Snake crossing

The Sydney Morning Herald reported an alarming traffic hazard on 18 December 1911: “Just as a tram from the Spit had reached Balgowlah Heights on Saturday afternoon, the passengers on the front seat saw a huge brown snake bearing down the track towards them. Its quarry was a large lizard, and so preoccupied was it with the prospect of the prospective meal, that it left the tram out of its calculations. The lizard passed under the tram, and the snake, but a couple of feet behind, followed. The tram-driver, anxious to be in at the kill, pulled up short, and with some passengers, rushed back along the track. But the kill was over. The lizard escaped, so far as the tram was concerned, but the snake, 5 feet long at least, had been cut in three pieces by the wheels.”

Carnival fatality

The Manly Carnival of 1920 was marred by a bizarre fatality. On Thursday 11th March 1920, showman Anthony Kimbel employed Teresa Caton (26) as a snake charmer in one of his sideshows on the ocean beach. Two snakes were delivered to Kimbel, a black snake and a tiger snake. He took hold of the black snake, and was promptly bitten, but he applied a ligature and his own antidote and felt no ill-effects afterwards. The following day Miss Caton picked up the tiger snake and put it round her neck. She was immediately bitten. A ligature was tied round her wrist and the antidote administered, but it was ineffective. Later that day she was admitted to Manly Cottage Hospital in Raglan Street, and she died there on Saturday 13th March.
At the coronial inquest, Mr Jamieson, the City Coroner, found that she had died from the effects of the bite of the tiger snake, and he warned that these reptiles should not be displayed in settings where they could come into contact with the public; he hoped that the police would take steps to protect the public from this sort of danger.
It is not known where Miss Caton was buried; it does not appear to have been in Manly Cemetery, and we have not found a death notice in the Sydney press.