CHAPTER VI.
INTRODUCTION OF CIVIL GOVERNEMNT: FORMATION AND GROWTH OF THE PUBLIC DEPARTMENTS.— (Continued.)
SYNOPSIS:—Henry Batman's Death.—First Chief-Constable.—" The Tulip."—" Dick" and" Charlie."—Royal Mail Hotel: Its First Boniface.—First Fire Brigade.—Sergeant O'Connor as a Thief Catcher.—Dr. Martin and his Medical Certificates.—Mr. Sturt, Superintendent of Police. — The Mounted Police—Native Police; Captain Dana, Commandant. —Postal Department. — The First Post-office Building.—Postal Revenue in /Sj8.—First Mail direct to England.—First Overland Mail.—Bourke's Mail Reminiscences.—First Overland Mail to Geelong.—First Postmaster.—Mr. Ketsh's Perplexity.—Self-acting Letter Delivery.—Royal Mail Cart. — Cost of Department for 1841.—Sir George Gipps' Visit to Melbourne.—First Overland Mail to Portland.—Semi-weekly Mail to Sydney.—Loss of Mail at Yass.—New Post-office Act.—" Franking" Abolished.—First Issue of Postage Stamps.—First Public Clock. —Greening's Clock Vagaries.— Daily Mail be/ween Melbourne and Geelong.—Overland Mail Robberies.—A Lady's Predicament.—Stripped in the Bush.
The Police Force.
THE beginning of our now extensive, complicated, and highly officered police system, is interesting. The first police official was a queerish sort of original, named Joseph William Hooson, selected in Sydney, and arrived in Melbourne on the 5th October, 1836. Hooson was, for some time, a general without an army, as the only police force he had in charge was himself, often a great deal too much for him. He soon passed from having nothing to do, to out-running the constable" in more senses than one, and at length, after a four months' spell, he got to be so outrageously bumptious that the Police Magistrate "disbanded" him, and on the 7th February, 1837, gave his billet to M r . Henry Batman (John Batman's brother). T w o sub-constables were appointed, and this triad of rank and file was increased at the rate of about one per annum, for in 1839 there were only four policemen, whose special duty it was to keep guard over the lives and property of the Melbournians—though a few mounted troopers were distributed between Melbourne, Geelong, the Goulburn, Broken River, the Ovens, and the Murray. Henry Batman, w h o was too big for his berth (and died suddenly whilst enjoying a lie down in his bunk early in 1839), was replaced by M r . William Wright on the 5th August, 1838. Wright was thefirstperson gazetted as a chief-constable in the province. Unless officially, he was never known as William Wright, for he universally went under the alias of "The Tulip." Why he was so complimented, I could never make out, unless that he almost invariably wore a green cloth coat, wrought in some rough way after the fashion of the modern paget, and that he had a big bulbous purply face, somewhat carbuncularly inclined. H e had a neck nearly as thick as a bullock's, firmly set in a massive frame, which tended towards what is known as a "corporation." Crowned with a cabbage-tree hat, and screwed into a pair of cords or moleskins, and a set of stout riding boots, you had "the Tulip""ready for action at a moment's notice. Wright had brought over from V a n Diemen's Land, a familiar acquaintance with convict trickery in all its moods and tenses, and this was of good service to him in dealing with the rascaldom of the time, and the expiree and ticket-of-leave class, from which was generated three-fourths of the crime of forty years ago. If ten years younger and of slighterfigure,he would have been an invaluable police officer, and as it was, he was never equalled by any other chief-constable of Melbourne. H e was "fly" to every dodge of a reputed or actual rogue, and could scent like a sleuth-hound the trail of the horse or cattle thief, the sly grog seller or the escaped convict. In January, 1840, there were only the chief and eight constables to maintain the public peace, and in January, 1841, the police establishment of the whole province thus appears on the estimates :—
