[LINK] OT - delicate question

[Richard Chirgwin]

Karl,

This sounds like a flip answer, but satire should be regarded as being 
at least real enough to be recognisable to the society it speaks to ...

...in which case, the classic short story, The Specialist (in which a 
"privy builder" is giving an after-dinner speech), indicates the Sears 
Roebuck catalogue as the favoured instrument in America - at least in 1929.

In Australia, tales from my father gave it as being either newspapers or 
phone books. The great advantage of the newspaper being, of course, that 
it was replenished more frequently.

Cheers,
RC

On 8/04/11 4:31 AM, Karl Auer wrote:
> The Link Institute being suitably eclectic, I feel sure no-one will mind
> me posing this question, which believe it or not is actually serious
> research :-)
>
> Here it is: In the days of the outdoor dunny (outhouse, long drop,
> thunderbox), before toilet paper became ubiquitous and affordable by
> all, with what did one wipe one's bum?
>
> Rural American "privies" would often have a basket of corn cobs, I
> believe. Mail-order catalogues were also commonly hung on a nail,
> affording reading pleasure before being repurposed.
>
> But what did we use in Australia? I do recall sitting in a dunny outside
> a shearing shed once, looking with bemusement at a sheaf of carefully
> torn squares of newspaper on a nail ("The Age", if memory serves). Were
> catalogues common? I've never heard of corn cobs being used here.
>
> All suggestions welcome, but factual information would be most welcome.
> Also for suggestions for other places to ask :-)
>
> Regards, K.
>
>
>
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