Browsing old newspapers is a bit like rummaging through a jumble of second hand shops in the lead-up to Christmas. You go looking for a small surprise to tuck into a stocking and instead find all manner of oddities: forgotten treasures, curiosities, and the occasional item that makes you laugh out loud. The archive of Daylesford’s nineteenth century newspapers offers exactly that kind of experience.

The population may be smaller and many of the watering holes may have disappeared but it seems the state of the roads and Council’s responsibilities for same have remained sore points for over 150 years! And injustices in the legal system were matters of discussion and concern. Among the piles of serious reports are stories that reveal the everyday drama of a young town finding its feet.

The following potpourri of clippings – kindly supplied by Les Pitt and drawn from the Daylesford and District Historical Society gives us a handful of such unexpected stocking stuffers from the late 1800s.

From The Daylesford Advocate 9 August 1864:

A COUNCILLOR IN A CRAB HOLE

On last Tuesday, Councillor Jamison came to grief while on his way to the Chambers.  Endeavouring to cross a certain soft spot in the road, he suddenly sank down nearly to his knees, and being far from a lightweight, had much difficulty extricating himself.  Before he did so, indeed, he measured his length on mother earth, and left a beautiful full-length impression of his portly person in the plastic clay of which Daylesford is justly famous.

Instead of hastening to the relief of the worthy Councillor, the unsympathising spectators enjoyed his floundering in the mire.

There are traditions of men on horseback disappearing in the crabholes of the Jim Crow roads, and it needs no great stretch of the imagination to believe that fact.  We hope that the narrow escape of a Borough Councillor will stimulate the efforts of our municipal representatives to improve them.

From The Mount Alexander Mail 4 June 1858:

IMPRISONMENT FOR DEBT

On Thursday last, considerable interest was excited in the immediate neighbourhood of the Derby Hotel, Dry Diggings, on seeing a well-known, respectable young man who has been but a few weeks married handcuffed and secured on the police dray, enroute for Castlemaine.

The people on enquiry found that his offence was his inability to repay a trifling debt.  Out of sympathy for the poor fellow, the bystanders turned away from the scene in disgust.

Scenes like these are taking place at a time when Lord Brougham is passing a measure through the Imperial Legislature, abolishing imprisonment for debt altogether unless when incurred under fraudulent pretenses.

From The Daylesford Advocate 22 October 1864:

FEMALE MINERS

Some months past we noticed that two young women were, with the permission of Mr. Stanbridge, fossicking with the dish on that portion of that gentleman’s ground at Kidd’s Gully.  One of them having been unwell for a long time past, her adventurous companion retired to domestic occupations; but both have again reappeared, with pick, shovel and dish where they were formerly so successful, and thought they have yet none of their previous good fortune, they are finding more than would purchase ribbons, and they are in expectation of coming upon something they will exchange for silks.

From The Daylesford Advocate 27 August 1864:

GOLD FIELD REWARDS

An extraordinary hitch has occurred in the payment of the sums granted to the original discoverers of the goldfields.  It turns out that, by the wording of the Act appropriating the £10,000, the money can be claimed only for gold fields found after 1864.  The Treasurer therefore declines to hand over the premiums awarded.

Of course Egan and Connell will be unable to obtain their share of the grant till the matter is brought again before Parliament.

From The Daylesford Advocate 22 October 1864:

DAYLESFORD

The township of Daylesford now has a population of 6,000 with 500 houses and 400 other tents or huts, and also 30 hotels.  Under its former name of Jim Crow it was long known as a poor man’s diggings – a place to which the impecunious and unlucky miner could resort to, and obtain a living and nothing more.

The first step to render it a large, permanent field was made by a party of Italians, who drove tunnels into the hillsides and struck the wash dirt in this fashion.  Many of the hills are now honeycombed with the mole-like passages by which the golden sands have been removed.

From The Daylesford Advocate 5 April 1864

A BOGGED DRAY

A dray was bogged at the corner of Albert and Vincent Streets when it fell into a ditch being dug for the gas mains.

From the Daylesford and District Historical Society.  https://daylesfordmuseum.net/ with thanks to Les Pitt for his references.