‘tableaux’, artistically arranged young women dressed only in their birthday suits.

In 1939, one of the stars who people paid good money to see was 20-year-old Barbara Clark, advertised as Australia’s No. 1 Glamour Girl. Strangely she claimed to have been doing her act for five years, which would mean she started performing nude at fifteen!

However, the critics may have been slightly right about how mere static nudity had become tiresome. By 1940, His Majesty’s was resorting to strippers to keep the crowd numbers up.

So, to the older generation who despair at the availability of pornography in the 21st century, ask yourself this: who was buying tickets for entry to His Majesty’s in the 1930s?

by Eddie

Meet Thomas Jones

82x108mm

I still think we need more beer.

There’s drunk. There’s very drunk. And there’s Thomas Jones, a middle-aged, grey-haired man. In June 1920, on his way into town, Thomas felt thirsty, so he stopped off at the Commonwealth Hotel (now the Hyde Park) for three pints of beer.

He was a little hazy as to which pub was next, but remembered having six pints. Then another hotel. Two, maybe three, pints there. On arrival in town, Thomas decided to have a few at the City Hotel (now the Belgian Beer Café), before wandering down Hay Street.

Unfortunately our hero was not unknown to the Perth constabulary. Sergeant Johnston, noticing an unsteady gait, decided to place an arm-lock on poor Thomas. Perhaps lacking full control, Thomas fought back and used some choice Anglo Saxon.

In court, Thomas tried for sympathy. He denied resisting arrest.

Thomas By Jove, your worship, I really don’t seem to get much of a chance in Perth, when I think of it. As a matter of fact, I should be charged with drunkenness—I was very drunk. I may have used a little warm language—I really cannot recollect.

Prosecutor I don’t think you can remember much of what happened at all, if you had had as many drinks as you say.

Thomas Sir, I can remember things which happened in my boyhood’s days!

Magistrate Oh, we needn’t go so far back as all that. We’d be here much too long. Are you calling any witnesses?

Thomas Sir, of course not. I have no witnesses for the defence. As a matter of fact, I’m not quite right in my head.

The sentence was 28 days.

by Eddie

Moondyne Joe and the slut

Moondyne_JoeHow has Dodgy Perth been going this long and not done a single Moondyne Joe story? Well, we are about to put that right.

But we are mainly writing this because it lets us tag this story with the word ‘slut’ and see what kind of traffic that brings.

In April 1888, Joseph Poole was charged with having unlawful possession of a kangaroo slut, called Bessie, which was of enormous value, being worth £7.

Wait. What?

Well, in the 1880s ‘bitch’ was too rude a word to use in public, so the politically correct term for a female dog was ‘slut’. Seriously. As for the kangaroo bit, it referred to a greyhound.

Kangaroo_GreyhoundAnyway, said slut was said to be the property of James Nicholls. One Saturday, he saw a woman standing outside the Criterion Hotel holding a couple of dogs. James recognised Bessie and demanded she hand her over.

The woman refused and told James she had bought her from Moondyne Joe for £5. Which was odd, because James had also bought Bessie from Joe.

Now the story gets a little tangled. When Moondyne Joe had been penniless a few months earlier, James had lent him some money and agreed to buy Bessie. It is unclear how the dog ended up back in Joe’s hands.

In any case, Bessie was sold again, this time to Thomas Edwards, for another £5, but somehow made her way into Joseph Poole’s care. And from there she ended up in the hands of the unnamed woman outside the Criterion Hotel. But by some chain of events it was poor Joseph who ended up in court.

Confused? We certainly are.

So Joseph Johns (aka Moondyne Joe) was summoned to explain what was going on. He admitted selling the dog to Thomas, but strenuously denied having previously sold her to James. In fact, Joe claimed he was the victim here, since James was simply trying to appropriate Bessie in exchange for the money he was owed.

The magistrate was not convinced. To him it was clear that Moondyne Joe was a crook (what a surprise!) and he had obviously sold the same dog twice.

The slut belonged to James and he should get her back immediately.

If there’s a moral here at all, it’s probably that it’s safer not to do business with bushrangers.

by Eddie

With friends like these…

StevesA prisoner of war when this photo was taken in 1943, on the right is Steve McHenry, owner of the infamous Steve’s in Nedlands.

A couple of years earlier the Perth men had been fighting in Libya, and from the accounts of their time there it’s hard to know if they were soldiers or students tumbling out of Steve’s at closing time.

Camp at Benghazi was described as a lot like the bar at the WACA after an interschool sports meeting. (Wait. You could drink beer after school sports day?)

However, although the local beer tasted okay, the Western Australians complained it was too low alcohol for their taste. Apparently the native wines and spirits were awful, but fortunately there was a good supply of Australian beer.

If good Aussie beer turned up, though, “no one bothers about buying a bottle—it’s a case or nothing.”

As a result of this hard drinking, the English soldiers started calling the Aussies ‘the queer men’. Not what you’re thinking. It was because they considered them all stark raving mad when on the juice.

If an Australian wanted booze he became impossible to deal with. After having a few, if they could be forced out of the canteen without starting a brawl, the Aussies would go away and bring their officers back to start another fight.

Other than fighting in the canteen, the Aussies mostly fought while playing Australian Rules, of which there were games every afternoon. A friendly would not usually last more than ten minutes before it became an all-in brawl.

And they had an odd way of making friends with the English. After a Brit was returning from a reconnaissance flight, he spied half a dozen Aussies lazily sailing his private 16-foot yacht around the bay. (Wait. You could have private yachts at war?)

The Englishman flew round and let off a few machine gun bursts to show his annoyance.

Strangely, the next day, the yacht mysteriously went up in flames. How that happened, we’ll probably never know.

War is hell. If you’re the owner of a 16-foot yacht anyway.

by Eddie

Welcome to the asylum

straight jacket

Have you ever wondered what makes people go insane? Wonder no more. We provide the evidence from the combined admissions to both Fremantle Asylum and Whitby Falls in 1902 (Graylands not yet having been constructed).

It has to be said that the Dodgy Perth team seem a very high risk group. Although we will decline to mention which of the following categories apply.

CAUSES OF INSANITY IN PATIENTS ADMITTED DURING 1902
Mls Fmls Ttl
MORAL
Lonely life 5 — —
Love affairs (including seduction) — 3 3
Mental anxiety (business) 5 — 5
Mental anxiety (domestic) 1 6 7
Overwork 2 4 6
Religious excitement 5 1 6
Shock — 1 1
PHYSICAL
Accident 1 — 1
Change of life — 2 2
Congenital 3 — 3
Epilepsy 4 1 5
Heredity 2 — 2
Intemperance (alcohol) 15 2 17
Intemperance (opium) 4 — 4
Masturbation 8 — 8
Puerperal state — 4 4
Privation 7 — 7
Previous attacks 2 2 4
Senility 3 2 5
Sunstroke 3 1 4
Venereal disease 7 — 7
Unknown 8 2 10
TOTAL 85 31 116
by Eddie

Like Aversion

Kalgoorlie Racecourse

Kalgoorlie Racecourse

Thousands of fashionably dressed men and women cheered as they battled down the straight for the finish at Kalgoorlie. Yet only a few days later, the winning horse had his head smashed in and his carcase set alight near Gingin.

A hoof from the poor animal was hung in the criminal museum at Perth Police Station for many years. It should be clear 1918 was an unusual year for racing in Western Australia.

The hoof was from Aversion, a horse at the centre of one of the most remarkable stories in the history of the Australian turf.

Now forgotten, Aversion was a first-class performer on the metropolitan courses. He won several big races and was at the top of his form when he was disqualified for a year. As far as the public knew, Aversion had been sent to a paddock for semi-retirement.

The 1918 Goldfields racing season was massive. Perth horses were drifting into town to prepare for the big races. Shortly before the event, an unknown horse named Loch Var was nominated for a third-class handicap. The paperwork submitted with his application showed he was a mediocre performer, and the handicapper treated him leniently.

On the day of the race, it was pouring. Loch Var was brought into the saddling paddock. Although heavily rugged, several commentators noted he looked strong and might do well for himself in the future.

Strange news started filtering through the course. Loch Var, an unknown newcomer, was being backed off the boards. The cash was pouring in, and no matter how the bookmakers lowered the odds, there were still takers. Any price was good enough.

Then they were off! Straight to the lead went Loch Var, and it was no race. In the pouring rain he opened a bigger and bigger gap. But what most people failed to notice in the excitement was the effect of the water on his steaming body. The horse’s white blaze had shifted its position, and a white fetlock was now practically washed off.

There was only one subject of conversation that night. There had been a gigantic swindle! Loch Var was the disqualified Aversion, and should have carried at least twenty kilograms more than he did.

Loch Var’s owners put him straight on a train back to Perth. They did not wait to collect the stake, and did not need to. They had got all they wanted from the books.

But the police were moving. However, moments before they caught up with the criminals, the horse was taken to a paddock at Gingin, his head clubbed and the body set on fire.

The gang was prosecuted, and banned from all racecourses for life.

What remains of Aversion now? Dodgy Perth would love to know if the hoof still exists in a forgotten box in the police archives. Anyone know?

by Eddie

Bang bang, I shot you down

Door to Churchill Avenue house, showing bullet hole

Door to Churchill Avenue house, showing location of two bullet holes

IN the early hours of Saturday, 14 August 1937, Stanley Hussey was opening the door to his home at 28 Churchill Avenue, Subiaco. The stillness of the night was shattered by the sound of a revolver. Hussey staggered, shot twice.

In the flash of the explosions he recognised his assailant, then he stumbled to his next door neighbour.

With blood dripping from his wounds he frantically pressed the doorbell. “I am shot!” cried Stanley, as he was hurried into the house.

The police were called, but less than an hour later Dora Simons, Hussey’s sister-in-law, attempted to take her own life on the lawn of a nearby flat.

She was found with a gaping wound in the mouth. A .44 calibre revolver was nearby, and her false teeth had been smashed into tiny pieces by the force of the explosion.

Dora was, to put it mildly, a fruitcake. She had been stalking Stanley and his wife for so long the couple had resorted to seeing a lawyer to get her to keep away.

The trouble seems to be that Dora was obsessed with the idea that Stanley fancied her, and had made repeated advances. This didn’t seem very probable at the time, and still doesn’t seem likely now. These advances were just in her head.

Tried for attempted murder, Dora claimed she thought the gun was only loaded with blanks. After seeing she had shot Stanley, and afraid he was dead, she tried to take her own life. What she was doing in Stanley’s house was never quite explained to the jury.

Bizarrely, the jury decided she was not guilty of attempted murder, only of common assault, and she was immediately released from custody.

She didn’t learn from this, however, and continued to stalk and harass Stanley and his family, until she was finally jailed two years later.

The house where this all took place, 28 Churchill Avenue, is still very much there, looking little changed from 1937. We wonder if the current occupants know the story.

by Eddie

No news is good news

gone-fishing-600x399Today Dodgy Perth is taking a small break for two reasons.

One: We are spending the day training local government in how to run a successful history blog. Stop sniggering. Some people take us seriously.

Two: Dodgy Perth has just become the single most famous history blog that mocks WA’s past. Stop sniggering. This one is true. Check us out here.

Back tomorrow with more goodies for you.