Flinders Street, Townsville, c 1953

News of the day

Telegraph, Saturday 19 January 1935, page 9

AMUSING INCIDENT

How Not to Kill a Snake

Whip-Cracker’s Experience

TOWNSVILLE, January 19.

An amusing incident, but one that easily could have been attended with serious consequences, occurred in Flinders Street on Thursday night when, chased from the interror of a car parked in the street, a medium-sized snake slithered along the concrete roadway and caused a hurried commotion for weapons. Avowing his ability to kill snakes by using them like a stockwhip and cracking their heads off a man in the crowd then took a hand. He grabbed the snake without difficulty and gave a demonstration of stockwhip cracking but without dislodging the head. After several abortive attempts the whip-cracker ceased operations to examine the still wriggling snake under the street lights and found, to his horror, that he had been trying to crack off its tail, while its head was tightly clenched in his hand. The snake was by no means disabled and was doing its utmost to drive its fangs into the encircling fingers. The man hurriedly dropped it and it then was killed with an iron bar.

Background

The Post Office was constructed in 1886 at a cost of £17,235. Dennis Kellcher submitted a tender and carried out extensions in 1888, while a clock tower was built by Henry L Davis & Co. Chimes were imported from England in 1889 and installed by 1891. As a result of severe bomb damage done to buildings in Darwin, the clocktower was dismantled in 1942 and the mechanism was stored away. A greatly modified tower was built in 1963-64 by JE Allen & Co. of Townsville at a cost of £42,135. The interior was also modernisation at this time. Because of its prominent location, the Post Office often became the scene of political rallies around a speaker on a soap box.

Courtesy of the Queensland Heritage Register.

 

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