The Binduli Bloodhouse:

THE BINDULI BLOODH0USE.

-BARTOLO MORATTI’S PUB-
ITS CLAIMS TO POLICE ATTENTION.

Disreputable Boozing Den— For Dissipated Dagos.—
No Attractions for Picnickers.— Closure Badly Wanted.

THERE is a pub at Binduli which badly wants suppressing. This article is mainly written to direct the attention, of the police thereto. The place is a ” bloodhouse,” a shanty, a disreputable boozing den of the worst kind. The proprietor combines the amiable characteristics of Henry Lawson’s “Stiffner ” and “Poisonous Jimmy,” although he has probably never read of either. He is an Italian. There are three or four classes of Italians on these fields, and he is in the bottom class. His. name, is near as we can get to it is, Bartolo Moratti.

We’ve said a “pub at Binduli.” as a matter of fact it is “the” pub — ‘The Binduli Hotel’. There is only one, it is opposite the station, and most travelers can see it. There is no population worth speaking of at Binduli, so that most of the pub’s customers come from a distance. Like the proprietor, many of them are Italians, the lowest class of Italians. They foregather there on Sundays, it’s an easy distance from Kalgoorlie and

all sorts of depravities are perpetrated.

It’s as a great gambling school and the Dago takes kindly to two up. Mere boys, may often be seen sampling the attractions of Moratti’s. It is the first house-of-call along the “Road to Ruin”— as well as the Coolgardie road.
Binduli is a favorite resort for picnickers from Kalgoorlie, especially those organised on a large scale. Most of the picnics are held at some shady, well-appointed and properly laid-out grounds some little distance from the station. Here are proper facilities for open-air enjoyment, especially for women and children. But other picnic parties, to whom liquor is one of the main attractions, don’t get beyond the “Bloodhouse”.  It has no extraneous attractions, except a shadeless yard and one apology for a swing, but the supply of ‘kill-at-40-yards grog’ is inexhaustible.
Moratti doesn’t like any holiday-makers going past his shanty. At the Anglican Schools picnic, two or three weeks ago, a large box of toys (for the children’s prizes) was inadvertently consigned to the ” Bloodhouse” instead of to the respectable picnic grounds. The mistake, a very natural one, arose through an insufficient acquaintance with Moratti and his reputation on the. part of one of the clerical organisers of the picnic.
But the Italian shanty-keeper bitterly resented the toys being removed from his temporary custody, indeed, it was almost necessary to resort to force before he would give them up. It seems doubtful whether the sort of people who attend a school picnic would swell a publican’s bar takings much— even if the sports were being, held outside the house — but Moratti evidently thought a vicious precedent was being established.

At the”Butchers’ Picnic” the other week, “The Sun” is informed, things hummed considerably at the “Bloodhouse” Few would have mistaken that particular picnic for a Sunday, school one after Moratti had done with them. We have heard that liquor is sometimes “doped” at Moratti’s, but we never tasted it. The proprietor has a wife and a stepdaughter, and we are not sure that this is the sum total of his feminine belongings. There is a story, which it might be worth the while of the police to investigate — that two of the picnickers entrusted some valuables to one of Moratti’s feminine belongings, for safe keeping on Wednesday last, and that unavailing efforts were afterwards made to recover the ownership of a nugget- brooch and a purse  of money.
We tell the tale as it was told to us, merely remarking that, we may have something more to say about it before next licensing sessions. Even when there are no picnics or picnickers about, Moratti’s can provide some exciting orgies.

One night quite recently, we are informed on very good authority, screams of “murder” were heard quite plainly coming from one of the tavern windows. We don’t suppose that anyone was quite murdered,  it is highly probable, however that a savage assault was in progress. It is obvious that the police can exercise very little control over a place as remote and out-of-the.way as the “Binduli Bloodhouse” The magistrates might surely consider the question of refusing to renew the license. The house serves no public demand for accommodation. There is no resident  population to warrant it — only a few fettlers. It is just an Alsatia for lawlessness and vice, out of eyeshot and earshot of the police. Its reputation could hardly be more sinister. The district would be well rid of it.

Masons and Brick Layers Picnic Binduli – Western Argus 4 December 1906, page 25