patented

very nice~

That is amazing - the date, 1865, I mean. I had an artificial arm with a split hook, which opened in the same way as this hand does, the hook opens as you push your arm forwards, as you pull back the hook shuts by means of a thick rubber band. This was 100 yrs later! Not much progress then, but since then things are so different!

Wartime limits on beer production were imposed in March 1942, requiring breweries to reduce their output to two-thirds of previous levels. The resulting beer shortages led to widespread profiteering and black-marketing. Some hotel keepers diverted beer from public bars to lounge bars where it was sold at inflated prices. Others more unscrupulous withheld beer from their customers, and passed it on at greater profit to the black-market. Beer shortages also encouraged the illegal activity of home-brewing, and many home-brewers were convicted of making beer without a licence. Among them was a 66-year-old man who was found in 1941 at his house in Sydney with sugar, hops, malt, galvanised vats, and more than one-thousand bottles of beer. He copped a larger fine than most home-brewers of the time because he was selling his beer. The most enduring effect of war, insofar as beer in Australia is concerned, was probably its damaging effect on the image and reputation of the beverage. Second World War shortages and black-marketing set against the background of early closing of pubs, a First World War imposition, stigmatised beer, and especially its consumption in pubs. Through the immense up-welling of interest in beer which presently engulfs us, however, this damage is gradually and persistently being undone. Source: www.brewsnews.com.au/2012/07/17/beer-and-war-in-australia/