CHAPTER XIX.
OLD MELBOURNE CHARITIES.—(CONTINUED.)
SYNOPSIS: —Cognate. Societies. —Selection of Site. —First Public Meeting. —Government Grant of £1000. —The Objects of the Institution Defined. —Qualifications of Members. —Conjunction of Two Ecclesiastical Planets. —The Transit of Two Celestial Bodies. —Tender for Building Accepted. —Brown and Ramsden, Contractors. —Foundation Ceremony Fixed for 24th June, 1851. —Roman Catholic Bishop Refuses to Attend Ceremony. —Occultation of the Ecclesiastical Planets. —Religious Dissensions. —Roman Catholic Protest. —Withdrawal of Public Bodies from Procession. —Laying the Foundation Stone. —The Procession Described. —Masonic Invocations. —The Inscription. —The Rev. Moses Rintel Makes Oration. —Masonic and Other Dinners. —First Annual Meeting. —Acceptance of Plans and Tender. —Complelion of Contract. —The Opening Ball. —System of Management. —The "Literary Blacksmith" First Inmate. —First Board of Management. —Reports for 1851 and 1887. —The "St. James'" "Visiting" and Kindred Societies.
The Benevolent Asylum.
THOUGH loaferism, as it is termed, existed from the earliest times, the professional mendicant was almost a nonentity until the gold discoveries, so that beggars and nuggets may be said to have appeared simultaneously. There, however, prevailed a certain amount of distress amongst individuals too honest to steal, but too proud to ask openly for alms; and much misery would have been privately endured but for the praiseworthy and humane efforts of three small Societies, known as The St. James', The Friendly Brothers, and The Stranger's Friend. Their members solicited the offerings of the charitable, and were instrumental in doing "good by stealth," when their recompense was not "fame," but trouble, cheered by the consciousness of performing a duty which would sooner or later bring its own reward. Destitution increased to such an extent as to indicate that the establishment of an Institution for the succour of the aged and infirm, crushed down by the cold hand of poverty, was an inevitable necessity. On the 1st June, 1848, Mr. John Thos. Smith, a member of the Corporation, carried in the City Council a motion for an Address to the Governor, praying His Excellency to propose to the Legislative Council of New South Wales the appropriation of a sum of money towards the erection of a Benevolent Asylum in Melbourne, and to sanction the grant of a suitable site for the Institution. His Honor the Superintendent of the Province was asked to recommend the same. Mr. Smith exerted himself to promote this object, and was fortunate in securing the co-operation of several influential ministers of religion. The Superintendent, a kind-hearted man, cordially complied with the request of the Council, and on the 6th September, His Honor received a communication from the Colonial Secretary, expressing a willingness of the Government to grant an Asylum site, and suggesting "that the selection be made in an unobjectionable locality." Nothing further was done for nearly a year, though the want of the Institution grew more pressing. The City Council nominated a Committee to select a locality whereon to have the building erected; and in August, 1849, they recommended the spot where the Institution now stands. The three Societies referred to were put to great straits to provide shelter for the increasing pauperism, and the old building at the corner of the Western Market Reserve, which had been used as a police-office, was applied for to the Corporation to have it converted into a temporary Asylum, pending the erection of the contemplated establishment. The City Council ascertained that the shanty was Government property, fixed on a reserve appropriated to market purposes, so that neither the valueless chattel nor the freehold could be alienated; and so the intention of the Good Samaritans was frustrated. The Corporation might have given it, for neither the Government nor anybody else would have objected, but with a strange inconsistency the shed was soon after rented to Mr. Graves, a sail-maker, who used it as a workshop and warehouse for years.
