Curio

State Library of New South Wales
Sam Hand's boardinghouse, (next to a butcher shop), Home Rule (?)

Sam Hand's boardinghouse, (next to a butcher shop), Home Rule (?)

1872
Glass photonegative

Sam Hand's boarding house was situated next to a butcher’s shop. According to the D74, 13 July 1872: ‘The irrepressible Chinese have taken the lead in providing restaurants, and are well patronised especially on Sunday, when the patrons have to wait their turn outside.’ One Chinese boarding house owner was overrun by miners when he advertised roast beef, pork, turkey and goose for Christmas. He needed 10 extra cooks to cater for the 200 who turned up.

From Queanbeyan Age, 4 January 1872

A CHINESE  BOARDING HOUSE ON CHRISTMAS DAY.-The Gulgong (Argus) gives an account of the Chinese boarding houses in that district on Monday last, and says:- In one establishment the benches had to be assaulted, not en masse but in battalions, by nearly two hundred ravenous diggers who had come into town to enjoy a day’s holiday. The enterprising proprietor, James Ah Sam Chung, or some name like it, publicly announced that for Kissy-mass dinner he would have rocey beef, rocey pork, rocey little pig, stuffey turkey, rocey goose, plummy puttin, cussy tard, and a variety of other delicacies which diggers get but once a year in this form. Accordingly, Ah a Sam’s bill of fare met with proper consideration, and with the assistance of about ten extra heathen cooks, he managed in two hours to appease the appetite of about the number above named. Five years ago John's bill of fare would have been despised by these men. [Queanbeyan Age, 4 January 1872, p3]