Exhibit one

When the Brisbane Magistrates Court was spread among the buildings of George and Herschel streets, a brick strongroom was located between the watchhouse, the registry and part of the District Court chambers in what was known as ‘Watchhouse Lane’. Physical exhibits (as opposed to the documentary exhibits) were kept there.

Inside the exhibits room was a compactus with about a dozen two-metre-high metal filing cabinets. They contained offensive weapons, knuckledusters, knives (with and without blood stains), a rubber cosh and a lever-action Winchester rifle so sensitive that when cocked using the lever, it would fire almost immediately the lever hit the stock. There were numerous broken bottles and glasses, most with jagged edges with brown streaks on them, clearly blood. There were also confiscated half-consumed bottles of beer with their tops on, some boots and shoes of assorted sizes, piles of clothes in various states of disrepair and a box full of ropes, leather thongs and metal hardware.

The piece de resistance was a double-bed mattress with blood and other stains, slash marks and cigarette burns in the corner. Its stuffing oozed from the gashes and it smelled foul. Yet it had its purpose.

In a time before nightclubs and all-night dance venues, before intellectual entertainment and 24-hour cable television, young people used to go to the pub, usually for the sole purpose of drinking. Often they would have too much, and some would go to work the next day a little the worse for wear. Departmental staff in this condition found solace in the exhibits room.

Someone had rigged up the old mattress so that it lay on the bottom shelves of adjoining filing cabinets, making one big (double bed-size) filing cabinet. The enterprising soul had also removed the metal panels facing the narrow corridor between the compactus and the wall so that when anyone was still suffering after a big night, they could crawl into the space and have a sleep on the mattress. Better still, if the boss came looking for them, he could be told that they were looking for something in the exhibits room.