Bourke Ward.
Alderman.—Mr Robert Hoddle.
Assessors.—Mr. R. Barry, and Captain R. H. Bunbury.
Roll Collector.—Mr. H. Richardson.
With the exception of the Roll Collectors all the above were gentlemen filling Government offices, and they gave effect to the initiatory provisions of the Act with much expedition.
The inhabited portion of Melbourne was then very limited; there being hardly a house beyond Lonsdale Street to the North, and Eastward of Russell Street was only built on in an irregularly scattered way. As for "Newtown" it was the oddest combination of cribs and cabins imaginable, and East Melbourne was quietly reposing in the womb of futurity. The Burgess List Collectors, therefore were able to make light work of what they had to do, so the compilation, publication, and revision of the names were effected in sufficient time to render the Burgess Roll available for
The First Municipal Elections
Which took place on the ist December, 1842. It was a great day in Melbourne, the precursor of many an election Saturnalia which infused life into the town, and by the simultaneous opening of purses and public-houses, sent the tap-room eloquence and the tap-room beer (one as frothy as the other) flying about in a manner that amused, if it did not edify. There used to be great fun in those days, especially when spirit merchants, well-to-do publicans, or brewers, showed their noses amongst the candidates, for they were obliged to "bleed" if not to their hearts' content, unmistakably to the contentment of their supporters, voters, and non-voters, who attended the Ward meetings in shoals, always taking care to score large "innings" wherever they were. As to open and direct bribery such a thing was rarely heard of. Such an interference with the freedom of election would have a grossness and materiality in it, from which the moral sense of a contingent of electioneering supporters would possibly recoil; but apply the consideration in a spiritual prescription, and it (the spirit) was swallowed in a manner which proved that it was not unacceptable. "Refreshments" were therefore the standing, or rather the staggering order, for days and nights before a nomination, the liquoring-up "refreshers" were in continual requisition. It is not to be understood that everyone used to get "tight" on such occasions. As has happened at many modern elections the really useful men, the soldiers who actually win the battle, are the sober, steady, persevering workers—the canvassers and voters who would scorn to take meat or drink from a candidate, and it was so then. But there was then a host of cadgers, idle, dissolute, drunken fellows, camp-followers of an election campaign, who did more injury than service, by shouting, quarrelling and drinking; and even in our present supposed Puritanical times, seldom does an election contest come off without a repetition of history in this respect. It was a peculiarity with the old Melbourne elections, especially the Civic ones, that the community was wont to divide itself into two queer combinations—for the North of Ireland and the Scotch would coalesce against the English and the South Irish—and so it would happen that the Cockney and the Corkonian would be arrayed against the Derry-boy and the Auld Reekiean. This yvas brought about by the introduction of a degraded and sordid species of partyism, engendered by selfishness, and fomented by newspapers that had personal and pecuniary purposes to serve. This discreditable cliquism was originated by two or three individuals, who had their own especial interests in view, and cleverly contrived, by an adroit mixing up of national and religious prejudices, to so operate upon the fatuity of others, as to use them as instruments in a warfare from which much good was expected, but never came. The consequence was (as will be shown in the course of this narrative) that the City Council became an arena of the most contemptible scenes, personal squabbling, and ludicrous bickerings. The insane factionism spread from the Council Chamber to the elections, where often through a rabid zealotism, the best candidates were defeated by comparative nonentities, and the commonwealth was the sufferer. To me the conclusion was irresistible that the personnel of the Newspaper Press was a fruitful cause of such a state of things. Some half-dozen proprietors, editors and assistants took an active part in public affairs. Cavenagh owned the Herald, and Fawkner the Patriot, whilst George Arden was a partner in the Gazette,
