wives of "constables, clerks and other persons" were similarly admitted to a share in this profitable trade.
The method of withdrawing licenses was open to objection on grounds both of law and policy. Bent pointed out that the magistrates had no power to act in the matter, but that the license was withdrawn by the Governor "simply on the report of the magistrates not stated to be made after an examination on oath or any judicial examination whatever—and that the punishment is not to take place immediately but prospectively. … As all persons taking out licenses pay to the Colonial Fund … the sum of £20 … I cannot but think that the Governor in such measures has exercised a species of Criminal Jurisdiction not only not granted to him by his Commission but expressly given to the Court of Criminal Jurisdiction."[1] The fact of prospective deprivation was generally made known by orders published in the Gazette, and these show not so much a salutary severity as deplorable capriciousness. A few examples suffice to illustrate this.
In September, 1812, Joseph Chitham, a publican of Pitt Street, lost his license because it "clearly appeared" that he had been "in the habit of purchasing and vending a base kind of spirits, clandestinely distilled, and that his conduct in other respects had been highly reprehensible".[2] There is no reference at all to any judicial proceedings upon which these opinions are based.
The case of Elizabeth Watson of York Street was more curious. The following account appears in a Government and General Order:—
"From the evidence lately brought forward on the trial of Ormsby and Eleanor Irvine, on an indictment for the wilful murder of Serjeant Robert Morrow, of His Majesty's 73rd Regiment, in a public house in York Street, Sydney, it appeared that Michael Casey, the occupier of that house, did not by any means exercise the authority which it was his duty to have done in his own house to restrain those altercations which unhappily took place and terminated in the death of a well-behaved and loyal subject: And a license having been granted to that house, in
