thundering voice, " Another word from you, and by God I'll send you to gaol for forty eight hours !" The " L a m b " subsided and m a d e himself scarce, but not so the reporter Byrne. H e waited until the Major had retired from the Bench, and then applied to another magistrate for a s u m m o n s against Major St. John for blaspheming in Court. T h e case was heard some days after, and the Major wasfined5s. for taking the name of G o d in vain. Poor Byrne, however, was made to pay the piper for his indiscretion, for in a week or two his services were unceremoniously dispensed with by M r . Cavenagh, the Herald proprietor, owing, it was believed, to the Major's underhand influence exercised against him. "WATCH-HOUSING" THE NEWSPAPERS.
Mr. John Davies, one of the best known of the early reporters, and for years employed on the Patriot and the Gazette, was on the 2nd February, 1842, sitting in the reporters' box and talking to some bystander, when the Major ordered a Sergeant of Police to turn him out amongst the crowd. This was done, and the next morning the Magistrate got hotly peppered by a newspaper paragraph ; and on Davies making his appearance in Court, the Major ordered him to be itistanier locked up in the watch-house. Here he was kept sweating for an hour, when, by St. John's direction, he was brought back to Court, and there informed that he was discharged, and the reason he was not sent to gaol until next day was the fact that the prison was overcrowded with inmates ! Davies commenced an action for false imprisonment, which was privately arranged by the intercession of mutual friends. T h e Major even sometimes had the hardihood toflyat such high game as an editor. In August, 1842, an article appeared in the Patriot, censuring in severe and offensive language the public conduct of the Major, who at once issued a summons against Mr. William Kerr, the editor, and on Kerr's appearance, in addition to a sharp scolding, to which he would permit no retort, the Major committed and sentenced him to twenty-four hours' imprisonment with hard labour in the c o m m o n gaol. Kerr was marched off to durance vile, but in the course of the afternoon was brought before Judge Willis on a writ of habeas, and discharged through an informality in the warrant of commitment. H e subsequently brought an action for false imprisonment, which was heard the following year, and obtained a verdict of ,£"50 damages. St. John had various quarrels with other editors and reporters towards w h o m he would comport himself in an insolently over-bearing manner, but they never went so far as to end in the lock-up or the gaol. MUZZLING THE MAJOR.
There was one representative of the Press, however, one of the smallest and least pretentious of the units of old journalism, in w h o m the Major, very m u c h to his astonishment, met his match, and the following amusing circumstances now see the light of print for thefirsttime. Major St. John was ostensibly a man who would as soon think of committing suicide, as trafficking in justice, in any shape or form. H e professed to entertain such a horror of bribery of every shade and degree, that he would mercilessly sack an unfortunate policeman for receiving as m u c h as a glass of beer, or afigof tobacco; and yet he gradually established a system of his own, by which for years he unblushingly, not only accepted bribes, but in some cases solicited them, where he thought there was a reasonable chance of success and concealment. Rumour of his doings in this line crept abroad, atfirstonly as big as a man's hand, but increasing from month to month and year to year, until the cloud burst and overwhelmed the offender. At an early period Mr. E. P'inn* (until recentlyfillinga government appointment in Melbourne) joined the reporting staff of the Port Phillip Herald, and rendered himself so useful to the paper, that in very changing times, when there used to be m u c h chopping and changing amongst newspapers, he remained the same through every alternation, and so by continuous attendance at the Police Court, was well-known in what was then a favourite resort for those who had and those who had not business there. H e got on tolerably well with the Major, because he was gifted with a fair share of caution, and the journal to which he was attached was the semi-official organ of the Melbourne Club, and of the would-be aristocratic coterie, of which the Major was for a
- Garryowen,
