Page:ChroniclesofEarlyMelbournevol.2.pdf/522

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THE CHRONICLES OF EARLY MELBOURNE.

direct to point to the real offender. Willmett protested he could identify the would-be assassin if found, and half-a-dozen fast young m e n were arrested and brought before the Police Court, bnt there was not a scintilla of proof forthcoming. T w o of them were clerks at the Treasury, and another a settler residing near the Heads. Quarry offered a reward, but no information could be procured. Accident, however, soon effected more than rewards or police could do, for Quarry intercepted a letter addressed to his wife which disclosed the name of her seducer. H e was a Mr. Edward Hodgson, and Quarry immediately sent him a challenge through Mr. F. Hinton, a brother Solicitor; but before a meeting could be arranged, Hodgson was arrested and bound over to keep the peace. During the duello negotiations there was a minor squabble between the seconds and Hodgson's friend—a Mr. A. M . Campbell—(an ex-clerk in the Insolvent Court) was ordered to enter into peace recognizances for threatening to pull the nose of the other friend, Hinton. O n the 5th November, Hodgson and his servant- one G o w — w e r e charged at the Police Court with being the perpetrators of the outrage upon Willmett. M r . Stawell appeared for the prosecution, and Mr. M o o r for the defence. But the prisoners could not be identified, and the case was dismissed. T h e general belief was that on the night of the nearly fatal occurrence, G o w had been sent by Hodgson to deliver a letter to Mrs. Quarry, arranging an elopement, and that sooner than be captured hefireda pistol at Willmett. A n action for crim. con. was next instituted against Hodgson, w h o was arrested and lodged in gaol. O n an application to the Supreme Court, the proceedings were quashed on a technicality, and he was enlarged. H e m a d e prompt use of his liberty, for he gave them leg-bail, and never re-appeared in the district. There is a sadfinaleto be told of the Willmetts and Quarry. After the lapse of some time, AVillmett, with his wife, and Quarry, with his child, sailed from Melbourne in a vessel bound for Singapore and though weeks and months flew by, nothing was ever heard of them until a few years ago, when a sailor, w h o had been for ten years sojourning with a tribe of Queensland blacks, effected his escape and fell in with a party of white settlers. From him it was ascertained that he had belonged to the same ship in which the Willmetts and the Quarrys were passengers; that she was wrecked on a coral reef; and the captain and his wife, with the others, were several days knocking about on a raft; some were drowned at sea, and others thrown on the Queensland coast, but the sailor was the only person who was saved. Mrs. Quarry remained in the colony, and some years ago w7as the landlady (under an assumed name) of a hotel in Brunswick Street, Fitzroy. About the same time (and the only time in the colony) an offended husband offered a reward for the discoverer of a literary desecration of a tombstone. O n e day there appeared in the cemetery a freshly chiselled monument thus inscribed :—" Sacred to the memory of Eliza, wife of George , departed this life 19th October, 1844. 'A faithful wife and a tender mother.'" George was not very long before he helped himself to a new " rib;" and when he, with his second better half, visited the grave of the dear departed, their moral sense was shocked by seeing as an addendum to the epitaphic scroll the words, " A n d George soon married another." Such rhyming levity drove the husband into a rage, which led to the offer of a reward, and ended in afitof delirium tremens. In 1844 Dr. Palmer resided at Richmond, and was the owner of a public-house rented to one Hayes. O n Sunday, 27th October, Palmer, being indisposed, stayed from church, and his tenant called in a state of uneasiness to say that he required to see him. A servant delivered the message, and on Palmer appearing, Hayes said his grog had run out, and he had not a drop in the bar; he therefore wished the other to sell him two gallons of brandy. Palmer complied, and Hayes said he would take half-a-dozen bottles with him, and paid 20s. as the price. Next morning Palmer entered in his books the sale of two gallons to Hayes. Nothing further was heard of the Sunday traffic for over three months, when the Doctor was rather astonished at receiving a s u m m o n s to attend the Police Court, upon a charge of selling a less quantity than two gallons of spirituous liquors, the case was heard before Major St. John, Messrs. R. W . Pohlman and James Smith, J.Ps., on the rst February, 1845, and dismissed on the ground that the information had not been laid within three months of the commission of the alleged offence. It was evident that Hayes had a " d o w n " upon his landlord for pressing him for payment