Odd (as in miscellaneous, and as in strange) images from the previously mentioned Cassell’s Book of Sports and Pastimes (1896).
Hand shadows.
Spangled Polish.
Extraordinary feat. Yes… yes, that’s one way of describing it.
Communicating by means of the telephone. HE’S TEN FEET AWAY, JUST OPEN THE DAMN WINDOW.
Dwygyfylchi, Penmaenmawr.
This last image is a postcard that was not from the book, but was tucked inside it as a bookmark when I bought it. The postcard could be nearly as old as the book– I can imagine a boy at the turn of the 20th century on a dismal Snowdonian holiday, stuck indoors with Cassell’s while the rain batters down outside– but what’s really interesting to me is the fact that for a while I lived about three miles from this place and knew it immediately the moment it leapt out of the book. It’s in Conwy, sandwiched between the north coast of Wales and Snowdonia National Park. There must have been a vanishingly small chance of me finding an antique postcard of a place I’m very familiar with but that few people in Britain have heard of, in a century old book that was the only one I picked up out of thousands in that particular second-hand book shop, which is itself in a small town by the sea on completely the opposite side of the British mainland. But I did.
Next time: SQUIRRELS.
ADOXOBLOG 