Coffin from Beer Cases

Prospector Found Poisoned in Old Shaft

Doctor Holds Post Mortem in Tent — Shock for Two Travellers.  

Hack’s Widgiemooltha Hotel, Western Australia 1935

Publican, Gordon Hack

A man from Widgiemooltha was telling the story at the Savoy this week. And he went on: “Widgiemooltha didn’t have a police station and it was regarded as the accepted thing that the publican should take charge of the body and make arrangements of the old man’s burial.

“Gordon Hack was up there then and he and others fashioned a coffin  out of beer cases.

“Word was sent  to the nearest police station and a  doctor came over and conducted a post mortem.

“Only place that  could be used as  a morgue was, of course, the hotel,  but Gordon Hack didn’t fancy that at all and he rigged up a tent at the mouth of the shaft.

“A few hours later two insurance travellers arrived from Perth, and seeing the tent,  walked over to see what it was all about.

“Anybodythere,” one ofthem called out as he reached the tent and a voice from inside grunted, “Yes, come in.” They walked in and you can just imagine the shock they got. There on a rough table the body of the old prospector was stretched out. His torso had been cut up in the usual style for a post mortem and there were bits of him here and there. And right in the middle of the tent the doctor was standing calmly examining the old chaps liver in his fingers.

As you might imagine they lef thurriedly. Anyway the old chap was duly buried and there was the inevitable wake at the hotel afterwards. One of the listening group snorted “Hooey”. And the speaker, surprised at having any doubts cast on his good story, retorted, “Alright, we’ll find Gordon Hack and ask him about it.

“Widgiemooltha’s former licensee, Gordon Hack, gave a wry smile, as the story was repeated to him, and then he said: “Yes, that’s about what happened. But you haven’t told the whole of the story.“

“While the crowd were drinking after the funeral someone bet someone else that he wasnt game to g0 down the shaft at midnight and recover the old prospector’s pick.

“We didn’t hear any more about it til some hours later when all of a sudden a pick shot through an open window of the hotel and I heard someone shout, “There’s your —- pick, now where’s  my quid.” He was paid.

“Another bright idea that same night was a bet that someone should sleep down the shaft where the body had been found. But this fortunately was promptly scotched. Cyanide fumes might easily have killed the man who attempted it.”

-Mirror (Perth, WA) Saturday 25 March 1939.

Widgiemooltha is an abandoned town in Western Australia 631 kilometres east of Perth between Kambalda and Norseman in the Goldfields-Esperance region of Western Australia.