namesake and cousin of Daniel O'Connell, then at the zenith of his Irish political career, they acknowledged that a good deal after all might be made out of a name, and through its agency the Irish vote and Irish influence could be made to serve their purpose. The "Orange" banner was consequently muffled, the "Green" substituted, and the Orangemen of Melbourne for the nonce became apparently as ardent admirers of the detested colour, as the Prince of Orange was in reality at the "Battle of the Boyne," when he issued an order that his soldiers should pluck the green branches off the adjacent trees, stick them in their caps, and fight under the cognizance of the green cockade. Mr. William Verner was appointed Returning Officer, and the nomination was held on the 16th of April, on a hustings erected in front of the new (now old) Court House. Sir Thomas Mitchell was proposed by Mr. James Simpson, and seconded by Dr. M'Crea; Mr. A. W. Young, by Mr. J. L. Foster and Major Firebrace; Captain O'Connell by Messrs. Samuel Raymond and Thomas Wills; Mr. Edward Curr, mirabile dictu, quite unexpectedly advocating the Captain's election. Mr. Young was the only candidate who appeared in person and delivered a short address, and a poll was appointed for the 23rd at Melbourne, Geelong, and Portland.
And now, by one of those extraordinary political card tricks which some whim of chance occasionally effects, a coalition was evolved as incongruous as any political shuffle that has been accomplished since. To compare it with the veering of a weather-cock would be incorrect. Here was Edward Curr, the self-dubbed leader of "the warm-hearted and impulsive people" (the Irish), whipping in his "unlettered mob" to obey the behests of the malignant slanderers of everything Irish—the firebrand factionists who had put him out of the representation of Melbourne—the men who, according to his own empty bravado, "wore their ears through his mediation!" This gross tergiversation was never satisfactorily explained, and there could be no other supposition than that it originated in a vindictive desire to gratify some deeply buried private grudge towards one or more of the other candidates. The intervening week was a busy one. The "O'Connellites" were attended by Kerr, Mortimer, Fawkner, and a picked retinue of Scotch and North of Ireland body-guards. Curr, though working privately, as if conscience-stricken, kept himself apart from the public demonstrations. The Irish Southerners generally made up a large portion of the assemblages, and Kerr and his confrères used to ladle out to them like soup, a counterfeit soft sawder—some drippings from the Blarney stone, put through a filter of Caledonian burr. The Irish Catholic element, before so shamefully reviled, was now lauded to the skies; and it was now not only Erin-go-bragh, but everything that by any possibility could have direct or indirect connection with it, that was to be held in honour and respect. The Fawkner-cum-Kerr "Orange" organ, the Patriot, rang out in loud and shrill notes, the glories of the land of the Milesians; cracked up to the skies the great Irish Liberator, the "Father of his country," and declared the Irish to be not only the finest "peasantry," but the "greatest people" under the sun. If they only helped to return the Australian O'Connell, they would be securing the services of a second Liberator, and one who, following in the footsteps of his illustrious kinsman, would obtain for Port Phillip that which the other in a similar sense was agitating for at Home, viz., a "Repeal of the Union" with New South Wales. The credulous, good natured, impulsive Irish colonists, in their ardent hero-worship of one they trusted and revered, actually believed the arrant trash that was thrown to them like chaff. The polling was held at the Lamb Lnn, and the excitement in town was considerable. About noon there was a large gathering in Collins Street, opposite the Royal Exchange Hotel (now the Bank of New South Wales), where Mr. Kerr mounted on a table, and in a loud Aberdeen patois, essayed the rôle of an Irish stump orator. He was rapturously applauded and rushed by a Celtic guard of honor, hoisted on their shoulders, and carried off in triumph to the Patriot office. It was the most humiliating exhibition of human weakness that could be witnessed, and the Irish afterwards had good reason to repent it. It was bad enough at the first District Election, by unhorsing Ebden's carriage; but for a number of decent, well-to-do Irish Melbournians to get under Kerr and be "sat upon," was a self-imposed enthusiasm, as undignified as the author of it was unworthy. To any reflecting person having a knowledge of the Municipal and Political cabals of the period, this complimentary manifestation must have appeared a compound of the most grotesque ingredients, so unsurpassably absurd as to provoke only wonderment and laughter. The ringmaster of this political circus, was a crazy tailor, who had been accused by the very individual so exalted to the "pride of the place," of having put up a trio of would-be assassins to murder Dr. Lang at the first town election, and who, one day, some time after the present event, knocked Kerr into the channel for writing
