the old merriment would burst upon the scene ; when some recalcitrant suitor would be committed for a few hours for contempt; or someflippantscoffer fined for allowing a refractory oath to slip through his teeth, and the Commissioner sometimes shrugged his shoulders, and indulged in a genteel yawn as if bored by ennui. I more than once fancied he felt lonesome, and would take it as a god-send if the old oyster w o m a n were to appear and re-invite him to a bout atfisticuffs.O n e day, however (25th April, 1851), within three months of the Barry exit, something did turn up to give afillipto the somnolent atmosphere of the old billiard-room. As one of the individuals involved is a respected citizen, still alive, I was in some doubt whether I should not omit it from this notice, but it was such an unparalleled occurrence, before cr since, that even at the risk of incurring his displeasure I cannot pass it over. I transcribe it verbatim from a Melbourne newspaper published the morning after it happened. "MARSDEN AND FRENCHAM V. THE REV. THOMAS BARLOW."
"This was a suit to recover the sum of ,£10, for cash paid on account of the defendant, who was a minister, attached to a Congregational Church at Collingwood. The reverend defendantfileda plea, and in this document he set forth that one of the plaintiffs (J. A. Marsden) was a blackguard, a drunkard, and a glutton. As soon as the Commissioner observed the tenor of the plea, he addressed the defendant by asking him how he dared, by an assertion of this kind, to offer an insult to the Court. As a warning to others to be more guarded, he would order the defendant, for the language he had thoughtfitto employ, to be committed to gaol for fourteen days for contempt of Court. U p o n this announcement, two or three respectable individuals came forward and entreated the Commissioner to retract his decision, as the defendant had erred more from ignorance than wilfulness, and with no intention to insult the Court. T h e Commissioner, moved by the venerable appearance of the Rev. Mr. Barlow, and the intercession of his friends, required the defendant to alter his plea, and pardoned the indiscretion. The case was ordered to stand over until the next sitting." T h e reverend defendant was served right, and it was an error of judgment for the Commissioner to let him off with impunity, for the plea was not only a gross impertinence, but a malicious libel. N o member of the community was better known and respected than the plaintiff so grossly calumniated—and as will be shown in other portions of this work, no colonist, old or new, ever served his country in more various ways. But religious disputes, like religious wars, are, as a rule, most irreligiously fought out; no quarter is given, it is a conflict to the bitter e n d — w h e n the winning side is shamelessly vituperated, and as to the loser it is va victis with a vengeance. The time had at length come when Commissioner Barry was to be divorced from the Court which he had nursed from its infancy, and for which he had conceived a kind of affection. A higher sphere was opening for the exercise of those abilities, which were in the future to secure for him a reputation that will endure in the judicial annals of Victoria. O n the 1st July, 1851, "Port Phillip" blossomed into the "Colony of Victoria," and Mr. Barry into a Solicitor-General. T h e Commissionership and he parted company for evermore. Mr. E. E. Williams was appointed his successor, and commenced duty as such on the 21st July. A n d so drops the curtain upon m y imperfect sketch of " Barry's Little-Go," and the old associations by which it was surrounded. THE POLICE COURT.
A police office is incomplete without a lock-up, for they go together as naturally as brandy and sodawater, the one acting as a corrective to the other, and both combined constituting one of the ingredients without which the existence of modern society would become an impossibility. In all m y peregrinations through the misty past of Port Phillip, the tomb-searchings and exfoliations accomplished, and the multifarious and minute enquiries prosecuted, the tracing of the early police courts and watch-houses have been the most difficult. What has been written of them is little or nothing, and even that infinitesimal quantity is absolutely mythical. T h e existence of thefirsttheatre, the identity of thefirstpound, the whereabouts of thefirstbarracks, or the construction of thefirstbreakwater, was perplexing enough in all reason ; but the sites of thefirstplaces where Justice fixed up her scales, and where the early law-breakers
