and traded to the Clarence River and to Melbourne. Came to Adelaide in the brig "Flash," and entered the Government service, as convict guard at Yatala, in 1856; promoted to Chief Warder in 1857, and to the keepership of Port Augusta gaol in 1868. Appointed Governor of the Adelaide Gaol in 1873, and Justice of the Peace in 1882. In his public capacity Mr. Howell is regarded as one of the best and most affable men in the Government service; and, as he tempers justice with mercy, is invariably spoken well of by those unfortunates consigned to his care. The composition of poetry will probably be deemed out of place in the Governor of a gaol, but the Divine afflatus is no respecter of persons, and from sources unthought of and least expected does it exhibit itself with no uncertain sound. Mr. Howell will, if we mistake not, yet be heard of in the far future, when his ideas are strengthened by time and experience, as a poet of the highest order, and one of Whom South Australia need not be ashamed.
William Ranson Mortlock,
A VERY old colonist and prominent pastoralist, died at Avenel House, Medindie, on May 10, 1884. He arrived in Australia in 1843, and, after visiting the adjacent colonies, bought a squatting property near Port Lincoln, where he settled for some years. He was also an extensive holder of land in the North. Mr. Mortlock first sat in Parliament in 1868, when he represented the Flinders district in that and the two remaining sessions. He was absent from the next Parliament, being on a visit to England, but on his return to the colony was again elected for the Flinders electorate. Shortly before his death, at the general election he was rejected by his old constituents, and in speaking at the subsequent formal declaration of the poll he was deeply affected by his defeat. Many of his friends sympathised with him, and
