me with a copy of a plan of this convict kraal, or "Government block," as it came to be called, showing its inception and the alterations it underwent until 1839, and an inspection of this chart is very amusing. Here was concentrated the whole executive power of the infant colony, from its two extremes, of Police Magistrate and flagellator,for flogging was an institution then, not amongst the free, but the bond section of the population. There was no executioner then, because, until the establishment of the Supreme Court in 1841, there existed no court with a jurisdiction over capital felonies, and Port Phillip "hangings" (when there were any) were done in Sydney. Off the north-west junction of what are now known as Spencer and Little Collins Streets, Captain Lonsdale was quartered in a wattle-and-daub "Government House," very different from the palatial pile raised in South Yarra, but surrounded with a luxury of pure air, and unpoisoned by effluvia from a fetid river, about which modern Governors so feelingly complain. Lonsdale, as soon as he got a chance, moved off to a comfortable cottage in the eastern part of Richmond (now Princes') Park, where a gymnasium has for years been training rising generations in calisthenic exercises, and his vacated domicile was turned into quarters for a Lieutenant Smyth, and such officers as succeeded him in the charge of the military detachments for years stationed in the town. At the north-west corner of Spencer and Collins Streets was placed the Survey Office, and near it, in from the street, the soldiers' barracks and a few huts, enclosed by a stockade of ti-tree, in proximity to which, no doubt for protection, were two hovels used as a police office, and guard-room cum lock-up. On the north-west corner of Collins and King Streets, were marked two rows of sod-made cabins, where the soldiers were billeted before they went into barracks, and further up, near the Little Collins Street intersection, was placed the Government mechanics' work-shop, three-quarter wattle-and-daub to a quarter brick (where the forge was). Beyond this, in the same line, was the prisoner's barracks, where there is now a police station; not far from the temporary hospital, and near the corner of Bourke Street was the Clerk of Works' office, whilst in the middle of the square, as a sort of formidable head-centre, was the mansion of the overseer of roads, and the scourger squatted in a den on the site of the now Roman Catholic Church of St. Augustine. With the exception of the Clerk of Works' and Survey offices, and the Officers' quarters, the other fixtures were the-most miserable, comfortless holes, in which human beings were ever forced to live. The convict prisoners, sent in small drafts from Sydney, varied in number, never perhaps exceeding forty or fifty. These were intended for Government work and (exclusive of two or three hundred ticket-of-leave holders) for private service. They performed any mechanical or menial work required for the Government; some of them were transferred into the mounted police, and others were formed into a gang to make and repair the streets. As a rule, they were a little-good-for blackguard lot, and only for fear of the cat-o'-nine tails, never could be kept within any reasonable bounds of subordination. Captain Lonsdale, fresh from a penal colony, was not unused to this state of things, and took the world as it came philosophically enough. He certainly was not overworked; and that the New South Welsh authorities seemed to be aware of this, may be assumed from the fact of their forwarding him at the end of 1838, the following consignment of Government stores for the public service of Port Phillip:— 6 bottles of red and 6 ditto black ink, 1 bundle of quills, 1 box of wafers, 20 fathoms of red tape, and 1 quire of foolscap paper!
On the 27th of May, 1837, Mr. Robert Hoddle relieved Mr. Russell, as Principal Officer of Survey. He was also appointed a Commissioner of Crown Lands, and acted as Government auctioneer at the first public land sales. A Court of Petty Sessions was established in 1838; Quarter Sessions in May, 1839, and towards the end of the same year, Mr. James Croke arrived from England, via Sydney, and proceeded to act as Clerk of the Crown, Crown Prosecutor, and Law Adviser in Melbourne.
Arrival of Mr. Latrobe.
In June, 1839, it was publicly intimated, for the first time, that a Superintendent was to be appointed, an office likely to be bestowed on a Mr. Charles Joseph Latrobe, of whom very little was generally known, and the announcement gave dissatisfaction, as it was thought that Lieutenant-Colonel Snodgrass would be selected. However, it turned out that Mr. Latrobe was to be the man, and his arrival was looked forward to with much interest. This remarkable event came off on the 30th September, when the "Pyramus" barque arrived from Sydney, with his Honor, Mrs. Latrobe, and a Mr. Lee as Private
