the muster-roll, found ten of them represented by as many Martin certificates of incapacity through illness: so he put down his foot, and declared that he should thenceforth refuse to "honor the doctors' paper." Great discontent followed, the men grumbled, and Martin blustered, and protested, but when the subject came to be ventilated by Mr. W. M. Bell (the then Mayor) he abated the nuisance by declaring that if this thing were repeated, he would assume that the police as a body were so unhealthy, that they ought to be replaced by healthier men, and he should therefore have a thorough clearing out, and a new force appointed. After this the convalescence of the police improved so rapidly that the Chief-Constable had no further reason to complain. Martin's spell was broken, and the police soon arrived at the conviction that, as they now received no value for their medical money, they might as well save it, and the M.D.'s services were soon dispensed with. 'There was no police doctor for years after, and then in times, and under conditions such as rendered a repetition of the scheming trick impracticable.
Towards the end of this year, it was decided that the police of the town and district should be placed under the control of an officer of higher rank than Chief-Constable, and after due consideration and care in the selection of a suitable person, the Superintendent of the Colony conferred the office of Superintendent of Police of Melbourne and the County of Bourke, upon Mr. E. P. S. Sturt, hitherto only known as the occupier of a squatting station in the far Wrest, near South Australia. Mr. Sturt assumed office on the ist January, 1850, was enrolled on the Commission of the Peace for both town and territory, and assigned as visiting magistrate to the gaol, and subsequently to the Penal Stockade, the erection of which was commenced before the year was over. His salary was £400 a year; he was an officer of promptitude and courage, liked by his men, and trusted by the public. In the early days of Pentridge, his firmness and determination did much to suppress more than one incipient prison outbreak, and during the early days of the goldfields he rendered the State good service. As to his after career as Police Magistrate of Melbourne, and the questionable manner in which he was unceremoniously got rid of, it is for others, not me, to write. Towards the close of 1851 it was evident a total reconstruction of the police system of the colony was inevitable, and it was not long deferred.
The Mounted Police.
This force originated in 1836, by the stationing of half-a-dozen mounted troopers at as many points of thoroughfare throughout the province. The paucity of the number operated more in appearance than reality, and did little or nothing in deterring black or white marauders from their evil courses. The number was slightly and slowly increased during the next and subsequent years. In August, 1839, a batch was sent from Sydney, and in 1840 the force was put into something like established shape, and a Lieut. F. B. Russell, of the 28th Regiment, placed in command. His remuneration as such was 6s. per day, and the rank and file consisted of 1 officer, 7 sergeants, 28 troopers, 1 farrier, 1 servant, and a trooper's wife, as cook and laundress, I presume. They were all rationed at the daily rate of is. 6d., and hutted, whilst the sergeants and troopers were clothed at the rate of £5 each per annum. Except the commander and the lady, the rest were mostly ticket-of-leave prisoners, and the sergeants were allowed 2s. 4d. each per day. The privates were divided into 21 mounted and 7 dismounted troopers, the equestrians receiving 1s., and the infantry 6d. per diem, whilst the solitary member of the fair sex was supposed to work without wage, in consideration of a miserable daily dole of 6d., as "grub money." No doubt she managed to make some pickings and to pocket some unconsidered trifles about the encampment. The annual feeding of the men and woman cost £1049 7s. 6d., whilst 29 horses absorbed each 4s. per day, or £2111, in supplies of hay and oats; and though the clothing of the bipeds was done for £175, the saddling and shoeing of the quadrupeds swallowed £272 15s. per annum. The arms and ammunition were rated at £50, stationery at £10, and fuel and light at £40 yearly. This force had barracks and stabling in the Richmond paddock, and was chiefly employed in country duty, as a whole, not giving any extraordinary return for the money spent in its maintenance. Its presence, however, acted to a certain extent as a deterrent of crime in the interior. Seven years after it appears shorn of some of its fair proportions, for Lieutenant Russell and the laundress have disappeared, whilst Lieutenant Mair figures as the commandant the sergeants have lost one of their number, and the troopers are cut down from 28 to seven. Lieutenant
