988
THE CHRONLCLES OF EARL Y
MELBOURNE.
After I had a few chapters off m y hands, when the publication was c o m m e n c e d in the Herald, searching, writing, and printing went on in harmony. I was m u c h gratified at finding m y humble effort was most favourably received by the public generally, and in a short time I had most encouraging and complimentary assurances from quarters least expected. O n e journalistic friend (now dead) was most gushing in his anticipation of what I should do, before a line was in print. With thefirstchapter he expressed m u c h pleasure, with the second he was delighted; but when I asked him what he thought of N o . 3, he mildly shook his head, and replied with a gentle sigh, " A h , , if it be as you say, it m y friend, it is growing rather flat." I laughingly rejoined, " Well A cannot be helped ; but of one thing I m a y assure you, there is such a long, galloping excursion before m e , so many hills to be ascended, rivers to be forded, creeks to be swam, scrub to be penetrated, and ravines to be got through, that a n o w and then flat race canter will be a refreshing variation." In the afternoon of the same day, meeting a lady friend of considerable literary taste and discrimination, w h o was mistress of the "open secret" of the authorship, she congratulated m e on the incipient success I had attained, and on asking her what she thought of N o . 3, the reply was, "Nothing could be m u c h better; why, in the reading it seems to m o v e like a train." This showed m e h o w widely judges m a y differ. As weeks rattled on I became the subject of that modern newspaper nuisance known as " interviewing," not by persons desirous of squeezing opinions out of m e , but using m e for personal purposes in the way of either chronicling themselves, or accepting as facts the most preposterous fictions that could be invented. Take the following as samples:—A seedy-looking grey-bearded Israelite called one day, and exhibited something like the half of a broken scissors, declared that with it he had shaved William Buckley, the historical " wild white man," and that this was the first "barber-ous" operation in the settlement. In reply to a question, he stated in a tone of egotistical triumph, that he had crossed Bass' Straits with Fawkner, an announcement which at once put him out of court with me, for Buckley wasfirst,not only shaved, but shorn by the Batman party settled at Indented Head, to w h o m Buckley gave himself up on dissolving partnership with the Aborigines, after a thirty years' sojourn in the wilderness. O n e morning I was accosted by an individual I had not previously known, w h o declared he well knew m e . H e was desirous of detailing some particulars of early snakes. H e assured m e without a smile that on a certain Sunday morning he was "rushed" by two of these reptiles and had to run for half-a-mile, when the snakes, "bested" by hisfleetness,had to give up the hunt. It is a well ascertained fact that the Australian snakes never follow; if you bar their progress they will dash at you ; if you tread upon one it will turn and bite, or if you unknowingly feel one. you m a y pay dearly for it; but aggression upon m a n constitutes no article of the snake's creed. Another " story-teller" favoured m e with a still more incredible achievement. H e positively asserted, and was prepared to make a statutory declaration, that in October, 1839, he, with three or four families, had established himself in a temporary settlement near the present township of Whittlesea; that late one evening a girl was pounced upon by an " old m a n kangaroo," and carried off towards the Plenty Ranges. A pursuit party was at once improvised, and, after an eventful night's chase, the girl was found in a state of exhaustion, but with no more serious injuries than a few flesh wounds from tree-branches or scrub. This I noted as before, but never dreamed of printing it until now. Another " story" was on account of the first execution by hanging in Port Phillip, which, according to the narrator, came off in December, 1840, immediately before Christmas. A w o m a n had poisoned her husband, a cooper, residing in Little Bourke Street, for which she was hanged in William Street, near the n o w Victoria Market. She was conveyed to her d o o m on a dray drawn by four bullocks. T h e gallows was the limb of a wattle tree; the hangman a drunken convict, well-known as "Big Mick," w h o so bungled his work that when the culprit was turned off", the rope broke and she fell half neck-broken on the grass, whereupon " Mick," fearful of a flogging for his unhandy work, threw himself upon the writhing body and performed an act of strangulation. Beyond the existence of " Big Mick," (a notoriety of the town for ten years after), there was not an atom of truth in this yarn. It could not have been, for until 1841 there was no Court of L a w in Melbourne
