the unpardonable liberty taken with his name; but Mr. Curr addressed the assemblage, and there was a large show of hands in his favour. Six electors, however, were mustered to ask for a poll, which was appointed for the 26th. Mr. Black, on ascertaining what had been done, very properly withdrew his candidature, so there was virtually only a nominal contest. The gross number of votes recorded at the three polling places—Melbourne, Geelong and Portland—were: For Curr, 50; Black, 12 (all in Portland). Mr. Curr was at last a member of the Legislature, and the Fawknerian freak, which wantonly occasioned so much annoyance and expense, was much deprecated. Mr. T. E. Boyd resigned at the beginning of 1846, and on the 16th January Mr. E. J. Brewster was returned in his place without opposition. His electoral sponsors were Messrs. D. S. Campbell and Robert Fennell. The ceremony occupied less than ten minutes, and there were just twenty-two persons present, including five newspaper reporters, with the officials of the Supreme and Insolvent Courts. Mr. Brewster did good service in Sydney, where some measures of a practically useful nature were passed through his exertions.
Notwithstanding the desire of Mr. Edward Curr to serve his adopted country in the Legislature, and the obstacles surmounted in placing him there, Providence willed that his tenure of the trust should be of short continuance, for, owing to a deep family bereavement (the death of his son), he was constrained to resign in May, 1846, and on the 22nd June Mr. John Leslie Foster succeeded without opposition to the vacant seat. The candidate was proposed by Mr. James Simpson, and seconded by Major Firebrace. The proceedings were conducted by Mr. R. W. Pohlman, appointed District Returning Officer, vice Mr. Verner, who had left the colony; and the public were represented by five electors, with twelve "strangers," including four reporters and as many Supreme Court subordinates. Towards the end of 1847, Dr. Lang, beset by financial troubles, tendered his resignation; and about thirty persons assembled on the 15th December to elect Mr. John Moore Airey, of Geelong, to the position. Mr. Brewster resigned in 1848, and, on the 8th March, Mr. C. H. Ebden was returned unopposed in his place.
A Political "Coup de Maitre."
The quinquennial Legislature of New South Wales expired by effluxion of time in 1848, and there was a general election in July. Hitherto, through the difficulty of obtaining the services of local politicians, the representation of the Province resembled a corpus—a "subject"—for Sydney would-be Statesmen to make experiment upon, and the present afforded a grand opportunity. A quintette of Sydneyites, like so many modern Assyrians, came down as "wolves on the fold." They were Messrs. J. P. Robinson, W. S. Boyd, Adam Bogue, Archibald Boyd, and Samuel Raymond. The first and last named were favourably known in Port Phillip—Robinson as a courteous and attentive member for the town, and Raymond as the first Deputy-Sheriff here, and one of the Provincial Bar. Mr. Leslie Foster, a late member and a resident, was satisfied to accept a renewal of his seat, and he, with the Boyds Bogue and Raymond, made up just the District number, whilst Robinson was again a candidate for the suffrages of the Melbournians, now by the favour of Her Majesty swollen to full-fledged citizens. The plan was nicely arranged, but, as the sequel will show, it was blown away like a house of cards.
The political representation of Port Phillip in the Council at Sydney was pernicious. The Separation movement was thwarted, the transportation question trifled with, financial injustice continued, and the interest of the Southern were always made subservient to those of the Middle District. If Port Phillip had had as its members half-a-dozen Pitts, Peels, or Gladstones, instead of as many mediocre, shifty and shifting self-servers, with whom ex necessitate she was obliged to be satisfied, even they would have been outnumbered as one to five, and, in voting power, nowhere. The difficulty was to cope with this state of things and in this fermenting process of dissatisfaction the election campaign opened. The District nomination was fixed for the 20th July, and a few of the leading public men held a consultation, and decided that an effort should be made to return an empty writ to head-quarters as the most emphatic mode of demonstrating the absurdity of continuing a system which was universally regarded as a "mockery, a delusion, and a snare." At noon, Mr. R. w. Pohlman, the Returning Officer, was in attendance in the Supreme Court porch. The writ was read and the proposition of candidates invited, when Mr. Thomas Wills proposed, and Mr. E. E. Williams seconded, the nomination of Mr. J. L. Foster.
