that more reliable narratives have not appeared. In dealing with the brief period referred to, to get at anything like accurate details of events is a weary sliddering through bog and fog, the floundering in which is beyond conception. Occasionally a streak of light appears on the horizon, but it is as the ignis fatuus, a decoy likely to lead to greater bewilderment.
There are not now (in the year of Grace, 1888) existing throughout the entire colony, perhaps, a dozen individuals who lived and moved in 1836, where Melbourne now stands, and of these not more than half are accessible for reference. Out of the six not three can tell of such matters (not to be met with in print) as the first gaol, the first police court, the first watch-house, or the first pound; and of the trio scarcely any two agree upon any single topic connected with this remote era. There was "a lost earthquake," which it took me three months to find, and my hunt after the first gaol was more tantalising. I could meet only one person to point out the particular spot whereon was erected a wooden theatre, which once flourished in Bourke Street, and no two that I have spoken with can indicate the exact scene of the first execution, at the north of Latrobe Street, though it happened in 1842. The difficulty arises from the great changes which have been effected in the style and size of the buildings, erected on places which were, forty or fifty years ago, either unoccupied areas or sparsely disfigured with one-storey brick, weather-board, or wattle-and-daub tenements of the most ricketty description. In dealing with the extraordinary metamorphoses, wrought by progressive conditions and continuous enterprise, the most tenacious memory is at fault. However, in my researches, I am happy to say that, wherever I applied for information, the most courteous co-operation was readily accorded to me. To those who kindly aided me my acknowledgments are many; and first on my list is Mr. Richard Church, Assistant Parliament Librarian, to whom I was much of a bother, but who always evinced a pleasure in obliging me. The second is Mr. Robert Russell, one of the "Old Guard " of 1836, and the first Principal Officer of Government Surveys in Port Phillip. In him I found a Thesaurus of hitherto unprinted events, and, when I questioned any of his statements, an excerpt from an old field-book, a tracing, or a pencil sketch would convince me of his correctness.
Three gentlemen in high official positions, and eminently qualified to speak authoritatively on the subject, have declared that The Chronicles have done for Melbourne what has not been done for any other city (ancient or modern) in the world, by collating in readable form all its small beginnings—the germs, in fact, of its existent constitution.
Through the kindness of Captain Benjamin Baxter, I was placed in communication with the late Mr. Robert Hoddle, so long the Head of the Port Phillip Survey department, and was favoured with a perusal of portions of a private journal, in which were jotted down some interesting minutiae relating to the formation, and naming, of the township and the streets of Melbourne. Mr. Thomas Alston, about the "straightest" pillar of the "block" in Collins Street, one of our most historic places, I can never adequately thank for all he has done in procuring me information which I should not, otherwise, have so easily obtained; and from Mr. George Coppin I gleaned a quantum of unadulterated theatrical intelligence, which can only be estimated at its proper value when it comes to be read. The late Mr. D. C. M'Arthur, the founder of the Bank of Australasia, was one of the first I consulted, and whether Board-day or not, he was always "at home" to me when I called at the bank, and ready and willing to communicate many curious facts connected with the old banking times. The same courtesy was invariably forthcoming from the late Messrs. W. Highett, the first manager of the Union Bank; W. F. A. Rucker, one of the first parents of our now large commercial community; and from Mr. J. Waugh. To two ex-members of the Legislative Council I am largely indebted—the Hon . G. F. Belcher forwarded from Geelong a file of the Port Phillip Gazette for 1839 (unattainable elsewhere), and the Hon. T. F. Hamilton briefed me with some appetizing morsels of romantic reality, about which he is the only man living who knows anything. Coming to later days, the name of Mr. John L. Currie, of "Eildon," Grey Street, St. Kilda, must not be omitted from recognition. The Editor and Artist engaged in the present publication of The Chronicles assure me that they have not only been placed in possession of valuable information, sketches, &c., by Mr. Currie, which I had not been so fortunate in unearthing, but the personal courtesy and sympathetic interest displayed by him in rendering that information as correct and complete as possible, were a source of much gratification to those gentlemen.
