At Fitzroy - in the evening which is somewhat unusual (definitely not hot-day crowds today in what's become a rather cool February). Never really felt as if I was getting going.
My historical wanderings today took me to January 1941 floods in South Australia. There was a certain amount of distraction on offer from accounts of Adelaide's petty offenders - no offence was too petty for the Advertiser, which is how I know that one Harold Frederick Brown of King William Street was fined five shillings for "exceeding parking time limit". (It wasn't as if there was a shortage of news, either - the Allies had just taken Tobruk, something which attracted
a certain amount of gloating from the headline-writers). I did, however, enjoy the account heard by the Port Adelaide Magistrates' Court of a high-speed bicycle chase:
"Constable Ryan said he chased Parsons "at racing pace" until the chain came off Parsons' bicycle. Then defendant ran 25 yards into a vacant block, threw the bicycle down, and hid behind a bush another 25 yards away before Ryan found him".
He was fined 15 shillings for riding without lights, and another 15 for failing to stop when directed. I also feel sorry for the partner of the woman who, given a bond for obtaining goods under false pretences, was ordered to "abstain from entering any shops in the city for 12 months, unless accompanied by her husband".
Naturally there was some non-farsighted punditry, the highlight being a column by the Asian correspondent of Australian Associated Press, who published a column opining that the Japanese really wanted to be friends and, being bogged down as they were in China, definitely wouldn't be interested in starting any more wars.
And people were still
complaining about the trains...