Melbourne.
Police Magistrate, Mr. James Simpson, £300 per annum; Clerk to the Bench, Mr. R. Ocock, £150 per annum; Assistant Clerk (vacant), £100 per annum; Chief-Constable, Mr. W. Wright, £100 per annum; District Constable, Thomas Clews, 3s. per diem, £54 15s. per annum; Watch-house-keepers at Melbourne and Williamstown at 3s. each per diem, £109 10s. per annum; Twelve Constables at Melbourne, and one at Williamstown at 2S. 9d. each per diem, £652 8s. 9d. per annum; Scourger, 2s. 6d. per diem, £45 12s. 6d. per annum; allowance for clothing to constables, £65 17s. 6d. per annum; stationery, printing, and furniture, £100 per annum; freight from Sydney and incidental expenses, £80 per annum.
Police Magistrates and stations were also established at Geelong and Portland as early as December 1839, with Mr. N. A. Fenwick as P.M. at the one, and Captain Fyans (soon succeeded by Mr. James Blair) at the other, each receiving £300 a year. Clerks of the Bench at these places had /jioo a year salary, the remuneration of the other subordinates was the same, and each locality had its "two-and-sixpenny scourger."
Geelong had to be content with one district and five constables, and Portland with a district and three. The minister of the law's vengeance (known as "the scourger") received a daily wage of threepence less than the ordinary policeman. The office was more of a sinecure than it is now, for the "cattings" were restricted by law to operating on insubordinate convicts, and when called into requisition, certainly never provided anything like sufficient work for so many pairs of arms. As "the scourger" in after years dropped off the estimates, an "executioner" dropped on, but this officer has, for a long time, ceased to be thus officially recognised, the "capital" and flogging services performed being paid out of the incidental expenses of the Sheriff's department. The ordinary policemen of thefirstfew years were mostly a miserable set of broken-down cripples, with an "oddman" never in trouble, occasionally amongst them; but, as a rule, they were mostly convicts free by servitude, with now and then a ticket-of-leave holder. An able-bodied civilian could, and sometimes did, in a very uncivil style, catch one of them in each hand by the collar and pitch him, "neck and crop" into one of the dangerous pools of mud and water, to be found at every street intersection, and the soaked "bobby" would scramble ashore, shake himself, and sneak away showing his teeth, but without either bark or howl. There was one very remarkable mannikin, a sergeant, Charles Swindle (not inappropriately named) a full-blown butty of a personage. He married a smart, stout stump of an immigrant girl, about his own height and make, whose lively proclivities on the voyage out procured for her the sobriquet of "Dick." "Charlie," when on his nocturnal rounds, was invariably stealthily followed by "Dick;" and as he was fond of imbibing, when unfit for duty, "Dick" would drag him home, don his clothes', borrow his lantern, and go his rounds. The half a-dozen constables she would have to visit, were generally absent from their posts, or as drunk as "Charlie," and so "Dick" continued for some time to act as her husband's proxy with impunity. One night, however, she met "the Tulip" in her wanderings, when, his sharp eye penetrating her disguise, he marched her off to the lock-up, and charged her with personating, not her husband, but a police officer in the discharge of his duty. The bonâ-fides of her motive in trying to conceal the shortcomings of her spouse, was so apparent that the matter was compromised by both "Dick" and "Charlie" being sent about their business. The ex-sergeant did not long survive his downfall, and so he died, and was hardly cold in his grave ere "Dick," now a buxom widow, soon supplied herself with another partner, who, having a little money put by, took her into the country, opened a bush public house, and, after they lived together prosperously for many a year, he left her again a widow, with half a-dozen youngsters, tolerably well provided for. "Dick," I am told, is still alive, and that her life may be a long and merry one is all the ill I wish her. At first there was no set uniform for the constabulary, and, except handcuffs dangling from a leathern belt buckled round the waist, and a staff, half waddy and half bludgeon, no other insignia of their calling was visible about them; but in 1840 an ukase was issued that the mEn were henceforth to be distinguished by wearing blue jackets, with a red stripe round the left wrist, and yellow vests, head gear ad libitum. After remaining in office for three years, Wright resigned in 1841, and was succeeded by a Mr. F. A. Falkiner, a smartish, conceited sort of young man, who had served in the police of a neighbouring colony. The change was not for the public advantage, at least so the police magistrate thought, for, though nothing was ever publicly alleged against Falkiner, Mr. Simpson took such a liking to
