 section 11 personal recollections of early Melbourne and Victoria this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org this reading by Lucy Burgoyne personal recollections of early Melbourne and Victoria by William Westgarth section 11 Edward Wilson chief proprietor of the Argus the Tines of the South the good I stand on is my truth and honesty I fear nothing what can be said against me Henry VIII I was long and intimately acquainted with Wilson he was a man of high qualities and noble longings and scorned meanness of all kinds and he had like his predecessor Kerr some good and Pugnant literary pretensions although he could not be placed on a level with Kerr while the latter enjoyed adequate help but on the other hand he greatly mad his influence by what might be called impetuous in temperateness in his early press career indeed the Argus in its later stages must needs emerge as in fact it did from its chief owner's editing it was to take the position of the times of the South he had a great antipathy to indecision in public men and he entered upon a furious crusade against the superintendent and his surroundings as the prime causes in the delay in the unlocking of the lands Mr. La Trobe was dubbed the hat and feathers as though these trappings were the most of him and this vulgarity excusable only under small eatons will conditions passed into the great developments at the Golden Age some of us who were doing our best in the same general direction often had to wish with reference to Wilson to be saved from our friends while Mr. La Trobe if affected at all was only encouraged or scared into still more decided in decision Wilson was not much of a man a practical business he was not successful in his early life at home where business is a harder ordeal and with fewer of the flukes that cross the path in young colonies arriving in Melbourne shortly after myself and in company with a friend one of the brothers kill born he squatted upon a small cattle run to the southeast towards standing on but as this did little beyond merely keeping soul and body together as things were all now subsiding from the right of the earlier years it was given up for gathering next with Mr. J. S. Johnston they between them bought the Argus from Kerr for a very small sum I think under 300 pounds and the paper then started upon its successful career under the increased bigger and improved method of its management although as I have said not a businessman himself Wilson was fortunate in business partners first Mr. Johnston as above said succeeded by my old friend James Gill who retiring was replaced by Lachlan McKinnon whose energy and application piloted the paper financially into its later grand position he had Latterley besides a passing business agent in my old friend James Ray whose firm of Jackson Ray and company had retired comparatively early after attaining the mercantile headship of the colony thus leaving the colonial field open to other early friends Fred G. Delguetti and Fred a do crows who has since as they'll get he do crows and company and Delguetti and company limited taken the first position in Australasian commerce for some years Wilson took full charge of the editorial and general literary work which after the gold discoveries was labors second to none in the sudden expansion of all colonial interests there was constant fear for years together a falling short of adequate supply now it was tight again it would be paper and worst of all it would at times be the iniquity of staff the Australian press had at times to be content with such stress of paper as could an emergency be had and for some time as I recollect one of the Sydney issues came out on tea paper from China Wilson as I have repeatedly seen him would occupy his corner in the comparatively large room into which the narrow old premises in Collins Street East had been Latterley expanded there most of the work was done he receiving during nearly the whole night news and messages correcting proofs and passing instructions in his quiet offhand and when needful for entry of commanding way and amidst the ceaseless noise writing or correcting leaders when possible with the gold tide came at first such heavy expenses much of them quite unforeseen and unprepared for that the press interest was run of necessity into heavy debt where there was no adequate capital it was either this or to give up the game in those changing times and those who had not the money or the credit went to the wall to make room for others less embarrassed the August bus gone heavily into debt to its agents and bankers then after 1854 which had been a most trying year of inevitable reaction there was gradual recovery and eventually a due reward in commissions and interest to its supporters the prosperity of the August about this time was unprecedented in their antipodes and for considerable interval the paper stood unrivaled not only in Victoria but in Australasia having at last surpassed both in circulation and in the profits of business contents even the long-established and highly respectable Sydney morning Herald it was allowed and not unfairly to be the times of the Southern Hemisphere for Wilson had retired in favor of more temperate editorship and in supporting and being supported by the mercantile interests and in the adoption generally of the pre-trade policy of the parent state the paper followed its northern prototype that the clearing of the ground had left room for other and better a countered rivals and the age arose to enter the lists with the Argus the latter had taken up free trade and the classes the former took up protection and the masses so far at least as these terms might as to either application distinguished democratic victorious condition protection had been quite in abeyance under the old regime beyond at least an occasional sigh from agricultural gelong for higher prices for the farmer the mainstay of every country even during the interim of semi-constitutionalism 1851 to 55 the tendency had been effectually checked cheaply by the energy of the collector of customs mr. Castle then one of the official legislative members who supported by the Melbourne Chamber of Commerce was bent upon a tariff of the home kind of half a dozen leading articles with perfect freedom of exchange over the world for all products of the colonies labor but mr. Castle to universal regret on general as on commercial grounds died in November 1853 leading the colony a less obstructed road to those restrictions which it has since seen fit to impose upon its own industry the age with remarkable ability and as remarkable success has always advocated protection but at first as my recollection goes it was in that qualified way which is not necessarily against trading freedom reasonably considered I perfectly recall the late mr. Sims main argument or excuse to the effect that the Western United States for instance should on social considerations restrict universal wheat growing even at economic loss but if one may judge from some recent free trade and protection controversy as between Victoria and New South Wales see age for April May 1887 all qualification seems now dropped an even direct economic advantage expected from protection nonetheless the age gained upon the August and has I understand long surpassed it in that most prominent of all tests the circulation perhaps in profits also when I inquired lately of one of the Argus chiefs upon those delicate points the reply was that the Argus was not up to the ages circulation but further the ponents say if not this does not mean however the loss of position as the southern times for the leading journal is by no means at the head of the London press in point of circulation where it may be however when it comes down from the aristocratic trupence to the common penny of its brethren remains to be seen and I am told that all has long been in readiness for the change when the fitting times arrives and so as the Argus is still toughens to the ages penny inverted relations as to circulation may someday not be impossible there also the circulation at the daily age by my last account is close upon seventy thousand which is not a poor show the Kilmarnock in that sense at the joke in 1858 Wilson quitted the colony for good as the phrase is followed by McKinnon and later by their third and only other partner Mr. Alan Spowers the Argus was now an established principle of Victoria and prosperity was assured after a few more years of economising until the business debt was finally cleared off the partners could enjoy to the full their great and well-merited fortunes Wilson and McKinnon took up collateral country residences the one at first at Addington ten miles from London and later at the pleasant and classic haze place the favourite abode of the great Chatham the other at Elford Lee in Devonshire whilst flowers live chiefly in London where as the common favourite of both he with his genial temper kept the peace between his seniors who with an infirmity too common to human nature we're prone to disagree for one let us suppose of anything else to think about McKinnon with his energetic mind had been the most concerned in building up the latter stages of the Argus fortunes both Wilson and I had a high opinion of his qualities as the following incident may show he and I as I have said in my sketch of the Henty family were anti-transportation delegates to Tasmania in 1852 and proceeding by steamer to Lonseston we had for fellow passengers a considerable body of returned diggers most of them with their bags of gold and a good proportion of them with expressions of face one would rather not meet it beyond call of the police in short a good sprinkling of return convicts were at the number with their piles acquired possibly quite as much by robbing as by digging after a few hours at sea a rumor reached the cabin that there had been a robbery one of these ruffians having seized a bag of gold from one of the other digger passengers the thief had at once disappeared below and secured himself with the surrounding of his own chums so that it was feared he might escape with his booty as no one seemed game to descend the full companion ladder and encounter the sinister crowd below McKinnon at once took the cause in hand telling the Rob man to follow him so as to help identification he without an instant hesitation descended the letter a few of us followed to support our gallant leader I want the thief he said he must restore the gold you honest diggers are not to lose your earnings in this way so saying he pressed forward into the crowd followed by his guide and when at last the letter pointed out the culprit he seized his arm and dragged him back to the ladders foot where he peremptorily ordered him to restore the stolen gold all this was done in less time than I have taken to tell it the thief overwhelmed by the suddenness of the action and still more perhaps by the want of expected support from his pals promptly brought out the gold and thus ended a little drama highly illustrated of those stirring times on my return I mentioned this circumstance to Wilson and we both agreed that McKinnon was just the man we were all looking for at that critical period for the headship of the colonies place Wilson was in full power as owner and editor of the rising August while I was senior member for Melbourne and between us we reckoned upon influencing the government to make it once this appointment and in that view we went straight to captain Lonsdale our chief secretary we were just too late for the appointment as we learned had already been decided in favor of mr. afterwards sir William Mitchell I do not doubt that this incident had something to do with Wilson's subsequent invitation to McKinnon to join him in the August interest and here he works so effectively as to make Wilson just a trifle sensitive as to people thinking that the new hand did even more for the common cause than the old one but as saying has it comparisons are obvious they are besides quite unnecessary that both have proved themselves most worthy men fighting their life's course valiantly and well and that too with a rare success they can I hope be no betrayal of confidence in repeating what rumor gave us to August fortunes the net profits about this time that is to say towards 1878 when Wilson died were put at between 22,000 and 24,000 pounds but this I believe must have since very considerably increased Wilson at the large a moatie spours who was the latter importation having a comparatively small interest Wilson was now the country gentlemen able to live in almost princely style with his amiable and highly cultured sister who lived laterally with him he kept a hospitable house inviting the old colonists of his acquaintance as they came and went to and from the old country he was not without faults of temper and impatience increased probably by a feeling of physical witness which denied him activities of mind and body to the extent his ambition for life's utility would have preferred his tall well developed form and commanding presence backed by his ample means placed him easily in a leading position now he would be pacing haze place grounds with the Frank and junior Archbishop Tate who on a visit to the parish had dropped in with the Vicar mr. Reed again he would be a well-known and welcome figure at dinners at homes picnics and whatnot with the Darwin's Lou Vox bars and the rest of the neighborhood scientific and otherwise but the former by preference his teeth crumble was a weak action of the heart which for the last year or two kept him constantly in view of death he calmly regarded the prospect of the great change put his affairs in order as he wished and the waited the call of God he passed away with but a slight suffering in the beginning of 1878 before completing his 64th year his remains were by his own request returned to the colony which as he always insisted he had served so long and so faithfully his large means were left cheaply to various charitable and other useful institutions in the colony besides larger legacies to his relations 26 of these oldest colonial friends enjoyed the life at the quest of a hundred pounds each per annum and as these were the friends of the early and small times of Port Phillip few of whom had prospered at all like him so the help is not unneeded in most cases that all of these legacies were of the other sex is explained by the fact that having been always a bachelor he had an intense although only a general admiration for the sex there are many others will over an indefinite future have reason to bless the name of Edward Wilson end of section 11 section 12 personal recollections of early Melbourne and Victoria this is a Libra Vox recording all Libra Vox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit Libra Vox.org this reading by Lucy Burgoyne personal recollections of early Melbourne and Victoria by William Westgardt section 12 early society ways means and manners when rather from our acts we then derive than our foregoers all swell that ends well the salient defect for more or less interval at first in all commencing colonial societies is the disproportion of the female element and thus in the sparseness of homes and families we have that hardness of social feature which illustrates how much better is the one sex with the help me provided in the other early Port Phillip was no exception to this rule ladies and children were comparatively rare objects from Tasmania and elsewhere there were a good many choice spirits in more than one meaning of the words there was a marvellous consumption of brandy among such unusual proportions of strong venturous rowdy adults of tea and sugar and butchers made also giving altogether a statistical category worse than useless the accurate purposes manners were rough to use a mild term the town was bad and the bush was worse when a pious missionary of those early times prior to adventuring into the interior inquired of a squatter if the Sabbath were observed in the bush oh yes was the front reply a clean shirt and a shape in such times a large family of ladies might have trodden the soil somewhat as goddesses come down to the desolate habitations of men for such families at the earliest times in particular rise to my recollection they were those of mr. Griles and mr. Clio both clergyman the one of the Anglican the other of the Presbyterian communion of Mrs. Williamson a widow lady from near Edinburgh and of mr. James Smith magistrate and savings bank manager whose bustling form ever hurrying through our streets was perhaps the best known of the place and who along with his friend and co-man magistrate mr. Simpson was as the coping stone of local respectability that all of these three young maidens most of them remarkably attractive and pleasing as I have reason to remember we're duly married need hardly under all the circumstances be told besides being attested today by whole generations of consequences another feature of those early times a lively and bright feature in many respects was the considerable number of young men the younger sons of good families and for that matter the elder sometimes along with the younger who flocked out in unusual proportion I might say and who infused into the somewhat rough social scene the charm of high culture and menace while they doubtless were in instances not a few but even that may not be without its side a charm at least amongst the younger vertebrates some few eventually returned home mostly those who had been shipwrecked in the troubled sea of early time speculation but most of them have remained to take their various and full part in colonial society not a few taking the very highest positions thus we had the stalls and varies the Leslie fosters slay dens residence of town and neighborhood and the Campbell's mcknights Irvine's of surrounding spotted them most of these are long since the fathers of families native Australians including sons who not unfrequently finished their education in the mother country and due to full difference with Australia may surely not yet quarrel with this habit is still strong even to the third generation in Victoria amongst her well to do colonists the youths may not expect better training than from a her or a McCoy an Irving or a Pearson on the colonial floor but such diversion from real will in its occasional way the better help to keep the great scattering family united to their venerable mother to keep together the elder and the younger Britain Oxford and Cambridge in particular have indeed then quite run upon from Victoria and those two venerable mothers of English University line can already command in and of that colony quite a small legion of their albumini the Clarks and the load and Campbell's the pinnays and collie Robertson's the Webster's and Westby's and Wilson's who are now the young or the still vigorous life of their colony if some few of these have remained permanently at home or if they pleasantly alternate their domicile by such vessel means as the marbles of modern intercommunication afford them yet all of them help in more or less degree to strengthen that time between the mother and her adventurous colonial offspring which we must hope is never to be broken I have the less need to expand further this inspiring section of my subject seeing that I have been anticipated to some extent by a brother author who under the Poseidon of Ralph Bulgrew would has presented to us in lively and fitting style a most charming picture of early colonial life it's pleasant hospitality's plus the attic salt of no small proportion of the mountainous tables the disguise of name is not difficult to penetrate the author's father residing in his pretty place at Heidelberg whose genial sun brown face I pleasantly recall was well known to me as well indeed as to every other early colonist his son's book has been my pleasant companion as I write up daily my recollections in the little cabin of the good s s Coptic more especially as we both traversed much the same ground and during the same interesting early time in Western Victoria government house old-fashioned please me best I'm not so nice to change true rules the odd inventions taming of the shrew but perfection is never to be expected in human nature and accordingly some decided drawbacks were reasonably I think chargeable to this good society which as I have just said had beneficially helped the dawning carney there was a tendency to separate from and rather hold in undue depreciation the trading and toiling masses who mainly made the country this tendency was fostered in the pre-representative days when there were no political institutions to bring the mass of plane at prosperous society to the front of course when these times came the game was soon up but while the preceding era lasted a somewhat invidious aristocracy gathered around the authorities the mutual instincts born of the situation inclining them to each other this united party got the name of government house it included most of the highly educated to whom it was attempting status and most of the squatting crown tenants whether highly educated or otherwise and it was quarterly open to presentable colonists in general who holding its views of course a sign going on were willing to enter it the views were decidedly pronounced and took practically the form of a decided preference for the status quo or at least modified by the slightest possible a political concession to those noisy restless masses who with the local press generally on their side ceaselessly kicked it all authority the political timidity and decision of Mr. Latrone worthy man as he otherwise was gave practically life and soul to this anti-popular party which labored more secretly perhaps than openly to advert or modify for the time being at least the political concession expected from the imperial parliament mr. Latrone's view evidently was that if the colonials kick so strongly when under bonds how much more furiously must they kick when the bonds were removed but as reasonable persons might have predicted and as was promptly experienced the colonists kicked because they were bound and when unbound they did not kick at all the same political feature and even more resolute form had then developed also at Sydney where mr. Wentworth led the upper 10 for the protection of authority against levelling radicalism he and his party at heroding Herod and being more governmental than the government seriously contemplated a limitation of the franchise to a 50 pounds rental and the institution of a colonial peerage as a permanent slap in the face to the ugly democracy had he carried his views or even some considerable approach to them his influence with the party and his bulldog courage would soon have put his colony into an uproar and possibly even into civil war but thanks for once to his political extremes the question was happily settled rather by being laughed out of court than by time wasting argument government House however did secure in both colonies a certain measure of triumph authority in Essie having the whip hand of authority in posse the one-third of nominees as against two-thirds elective were by disproportionately large representation purposely given to the squatting districts converted into a permanent majority of crown nominees and crown tenants this was clearly an invasion of the intention of the imperial parliament which was that by giving a decided majority to the popular side the colonies might be graduated into complete constitutionalism but after all this evasion lasted only for a very few years these early ringlings are now all but forgotten but they are so only because the narrow views which gave them birth had been entirely defeated and are all but exploded in the progress of the colonies since the merits have occupied the front and the useful has taken the precedence at the order mental the letter is not to be despised when in company with the former nor has it been for not a few who were once on the anti-popular side have entered public light and even secured the highest prizes this necessitated a descent from cloudland to the solid ground of colonial society the alternative was extinction and wisely in most cases the letter was not preferred another feature of this Sydney ultra-party a curious feature indeed to look back upon today was its undisguised antipathy to the anti-transportation feeling then gathering force throughout southern eastern Australia and even in Tasmania the movement was highly unfashionable say even deeply vulgar in the leading circles surrounding government house for those who had the infirmity of such puritanical leanings there was an approach to the antipathy plus contempt of the southern slay that of the states for his northern abolitionist countrymen when my friend mr. afterwards sir is a Donaldson introduced me for my temporary stay at the Australian club in the high quarters of the party he passed me a friendly hint to steer clear at least when on floor of that house of that delicate subject this feeling was further and rather amusingly illustrated on one occasion during the separation session at which I was the member for Melbourne and present at the time mr. Henry Moore the well-known solicitor and one of the five district members in replying to the charge urge against us of the unfilial indifference or ingratitude of Port Phillip in thus seeking separation instance for the contrary the recent event of the arrival from Melbourne of a deputation from the anti-transportation league in order to help Sydney in promoting its good cause the instant his drift was detected the speaker Dr. Sir Charles Nicholson apprehensive doubtless of some undesirable scene on that too sensational subject rose to call parentarily the honorable member to order and to the non-transgression of his proper subject but all this injuriously exclusive faction had entirely disappeared from that open and junior society of Sydney which welcomes the proud three years ago and which you described so pleasantly end of section 12 section 13 personal recollections of early Melbourne and Victoria this is a Libra box recording all Libra box recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit Libra box dot org this reading by Lucy Burgoyne personal recollections of early Melbourne and Victoria by William West Garth section 13 cheap living all cheering plenty with his flowing horn led Yolo autumn reaved with nodding corn burns after the first few years of disturbing land speculation and a two general extravagance of living we settled down into a frugal folk of moderate but steady prosperity which lasted up to the general unsettlement of everything by the gold the general moderation and the cheap and plenty time that characterised it culminated in 1844 when bread was for pence the four-pound loaf rich fresh butter through pence a pound and beef and mutton one penny a good managing lady with whom I lodged in that year told me one day at dinner that a savory dish we were enjoying was a bullock's head got for nothing from her butcher and with which she hoped to keep the house figure two more days shortly before this when my friend Fennell and I house together at the West End of the town we sent one day to the neighboring slaughtering place where the custom was to sell by retail to the public the legs of mutton at five pence each as they had comparatively so little a tallow for boiling down we duly got one cooked it and found it was good no doubt it was in very great measure because money was scarce and dear that nearly everything was thus cheap I recollect the sale by auction at that time of a vacant half-acre allotment in Central Collins Street next to that on which Mr. George James wine merchant had very early erected his surpassing brick office and dwelling after some slight competition the allotment put up I think at the upset price of 300 pounds was bought by Mr. Edmund Westby for 344 pounds the amount is impressed upon me because I wondered at the time that anyone should thus throw away so much good money but my friend Westby reckoned the future more accurately than I did for within nine years after this price was hardly the 500th part of the value to cap the whole tale the lot was I think in the hands of government from having been abandoned by the original buyer who had forfeited his deposit rather than complete his supposed bad bargain according to my recollection the first of our sober community to set up a carriage and pair with Mr. Henry Moore above alluded to even his honor the superintendent had no such luxury at that time I remember looking up at that vehicle with a sense of awe possibly not without envy at what was to most of us the entirely unattainable I speak of the real Hyde Park Corner article and not the old Shanreden with which some remote squatter might at times have galloped into town poising himself with practiced and need a draughtness on nature's bush track behind a pair or more of the hundreds of nags on his run I must accept also those said anomalous early years for I recollect selling forth in 1841 from my little lodging in Lonstale Street opposite the old jail then being erected to Mr. John Hunter Patterson a spirited colonist at the earliest times drawed his splendid foreign hand through the trackless bush into town from the direction of the moony ponds religion interests our small society in its upward struggle received a distinctly great impetuous for good by the session in 1848 of the First Lord Bishop of the colony Dr. Charles Perry he exhibited a rare energy in the cause of his divine master and he frankly and genuinely sought and recognized that master's church far beyond the pale of the bishop's own section of it so far at least as the rules of that section would permit but the good Bishop liberal as he was in one direction yet failed to reach the full width of colonial sentiment in that respect when he refused to reciprocate the courtesy visit of his Roman Catholic brother he is credited with having given his reason namely that in his view the Roman Church belonged to the synagogue of Satan surely a very venturesome assertion of so vast a part of Christianity and of the power and civilization of the world we might say at times of bishops as is so often said of judges that when they have to make any unusual or unexpected decision they had best not give the reasons I've witnessed a very different sense of duty and one to which I must confess a preference when we were at Lugano an inland town of tenor it situated a few miles from Santa Cruz where our good Coptic halted for six hours to replenish her coal thus permitting her passengers a sure excursion a polite elderly gentleman apparently the sole occupant of the Lugano hotel whose decidedly clerical aspect together with that simple white-neck band which Catholics claim is solely their own made us at once sit down as Roman invited us to look through the inevitable cathedral the only site at the place that we found a mistake when he took occasion to allude to our dear Roman Catholic brethren we then adjudged him to be a broad-minded Anglican which was correct for as he afterwards told us he was an ex-navy chaplain the German immigration go then for and fortune play upon the prosperous helm second part Henry the 4th when I made my first home trip in 1847 I resolved to open if I possibly could German immigration to Port Phillip quite a number had already been settled some from the earliest years in South Australia where their industry frugality sobriety and general good conduct had made them excellent colonists this favourable testimony was confirmed to me by correspondence on the subject with my late much lamented friend Alexander Al elder one of South Australia's earliest most esteemed and most successful colonists my first step on arrival was to write to the commissioners of emigration and officiates since dispensed with pointing out this South Australian success and suggesting that a certain charge upon the colonial lane fund authorised in special cases of immigrants and aid of 18 pounds a head I think might be made applicable to German vine dresses immigrating to Port Phillip in due course I received a most cordial reply from the secretary mr. afterwards sir Steven Walcott to the effect that Lord Gray then colonial secretary highly approved at the project and that the aid asked for would be forthcoming third properly qualified German vine dresses armed with this letter I went to Hamburg with introductions to Mrs. John Caesar Goadfroy and son at that time the chief ship owners of the city they were evidently well-disposed and had been I think concerned in the previous outflow to Adelaide as they referred me to mr. Edward Delius of Bremen who had been an agent in the work my visit to Delius resulted in my proceeding at once to Celestia where I got as far as legnets whose gilded or tin-covered minarets reminded me that I was approaching a fanciful or gorgeous east here I met a number of the peasantry all eager to hear about Australia friends of some of them being already there hearing that a Moravian headquarters was also there I introduced myself stating that I was a subject doll and personally acquainted with their brother Moravian mr. Latrobe our superintendent I found other Latrobe's there his relatives all namesakes several of the bodies spoke good English and so I got fairly on with the peasantry explaining as to the class entitled to the assistance in emigrating and that to vine breezes only would the aid apply so as to enable the messes Goadfroy to give them a free passage I left them with the understanding that they would make up a party and communicate with Delius about six months later I went again to Hamburg this time to see the first party away they were in a good deal of trouble for most of them in spite of all advice had clung to old family lumber things mostly quite unsuited to Australia and the carriage cost of which drawn their narrow means at every stage but worst of all the cholera was then raging in Hamburg and it attacked several of the party during some few days while they waited under such shelter as they could improvise until the ship could take them Delius and I visited them to cheer them with the near prospect of the sunshine and plenty of Australia a rather motley crew was the first German party landed at Melbourne I fear they were not all vine dresses but the difficulty was to get them to describe themselves as such even when they were so this was also as hard upon them as for an Indian Brahman to write himself down a low-caste Hindu upon any pretense they would class themselves as of some trade and one who doubtless expected great things from it entered himself to the serious damage of our case as doctor of philosophy there was considerable difficulty and delay in getting the grant Mr. Latrobe helped us as much as he conscientiously could of course the said doctor had to be excluded and others within but eventually a substantial sum was handed to the shippers sufficient to encourage them to continue the business several expeditions larger or smaller followed I have no record of their total one of their great delights was the super abundance of fresh beef and mutton our ever active colonists Dr. Thompson of Geelong who took great interest in Germans invited a party of them just arrived to Geelong where he gave them a supper upon the grass around his pretty residence killing and roasting a large fat sheep and serving out chops and all the rest of it and live at him one man was noticed to have eaten a couple of pounds weight right off and no doubt he felt in consequence like the boy in punch just as though his jacket were button my latest steamed friend Mr. Otto kneehouse himself one of the immigrating throng although not of the very first party gave me from his complete mastery of English most material helping in managing their affairs I had afterwards the pleasant duty of recommending him to our first colonial secretary captain Lonsdale for a just a ship at the peace to the great satisfaction and convenience of these co-immigrant countrymen I am under much life obligation also to Mr. Bra who long acted and I hope still acts as a solicitor amongst the Germans but the grand prize for these Germans was the acquisition of land accordingly captain Stanley Carr then on a visit with the German Prince of Schleswig Holstein and myself took up in trust for such Germans as desired it and had the means of payment one of the square miles of surveyed land as yet unapplied for about 12 miles north of Melbourne which was divided amongst them in lots as agreed upon and there they are to this day a thriving community when in company with no house my wife and I visited them in 1857 just before finally quitting the colony we found considerable progress in the form of a scattered village with a little Lutheran church and some show of gardening and cultivation they seemed delighted to stick to their Germans speaking and would not even try to speak English one amusing feature in the scramble as to allotments was that each tried in most cases to get trees stones and rocks in preference to clear ground as if so much additional wealth the trees might have had value for firewood but in the other items they had probably more than they bargain for we secured the land for them at a pound and acre and the fact that they being so largely settled upon it raised its value at once considerably all the land thereabouts has now risen to many times dispersed cost many more Germans have since as I understand settled upon other land the exact value of the German immigration to Australia may be to us a differing estimate but I think we mostly give it a decided welcome Lord Gray as I recollect was attacked in Parliament by the political opposition for thus spending money on foreigners which might have better gone to our own destitute etc etc and I myself was repeatedly so attacked but always in a like merely political opposite way when anything is let fly at an opponent that will serve the momentary purpose in the heat of the Oceania see contest for instance I was accused of having told the solution peasants that they were wanted to set an example of sobriety to the drunken Irish but I easily escaped from that news by the rejoinder that if I did say anything of the kind it must have been of my own country men as an Irishman can never stand to a high lander at whiskey the true point at the question is the denationalizing of our race which is so seriously threatened for example by the import of Chinese we know that something a French Flemish Dutch and Danish North along with the leading dash of German all grafted on the old British stock having involved the modern Englishman substantially therefore we are only reopening this useful manufacturer which was effectively begun for England 15 centuries back the German Prince come over gentle kind and noble stock pericles one of the pleasant incidents to vary our social life was the arrival in 1850 at the young Prince of Schleswig Holstein to whom they are occurred during the German dynastic confusion that fired the revolutionary year 1848 an opportunity to see the world accompanied by his guardian captain Stanley Carr he arrived by one of Mrs. go through ships from Hamburg having been swayed to some extent in selection of travel route by the fact of German immigration to Port Phillip having commenced the year before through the same firm the Prince who was in only of the age of 19 and a most amiable and ingenuous look had that charm of the true politeness of his years which left you the impression that he thought that everyone was to be preferred to himself if unfortunate in the chances of the struggle in being dropped out of his principality he was afterwards compensated in another direction for not only is his younger brother our Queen's son-in-law but one of his daughters is today Empress of Germany what a reminder as such changes of the swift passing of time and of the crowd of potentials events in these quick speeding years the Prince and his guardian landed as it were in my arms my virtue both of introductions from the Goldfrues and of my position as virtual parental head of the German flock which had begun to stream into Port Phillip unacquainted myself with the language I was able and untiringly helped as I have said by my late friend mr. No House the Prince took the thin disguise of Lieutenant Grunwald but I never heard that name accepting Captain Carr's official intimation we all called him the Prince but he was equally courteous and unassuming whatever way we addressed him it was quite touching to see the harmony that existed between Ward and Guardian the one looking up to his sage mentor with the trustful tractability of a child the other reciprocating high regard out of the depths of the ultra Tory sentiment with which long residents within German court facilities and perhaps a natural turn of mind had imbued him we have been appraised for this still lingering German high sentiment by hearing at times of the late Emperor Frederick's habit when crown Prince appalling the Princess wife and of asking when looking for her where is his wife with the transgression of court etiquette so appalling as well now to send the queried parties off into a fit there was another amusing illustration from Captain Carr he came to me once very considerably disconcerted by the report of a public meeting the day before at which he oblivious for the moment of the inevitable omnipresent English free press had offered some remarks the argus under the undiscriminating democratic pen occur its editor had reported that Captain Stanley Carr had told the meeting that the King of Prussia had told him so-and-so whereas as Carr sorrowfully complained the proper expression should have been that an exalted personage in Prussia had led him to understand so-and-so but added my friend with manifest comfort the departure from propriety was so flagrant that if the report did happen to reach the King's eyes he would never believe it of him both distinguished visitors honored me and two of my sisters who had by this time fired their brother to the land of promise with a few days residence at our cottage with its garden so full of fruit upon the Merry Creek when so many other invitations pressed we were in honor bound to this time limitation they were easily entertained with such few elegancies as we could then boast of but we were bound also even in mere good feeling to surrounding ambituous maidens to get up a ball in the Prince's honor I had my task in discriminating the comparative few of the fair hands that could possibly be called in that at the guest for even a prince could not dance forever so as to overtake all on the Prince's part every successive hand was accepted with equal readiness and every favoured maiden was duly encouraged all discouraged by faultlessly impartial courtesy in the section 13 section 14 personal recollections of early Melbourne and Victoria this is a Libra box recording all Libra box recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit Libra box.org this reading by Lucy Bergoyne personal recollections of early Melbourne and Victoria by William Westgarth section 14 black Thursday world winds of tempestuous fire milken the year 1851 had for us three memorable events first black Thursday on 6th February second the elevation of Port Phillip district into the colony of Victoria on 1st July third the discovery of gold which was practically and substantially that of Ballarat during the third week of September black Thursday has been so much written about by others that I had best confine myself to my own experiences I wrote into business as usual from the Merry Creek residence four and a half miles north of the city the weather had been unusually dry for some days with the hot wind from the northwest or the direction of what we call Sturt's Desert where hot winds in summer and almost as distinctly cold winds in midwinter were manufactured for us the heat had been increasing daily and this as we comforted ourselves was surely the climax which was to bring the inevitable reversion of the southerly blast and the restoring rain for it was felt as the hottest day in my recollection in town we did not hear of much that day although reports came from time to time of sinister looking signs from the surrounding interior whence an unusual haze or thick mist seemed to rise towards the cloudless sky some few however who were more active than others in their trading or gossiping movements became aware in the afternoon or perhaps were favoured with the news as a secret the doctor Thompson had written post-haste from Geelong to Ellison and Knight our early and leading millers and flower factors to warn them that the whole country was in flames with incalculable destruction of cereals and other products were upon the said firm at once raised the price of flower 30% the doctor had certainly earned good fee on that occasion and we must hope that he got it I returned home as usual after the day's work nothing to alarm us had even made a new approach to Melbourne as our trees were too park like in their wide scatter and our grass too much cropped off by hungry quadrupeds to expose us to any danger but feeling unusual oppression from the singularly close heat for I was a tide in woolen clothing not greatly under the winter woolen standard and which by the way serves to confirm that our dry Australian clan is not to be measured in effect like most others by mere height of the thermometer I proceeded to indulge myself for the first time in my life I think with the second refresher of my shower bath next morning accounts began to pour in from all quarters of an awful havoc in which said to say life to know small extent was lost as well as very much property there has never been throughout Australia either before or since such a day as Victoria's Black Thursday and most likely or rather most certainly it will never to its frightful extent occur again for every year with the spread of occupation brings its step in the accumulation of protectives still these fires are a terrible and frequent evil and even if the towns and settlements are safe the destruction of the grand old forests is deplorable and very many years will be indeed most sadly deployed what between the unchecked clearances of the fires and the unchecked clearances on the part of the colonists I fear that those noble gum trees the greatest and loftiest trees probably in the world so graphically described by mr. Fraud in his recent Australian tour will have but a poor chance he describes also with equal life those dangerous forest fires which are so especially frequent during the ever-recurring all deals of drought of which he had a fair sample at the time of his visit only think of eight miles of forest burnt in one fire which he witnessed and such fires frequent occurrences let us in time take warning by the example of the states and Canada where in and around more settled parts the magnificent primeval forest has entirely disappeared a lot from areas still unused as from those brought in to use when I traveled by rail from Montreal to Toronto during the British Association session at the former in 1884 a very large part of the way was through the monotonous and utterly we're some seeing at the second growth of miscellaneous small trees and underwood that had succeeded to the grand original we were told of one small town which had become famous by its good taste all good fortune in having preserved in its midst one of the ancient monarchs well what could be done to preserve Australian forests we must not deprive the people of the use of these forests but there they are for the purpose as part of the country's wealth and in quantity enough for all discreetly dealt with I would parcel out the forests into great clumps marking off adequate passages between them and only permitting for the present the latter to be dealt with with the gradual clearing of these intervals the reserved portions and the colony generally might be free in great measure from the risk of fires early Victoria from 1851 gold gold gold bright and yellow hard and cold hood I am drawing near the end of what may be fairly considered as early Melbourne and Victoria indeed I might be challenged in going beyond the memorable 1851 a year which ushers such momentous new features into the colony but considerably more than a generation has since passed and writing as I do for those who occupy today the old scene I may plead as my excuse their own view of the subject but already they regard the time I have come to as the real beginning of early Victoria while the dim distances preceding are to them a kind of age before the deluge which ordinary memories fail to fathom in keeping the personal recollections I cannot at the worst be very protracted for I quit at public life in 1853 and regretfully under the calls of business the colony itself four years later I must confine myself to some few recollections of the former brief but busy period 1851 to three of which in its multifarious rush of political and general business I might say in the well-known words of the Roman poet which have survived my classic rust core and paths Magna few provided I were allowed to greatly abate or rather perhaps in becoming modesty altogether to delete the third factor of Virgil's sentence the gold fields came upon us with almost the suddenness of the changes of dreamland we had had a slight graduation by the news in the May preceding from the sister colony of a shepherd on doctor Coors station near that earth having come upon around hundred weight of nearly pure gold this luck I presume was mainly the result of the habit most of us had begun to acquire of keeping our eyes upon the ground beneath us in consequence of Hargraves on his return from California about this time having predicted gold and subsequently fulfilled his prophecy by washing out some of the precious metal in the bathers facilities passing over trifling intermediate finds of gold as at Anderson's Creek in August Ballarat came suddenly upon us the news reached town I think on 21st September a week later a small not of us merchants who had officers on the east side of the market square including our next door neighbors messes Watson and white we're discussing what was to come of it all for well part of our employees were off to visit the diggings on leave the rest threatened to follow leave or no leave the situation had a certain convenience in the fact that almost all business was for the time at an end accepting that a buying up spades and shovels pictures and panic and anything to answer for a cradle instead of rising with the gold houses and lands in Melbourne actually fell and considerably too in the first confusion when multitudes were selling off or letting at anything they could get in order to be off to the diggings they came however a rapid recovery a few months after my friend Mr. Henry Miller sitting next me in the Legislature told me one day the two owners of cottages to whom he had lent 80 pounds each upon their respective security had begged him six months ago to take over the said property in payment and let them be off at once to the common goal of the day that he had charitably done so and that he had just resold these homes for 1000 pounds each when the tide began at supple turn a Mr. O'Farrell a quiet unpretending house agent and rent collector one of his sons afterwards came to so bad an end made promptly a large fortune by buying up leases or fee simple and in an incredible short time re-disposing of them at a great advance early ballerat all that glisters is not gold merchant of Venice let me begin upon early ballerat by stating what many may now have forgotten namely that the original and native name was ballerat or ballerat which was the pronunciation then and for some years after but our English way is to be put the emphasis on the first part of a polysyllabic word I have long remarked this practice comparing it with that of races of inferior or more or less barbarious condition who as in countless other examples in Australia and still more strikingly in New Zealand and generally I think over the world lay the emphasis on all towards the end of the word what does it mean I arrived at my solution the emphatic ending best preserves the whole word the barbarious with few ideas giving surpassing importance to words while the civilized under the crowd of ideas disregard words except as mere vehicles and traverse them easiest by the early emphasis to say nothing of dropping the after part entirely when troubled some lay long the Toranian or lowest class of language as professor Max Muller tells us preserves its root words forever taking one to another but never losing the full sound of each while all sorts of word gerrymandering liberties go on in the highest class I ventured to profound my theory to my linguistic friend Mr. Hyde Clark but he found so many divergencies in Latin and Greek and Hebrew and whatnot that I was driven to a partial reconstruction it was the busy as well as civilized race that scammed the words the Greeks and Romans that portion of them that made society or the public opinion and that consequently governs the language aboard the vulgar hurry of business life and thus gave their words a better chance of unmutilated life I have not yet been driven out of this final theory with hardly anything else to do it was as hardly possible to resist a visit with nearly everybody else to Valoran so I appeared there on the 3rd October and as senior member the Melbourne in the colonies first Parliament the first president of the recently established chamber of commerce I was of course a man in authority so mounting a gum tree stump is the only available chair or pulpit I harangued the diggers first upon the grand fortunes that had overtaken the colony and next upon they sadly wasteful ways with the little stream that ran through the Ballarat Valley I fear I did not much impress my hearers on the latter point that everyone did what was most for his immediate needs whether or not he thus sacrificed his neighbor below him next I was conducted to Gold Point which was just developing its quality in the blue clay which had been struck at no great depth below the surface I was let down into a big hole the early parent of shaft sinking given a spade and directed to apply it to a place where a diggers quick eye had detected one speck of gold there was probably he said a string of gold behind it and so it proved for out of about a pound weight of matrix which I removed on the corner of the spade I picked out seven shillings and sixpence worth of gold then I retired from the crowd and the incessant noise of cradles and ascending from the valley to the high level plane I came upon a small lake whose waters glittered peacefully in the warm sunshine at the bright spring day a tiny streamlet was still running from the lake and trickling down the small semi-precipice towards the main rivulet now sadly muddy which I had just left so near was this edge to the lake that I increased the stream by deepening its bed with my foot but I repented of this waste and restored the block because the approaching summer must be thought for and this natural reservoir was by no means deep I waited into pleasantly and invitingly cool water but had promptly to retreat from forms of leeches which attacked my feet the scene was striking although the hum of busy humanity arose from beneath not an object was visible on the higher level as I glanced around to the far west and north accepting the country's indigenous features there was not a human being not even a sheep inside around this spot has since arisen the city of Ballarat with fifty thousand people with streets buildings institutions business including an extra busy stock exchange equal to those all at least twice its population at home while the lovely lake at that time has long been fringe with residences and gardens and its waters been the scene of the regattas and other diversions of the leisure of the prosperous citizens as I rode back on my horse to town the cop and co had not yet established the leather hum stage drags for which in the impossibility of others upon the unmade roads we had reason to be thankful I'm used over all I had seen and long reaching home had concluded that ten thousand pounds a day was being taken out of Ballarat Sundays accepted that meant a product at the rate of over three millions a year in which as one of its export items the young colony was already precipitated from a total export product of only a triple above a million the year before no one was prepared to credit such a statement indeed unbelief on the point was prevalent until well on into 1852 when Bendigo had been added to Ballarat and when Melbourne was seen to be full of gold which the newly instituted gold broker was already practiced with critical eye as to quality in weighing out by the hundred or the thousand ounces and which diggers by hundreds were carrying away in their pockets in most cases entirely unrecorded to Tasmania Sydney and Adelaide there was hardly any customs record at the first and only a very partial one for a while after until the diggers ceased thus to carry off the gold upon finding that the rival brokers gave them fair and full value the yield of 1852 was estimated at no less than 15 millions how the diggers utterly inexperienced as they mostly then were came so suddenly upon such surpassingly rich drifts has never been to my mind at least satisfactorily explained unless the case be summarily affiliated to those possibilities of throwing sixes in dozen successions and such like in no one year since 1852 had the Victorian goldfields although comparatively the most productive yielded even a near approach to 15 millions Mount Alexander and Bendigo our fortune lies upon this jump Anthony and Cleopatra the following year about the same pleasant spring season I made out a second goldfields visit in company with my late friend Mr. W. M. Bell senior partner of the early firm of bells and Buchanan this time I went further inland and in the more northerly direction of Mount Alexander and Bendigo as considerable regions around were then loosely called and which are now represented respectively by the large municipalities of Cattleman and Sandhurst vast changes had taken place in the colony since my Ballarat visit there had been in the first place arrivals in multitudes first from the surrounding colonies and then from home and in a lesser influx from the Cape America and parts of Europe the tide of such threatening dimensions from China was later on the roads such as they were were crowded with passengers and with traffic chiefly in flower to the starving diggers the carriage of which to Bendigo ran up to 100 pounds a tonne indeed such was the cost of carriage that some of us estimated that a single year's total would equal the cost of making a railway of course the railway draining the labour market could only itself have been a proportionate cost nevertheless Mr. Trenchard a Melbourne solicitor projected the Melbourne Mount Alexander and Murray River railway an enterprise which after some months flutter of checkered life expired for want of support from the over busy colonists who had other far more immediately pressing needs and chances for their money the gold escort had been established by this time with an armed guard which at times included native police a force which had been the best if not the only success as yet in our civilizing efforts with the aborigines the art of digging had greatly advanced since my Balorat visit at Bendigo I inspected the White Hills where there was already regular sharp sinking to depths approaching a hundred feet the White Hills were so cool from a large ejection piled up in white mounds of a light-colored thick bed of the Aura Ferris strips in which unprecedented quantities of gold had been found descending one of the shafts I was shown the chief source of this gold namely a thin seam a small quartz grit hardly two inches in thickness and of the white quartz you accepting the lowest half inch which was brown with iron this lowest half inch had almost all the gold and the very lowest part of it where the iron brown darkened almost to black was literally crowded with gold particles the diggers now always looked for the most gold where the quartz drift showed most of iron browning mr. Selwyn had not yet explained to us our Australian gold features and those gold constants of Merchison which had to sustain so severe as shaking in Australia I scraped out gold grains with my nails and a good many with a knife within a minute when I told the claim owners that here was unlimited gold and ask what they intended to do with it all they pointed to the super incumbent mass of white stuff which was either absolutely sterile or what was practically the same had insufficient gold to pay even a run through the wash when ejected the case seemed not unlike that of the thin seams of flint nodules say nuggets which characterize the thick chalk strata of South England within which most or all the salacious matter at the entire bed has been somehow brought together I understood that this remarkable gold seam gave out not long after and that there upon the marvellous yield of Bendigo was seriously diminished as we approach this already great and busy goldfield when the hum of its business life was just breaking upon our ears but without any other disturbing intrusion to interfere with the universally indigenous scene a large kangaroo the old man all larger species started up amongst the gum tree underwood a little ahead of us and bounded away in magnificent style for the day or two afterwards as we were leaving Bendigo another feature of the colony not indigenous and by no means so pleasant was brought up to our minds to their considerable discomfort for the moment we were just clear of goldfield sounds and company and involved in the utter solitude of the primeval bush when we inspired a party approaching us on the road they numbered five all on horseback somehow the circumstances considered we had all independently concluded that there was no small chance of their being bush rangers for already the towns and goldfields the latter of course mostly spawned with these unmitigated ruffians arrived chiefly from Tasmania we discussed the chances three four possibly even five to one in our favor and considered what we should do in case even five to one failed us in the lot what we could do was the practical question we had also I think five of the party and Bell was a huge strong fellow able for a couple of ordinary mortals but what availed all that against Desperados each doubly armed with revolver and rifle we calmed ourselves as best we could as we mutually approached our salute was quarterly returned and then we found that we owed an ample apology for having for once so grievously mistaken on a spin another goldfields feature was of the most pleasing and inspiring character in no goldfield we had then visited did we ever meet with so much as one drunken person with most laudable prescience our authorities had prohibited the ingress of and the dealing in any intoxicating drink on all proclaimed goldfields the good order in consequence was quite marvellous and we seemed as if in some earthly paradise where mankind had as with one consent dropped the worst of human vices and passions but this was only so far as drink and drunkenness were concerned the rude circumstances made rude men to see no more of the prevailing convict element nor were the goldfields free from sly grog selling as it is called still the difficulties put in the way kept them thus sober of course outside the goldfields limits there was drunken right enough intensified no doubt by the enforced sobriety within troops of figures or their employees with their pockets full of gold would start for town or for the nearest public there to run up a school till the whole pile had vanished we were told of one country hotel called the porcupine whose keeper was making forty thousand pounds a year of net profit these riotous crowds at each public house indulged in such shocking excesses of language and conduct as to make mere drunkenness the very innocence of the case that with all i confess to a greatly disappointed feeling when having left the colony on a home visit early in 1853 and return late in 1854 i found that the influence of the great spirit interest had succeeded in removing all restriction from the goldfields by this time however the police and other authority were better organized so that there was a very considerable mitigation a bad effects end of section 14 section 15 personal recollections of early melbourne and victoria this is a liberal box recording all liberal box recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit liberal box.org this reading by lucy bergoyne personal recollections of early melbourne and victoria by william wescott section 15 early victorian legislation they that stand high have many blasts to shape them richard the third here you not the hum of mighty workings keeps stay you imperfect speakers mcbeth we commenced with an unpretending budget although memorable 1853 with all its gold and its progress in what went happily called the precipitation into a nation had dawned upon us the speaker of our then single chamber system one third nominees had but 400 pounds a year which is god sufficient to indicate the scale and style of other things our first choice for speaker fell upon dr palmer an early colonist of the medical profession and a good culture and bearing but who had not previously taken any prominent social position his ambition was probably stimulated by the fact that amongst the busy colonists who perhaps foresaw more work than either honor or pay there was no candidate but himself the rest of us speculated not without expected amusement as to the official attire our new dignitary would appear in probably any other of the elected members as speaker would have decided on simple evening dress as most consistent with the modern tendency to make a gentleman plain and the waiter and footman dressily conspicuous and this would perhaps have decided as to the chair in that respect for all the future but palmer we all knew to be too much of the old Tory for any surrender of that kind and there was besides just a trace of the oddly positive in him although otherwise a genial good fellow which held our promise of sport we were only half gratified he appeared in a plain quaker like that much braided coat which was understood to have gone for dress in the good old times of Charles the second a time when kings were really kings three prominent subjects came before us for legislation first that fundamental topic of interminable difference the land question second the gold fields question which was even more important then seeing that the government under pretense of old English law to the effect that all treasure trove was the crowns claim the whole gold fields as crown territory whose population had thus no rights political or fiscal except the crown chose to give such third the transportation question which under the startling emergencies at the moment was perhaps second to no other before us it was rather amusing to see how business went at first the nearly all of us were quite inexperienced in public life that mr barker our first clerk of the council took bravely to his duties and soon became a useful referee there was much looking up for authority and O'Shaughnessy indulged in many a profane joke at may having taken definite possession of speaker Palmer's brain one most decided obstacle to our legislative progress was the fact that the vast incessant tide of business thrust upon the colony made it hardly possible to spare any time for other than each one's own private concerns in my own case the only leisure I ever had then in the six days was half an hour for a walk and a thought in the early morning the entire remainder of the day and great part of the night also were one succession of private business public meetings and deputations council committees and council sittings the unprepared speeches were in due accordance doctor now sir Charles Nicholson the Sydney speaker happened to pay us a visit during these early legislative throws a baby Victoria and as I sat by him in the privileged place near the speaker's chair he remarked that prepared as he was to find a crude spectacle he had never imagined an assemblage of such helpless incompetency but in defense I took for weird lightens view that genius being mainly labor and labor mainly time the want of the last might be merely preventing the first and so it has turned out long ago so that if sir Charles who I'm glad to say is still the four were to pay another visit and try conclusions with mr service and possibly a hundred other besides he might reach a different verdict we were all confessedly terribly raw in all matters of parliamentary form one day while we were more than usually puzzled in that respect town clerk Kerr who happened to be present was continually sending to myself and others written slips suggesting the proper or common sense course I could not help thinking that if he had been but a trifle less of a party man there was no one in the colony who would have made a better speaker with his sufficiently portly person and commanding presence his impertable gravity and his well-filled head in everything required from that quarter for the position but this was an utter non-posimist with the nominees and squatting members most of whom with ebden at their head would almost rather have endured a presentable pandemonium expiry in the chair that the ultra democratic town clerk and caustic ex editor of the anti-squatter and anti-government argus some of the officials however were fairly up to their mark notably our attorney general stall now sir william the ex chief justice who both then and since has ever held the first position in ability at an interval came order to general ebden and one or two others official or unofficial my worthy friend castle collector of customs or commissioner thereof as i think he was then called was brimful of information for us all but not much of a speaker the other side of the house that of the two-thirds elected was in my memory raw throughout o'shannesys strong broke and ungainly delivery and manner had not yet been overbalanced by the solidity of these arguments johnson our third metropolitan had early descended or else condescended to pugnance snapping at the heels of the nominees as though these sacred persons had been ordinary mortals like the ruck of membership on his own side of the table by far our most vivacious member was william rutledge a port fairy who with an earnestness of manner contrasting with a merry twinkle of the eye and with a ready but utterly negligent tongue gave us many a laugh he was highly indignant on one occasion as i remember on hearing that a bet had been taken that on a particular committee day he would rise and speak more than 30 different times and he was still more angry when his informant went on to tell him that the bet had been won one of the country members whose name i am not quite sure of set us all in a row on one occasion by taking as a personal affront and very partly too as though quite intended the interruption to his speech by the arrival of a royal message from the governor another curiosity was the way in which the house adjusted itself for legislative action almost as matter of course under the instincts of the position the elected members were in fact and in principle alive opposed to the nominated and that by consequent instincts ever meant simply the government the press with similar unanimity was on the elected side that both were in the fight for the full constitutional concession which came a few years later in anything that touched squatting however the squatting representatives led by another old friend W. F. Splatt of the Wimmera went over bodily thus giving the government a small majority which as i have shown in my sketch of Mr La Trove blocked us seriously in dealing with the waste or crown lands for the benefit of the imploring tens of thousands of people sometimes by the force of our case we stole a vote from the ministerial side as when Mr afterwards judge Pullman defected upon my anti-transportation motion for transmission to the home government there was one sole exception on our elective side another old personal friend William Campbell at Bellodin who uncongenial towards the disturbing democratic prospect voted steadily for the government on this account Edward Wilson then editing the argous found for him the designation of the lost sheep of Bellodin which as from the enemy side was no bad piece of humor and it took its place in the colony's category accordingly alongside of ebden's disgustingly rich and possibly other like humor which i have forgotten one of the nominee members Mr Dunlop took me roundly to task for asserting that through a mere accident of law about treasure trove being as of all the property of the crown the government claimed to confiscate the constitutional rights of one half of the colonists i explained but the situation really explained itself the common sense as well as the political attainment of the day could not possibly tolerate such an application of all black letter to the entirely novel and unanticipated circumstances of these great and popular skull fields the elected members were compelled to threaten the only course which appeared legally open to them namely that of not voting the supplies if the gold fields regulations and receipts and expenditure all of which the government had claimed as entirely their own independent matter were not a reasonable and suitable character and in accordance with the colonial representatives views at the last however there was happily mutual agreement the protection question was early brought on of course from Geelong by my worthy old friend JF Strackham its member and both its income and for that time its exit were amusing why lose so much revenue in order to set up colonial brandy making he was asked was the domestic article we were to make such sacrifice for to be superior to the important on the contrary he replied it was because it would be inferior and must therefore be thus bonus against the superiority of the rival import so when we were to lose revenue and pay a higher price in order to substitute bad liquor for good let us still keep to the better quality at the lower price so the proposal was laughed out Strackham himself with his usual good humor joining in the laugh it would be super irrigation to go into our early legislation which is familiar to the colony in a hundred publications besides the fact that i have touched already on some of the prominent subjects or questions in which i myself took apart such as the movement against transportation the new and rather startling course in the convict prevention act and the first goal commission i have therefore exhausted my subject so far as it is properly my own and must hasten to take my leave when i first thought of this work for the delightfully complete leisure and repose of a long voyage i feared that i might find but little to say of matters of a retrospect approaching two generations but seated at last with pen in hand with the memory stirred up i had a long to exercise mercy towards my expected readers in sifting the surging crowd of recollections so as to keep to such as might have general interest i hope i have reasonably succeeded and if i have also contributed in however small a degree to the information interest or amusement of my old friends and fellow colonists i shall be abundantly repaid william weska fs scoptic at sea latitude 45 degrees south longitude 142 degrees east 25th july 1888 and this is my conclusion much adieu about nothing end of section 15