About this time a young m a n named Rooney brought to town some specimens of beautifully variegated marble, a whole range of which he declared he had discovered at the River Ovens. They were presented to Superintendent Latrobe. In the year 1851 bread reached so high a price at Geelong that a meeting was held at the Theatre, Malop Street, and a "Co-operative Bread Society" started, with a capital of ,£2500 in one thousand A Provisional Committee was fifty-shilling shares, no one person to hold more than five shares. appointed to prepare rules of management, but the project fell through. On the 23rd August a sow on the farm of Mr. Holmes of the Merri Creek, gave birth to twenty young ones—an instance of fecundity hitherto unknown here, and beating little Joneses " record.
"the three
There is now (1883) in Melbourne an antique Christianised Jew named Samuel Henry, who declares himself an " Old Colonist" of the Fawkner-c«w-Batman era, and asserts that it was he w h ofirstcropped and shaved Buckley, " the wild white man," after his surrender to the Batman party at Indented Head. H e had a very tough job of it—and no wonder, for Buckley had been untouched by soap or steel for thirty years. This tonsorial feat occupied S a m the best part of a day, and spoiled a pair of sheep shears and two not over-set razors. H e was paid, though not illiberally, for he got a bottle of brandy as his hire; and; under the circumstances, the labourer was not unworthy of it. A popular error has hitherto prevailed in the colony, which it is almost a pity to destroy, but true history should be inexorable. As I have previously stated, when Mr. J. T. Smith, Melbourne's only seven times Mayor, visited England in 1858, he brought back with him to Victoria a veritable British-born ass. Port Phillip, however, possessed an anterior ass, if not of English birth, of the undoubted Anglican species. Amongst the early arrivals who squatted near Melbourne was a Mr. Sylvester, commonly known as " Paddy" Browne, who resided at Heidelberg, and depastured a small station on the Plenty. Amongst the belongings with which he cleared out from Sydney was a donkey, but whether foaled in N e w South Wales or not I cannot say. However, he was indubitably thefirstass of either British birth or pedigree ever domiciled in Port Phillip. T h e "Edouard" was turned out to grass with some young cattle in a paddock, when a party of Aborigines hove in sight, returning from the Ranges, whither they had gone to procure lyre birds' tails (now obtained only with much trouble in Gippsland, but then in abundance in all the heavy-timbered country nearer town), with which the natives carried on a commerce with the Europeans. They were in high good humour, for their hunt had laden them with spoil, and they laughed, crowed, and chattered merrily. Suddenly the darkies and the donkey confronted each other, and the meeting was a mutual surprise. T h e Natives looked upon an animal the like of which they had never before seen or heard of, and the jackass started with astonishment at the m o b of nondescript creatures before him. With English blood in his veins his courage rose to the occasion, so letting off a volley of braying, with a gallantry unusual in his race, he charged the blackfellows, who, dropping their precious booty in affright, commenced a retreat pursued by the donkey for some distance. A n d this is how the first four-footed ass got a footing in Melbourne. THE FOUNDER OF PORTLAND.
My reading and inquiries have impressed me with the conviction that notwithstanding all that has been written and orated to the contrary, the real founder of Portland was a n o w almost forgotten individual, named William Dutton. In this belief I a m confirmed by a letter written in November, 1884, to a Melbourne journal by Mr. Alexander Campbell, of South Yarra, w h o speaks chiefly from absolute personal knowledge. From it I extract thus :—" In 1832 I was asked to join a whaling shore-party going to Portland Bay, but preferred sperm-whaling as being more adventuresome. T h e coast even then was well known. M y cousin, Captain H u g h M'Lean, in command of the 'Henry,' made two or three voyages there, trading in wallaby and seal-skins to
