THE CHRONLCLES OF EARL Y
MELBOURNE.
989
possessed of a capital jurisdiction. T h efirstexecution did not happen until the 20th January, 1842, when two blackfellows were hanged for the murder of two sailors at Western Port. I experienced m u c h difficulty in fixing the precise locus of a certain old gaol. A veteran, w h o seldom failed m e in emergencies when appealed to, reluctantly confessed that he knew of no such prison as the one wanted, adding with a chuckle, " a very good reason, too ; for there never was one, as the first regular gaol was the brick building used as such in Collins Street West, near Spencer Street." M y reply was to this effect, " T h e West Collins Street Gaol to which you refer was the third and not the first of Melbourne's ' Bridewells.' T h e first was a large wattle and daub hut thrown together on the Government block (the area contained between King, Spencer, Bourke, and Collins Streets), and burned d o w n one night in 1838 by some black prisoners. T h e other was not occupied until January, 1840." A know-nothing shake of the head only was the tongueless response of the Oracle, never before d u m b to m e . " Well," I continued, " As you are regularly stumped, and can do nothing, I must and will have a gaol for 1839, even if obliged to erect one." Under the mingled influence of irritation and good humour, he exclaimed, " Y o u must have a gaol, must you, though there was never such a one as you suppose ? Well, then, build one, make it either a cabin or a palace if you like. Build it as big as the General Post Office, or the Parliament House. There is only myself in Melbourne that could, with any degree of authority, venture to contradict; and I promise, so help m e that whatever kind of a structure you m a y raise in print, I'll never say ' nay ' to what you do." A s m y history would be blurred by the awkward hiatus of no '39 gaol, I went to work to make one. Amongst some rare old documents lent m e by Mr. Robert Russell, was copy of a receipt for a month's rent, given by John Batman, for the use of a brick building utilized as a gaol. T h e difficulty n o w was where was this tenement situated ? In looking over a plan of Melbourne with the allotments disposed of at the primitive land auctions, with the names of the original purchasers, and the prices noted, I found that included in other Batman speculations were the half-acre lots from Collins to Flinders Streets, including the frontage to "William Street. This proved a step in the right direction; and finally, through the instrumentality of Mr. T h o m a s Halfpenny, corroborated in a slight degree by some early recollections of Mr. G. A. Mouritz, the Harbor Trust Secretary, little doubt was left that the missing '39 gaol was a two-storey stable-like building, rearward of where the Sydney Hotel has for many years stood, in William Street. In due time a true and correct description of the supposed apocryphal fastness appeared in type before the world, and the morning after, m y first visitor was the individual first referred to, w h o warmly congratulated m e on m y success as a prison architect, and declared, that having read m y lucubration, the whole thing was just as fresh in his mind as yesterday. It had completely dropped out of his memory. Nothing could possibly be more correct than m y account of the place, even to the wide slits in the boarded ceiling, through which the lady captives, lodged in the upper storey, used to amuse themselves by making not very fragrant offerings to the "lords of creation" immured beneath them.* I was m u c h perplexed in fixing the situs of thefirsttheatre in Bourke Street, known as the " Pavilion," and it was through the agency of a son of the late Richard Capper, the veteran actor, that I procured a rough sketch showing that the so-called " T e m p l e of the D r a m a " was situated in the centre of the area n o w jointly occupied by Cole's Book Arcade and Hosie's Pie Mart. In the course of m y inquiries a gentleman most positively assured m e that this theatre was placed on the land n o w burdened by the General Post Office. M y informant ought certainly be a tolerably sure authority on the point, for he was the leader of a band of the hot-blooded, overfilled larrikins of the age, w h o sallied forth one night from the Melbourne Club, and in the midst of an entertainment, attempted to capsize the structure. Still, to his chagrin, I disbelieved him, for at the time w e spoke of, the Bourke and Elizabeth Streets reserve was tenanted by a small brick edifice, which for several
- Chapter XV., Page 184.
