to be filled up by the Commissioners within fourteen days of their occurrence. The Commission was invested with the supreme control of the town markets, and could purchase, accept, take, receive, and hold any lands, messuages, tenements, hereditaments, &c., for the purposes of the Act. It could elect its Chairman, make bye-laws, and appoint and remove its Treasurer, Secretary, Clerk of Markets, Inspectors or any inferior officers, and pay them reasonable salaries. It could also fix the places for holding markets, and erect market-houses, shambles, stalls, and arrange the scale of charges for using same, &c., &c.; and persons selling in other places than their own shops or dwellings, marketable commodities, except in markets, were liable to a £5 penalty. The Commission could also borrow on security of the market revenues a sum not exceeding £2000, and whenever it numbered more than seven members, a sub-committee of not less than three could be appointed, with power to exercise the functions of the whole, subject, however, to the approval of the general body, which was required to hold meetings at least once in every three months.
The requisite initiatory meeting was held at the Melbourne Police Office on the 21st January, 1841, Mr. James Simpson presiding; and there was no difference of opinion as to the pressing want of market accommodation. The resolution affirming the propriety of making the necessary application to the Governor was agreed to, and it was also resolved to bring under His Excellency's notice an omission in the laying out of the town, viz, the non-existence of any street, from Collins to Flinders Streets, at the eastern side of the square space intended to form one of the market sites, and requesting the formation of a street. [This, as previously stated, yvas primarily suggested by Mr. Russell, when Clerk of Works, and being now renewed was endorsed by the Government, and Market Street was duly proclaimed as such.] The application was forwarded in due course to Sydney, but the Executive did not seem to be in a hurry in dealing with it, for the year was yvell advanced before the Gazette notice appeared. The Vice-regal approval was at length promulgated, the town was subdivided into four Districts or Wards, the 12th October, 1841, appointed for the electoral registration before the Petty Sessions Court, and the 2nd November as election day. Major St. John as Police Magistrate yvas to act as Returning Officer and Messrs. Thomas Wills, Skene Craig, and J. B. Were were nominated Scrutineers. There was very little excitement at the election, unless amongst the free and independent supporters of Mr. John Pascoe Fayvkner, one of the candidates, who kept open house for his retainers at an old one-storied tavern known by the patriotic designation of the William Tell, situated on "The Block" in Collins Street, close by the corner of Queen Street.
The Fawknerites entered into the business with spirit, and, as their leader believed in producing a dramatic effect, he hoisted the blue colour as his cognisance, and his myrmidons, decked out in enormous blue rosettes, were to be seen shouting and jumping everywhere. As for the irrepressible candidate himself, he was almost entirely encased in blue, and absolutely ubiquitous in his endeavours to rally those upon whose votes he calculated. At this time he was a light heeled, wiry, mercurial little man, and though Lonsdale Ward was in many places cut up by rut or ravine, Fawkner kept hopping about all day, clearing every obstacle with the agility of a wallaby. Public curiosity was compelled to remain unsatisfied until the next day, when the names of the winners (without the numbers polled) were read by the Returning Officer, at the Police Court, as follows:—
The north-west (now Bourke) Ward, Dr. F. M'Crae and Mr. John Stephen; the south-west (now Lonsdale) Ward, Messrs. George Arden and J. P. Fawkner; the north-east (now Gipps) Ward, Messrs. James Simpson and James Dobson; the south-east (now Latrobe) Ward, Messrs. George Porter and John J. Peers. One Candidate was defeated in each of the Wards, i.e., Mr. William Kerr (a journalist), for Bourke; Mr. Francis Nodin (a merchant), for Lonsdale; Mr. Redmond Barry (barrister), for Gipps; and Mr. Wm. Locke (merchant), for Latrobe. It was said that Mr. Barry had been nominated without his consent or knowledge, and took no interest in the proceedings. On the whole, a very good selection was made, and one of a tolerably representative character.
The Commissioners held their first meeting at the Police Office on the 8th November, 1841, when Mr. Simpson was appointed Chairman, to the infinite dissatisfaction of Major St. John, who, as Police Magistrate, was an ex officio member, and in those days of official arrogance, he regarded the post as his almost by right; but he only scowled and sulked, and said nothing. The Commission proceeded to a consideration of the number of markets necessary, and decided on three, i.e., (1), A principal market for the sale of fruit, vegetables, fish, butchers' meat, and poultry (2), a cattle-market, and (3), a market for the
