CHAPTER XV.
OLD COURT-HOUSES, OLD GAOLS, AND THE PENTRIDGE STOCKADE.
SYNOPSIS:— The Bourke Street Court-house. —The Supreme Court "Rookery." —The Provincial Rhadamanthus. —Latrobe Street Court-house. —Laying the Foundation Stone. —The Procession. —Masonic Prayer. —The Inscription. —Masonic Invocation. —The First Masonic Oration in Public. —Opening of the New Court-house. —The First Gaol. —The First Gaoler. —The Collins Street Prison. —Its First Criminals. —"The Rules" Described." —Abolition of Imprisonment for Debt. —Cessation of "The Rules." —Cost of Melbourne Gaol in 1841. —Increase of Criminals 1840-42. —A "Capital" Compromise. —A Prison Marriage. —The First Treadmill. —A Flight of Gaol-birds. —The Russell Street Prison. —The Treadmill Redivivus. —Poor Rooney's Smash. —The First Runaway Convict. —The Treadmill Described. —Escape of Criminals. —Corporal Punishment. —Discontinuance of Transports to Van Diemen's Land. —Formidable Conspiracies. —The Treadmill in Order. —"Solitary" and the Lash. —Insubordinate Stone-breakers. —"Jack Ketch" under Sentence. —"Piping" to Liberty. —A Subterranean Flight, ab inferno. —An Exciting Chase and Capture. —Wintle's Pluck, Retirement, Pension, and Death. —Pentridge Stockade. —Mr. Samuel Barrow First Superintendent. —A Pentridge Procession. —Early Prison Troubles. —Prison Breaks. —A Convict Shot Dead. —The Lash. —Attempt to Level the Stockade. —Barrow Accidently Drowned. —Mr. John Price his Successor. —Mr. Price Murdered by Convicts.
The Bourke Street Court-House.
AT the South-west corner of King and Bourke Streets there was, in early days, erected a plain-looking, store-like, brick-walled, shingle-covered building, and therein the then small business of the Crown Lands Department (controlled by Commissioners) was disposed of. The entrance at one end faced Bourke Street, and nothing could be less pretentious, less comfortable, or uglier. In the beginning of 1841, when it was known that a branch of the Supreme Court was to be established in the district, the ruling powers were driven to their wits' end as to how, and where, an apartment could be procured for the temporary accommodation of the Resident Judge and his judicial following. After a good deal of casting about, it was finally resolved to convert this place into a legal "make-shift," and the Crown Lands Commissioners, with their troopers and bailiffs, were hurried off to a wattle-and-daub shed, a rearward appurtenance of the Superintendent's establishment on Batman's Hill. So the barn underwent a partial process offittingup; and the single-roomed cottage referred to in a previous chapter as a Clerk of Works' Office behind, was transformed into "Chambers." This "rookery" then became the Supreme Court, and here it was that the wilful and wayward Judge Willis "ruled the roost." No other Judge presided there, for by a curious coincidence, the first Supreme Court, built as such in Port Phillip, was just ready for opening on the arrival of Mr. Justice Jeffcott from Sydney, to whom was accorded the rarely enjoyed privilege of making his debut as a Judge in a maiden Court-house. After the change of venue there was some intention of turning the old place into a Military Barracks, or a Police Station, but it passed into the official occupancy of the Court of Requests, where the polite and punctilious Commissioner Barry, reigned for several years amongst his small-fry officials and motley crowds of petty litigants. It was next consigned to various purposes including that of an Immigration Office, until the time came when it was compelled to disappear altogether, and make way for the premises known as the offices of the Industrial Schools and Penal Establishments.
The Latrobe Street Court-House.
There was a great deal of talk, and no little "blowing," about what a grand thing the projected New Court-house was to be, for there was no question as to the propriety of providing something like an edifice wherein the Rhadamanthus of the Province might dispense that justice which is, theoretically at least, supposed to be an ingredient of the British Constitution. Designs were prepared at the Colonial Architect's office in Sydney though issued nominally under the imprimatur of the Provincial Clerk of Works. Tenders
