Mair, a Sergeant Rose, and five troopers are established at Melbourne, whilst such important places as the Goulburn, Broken River and the Murray must be content with a sergeant and trooper; Geelong and Portland with a trooper and a corporal; Port Fairy with only a trooper; and the wild extensive country of Gippsland with—nothing. The gold developments soon rendered a re-organization and considerable increase of that corps necessary, and there was plenty of work for it for several years to come.
Native Police.
So far as actual experiment proved, the Australian Aborigine had not been a successful repressor of black or white outrages, or capturer of criminals. As a police subsidiary the modern black-tracker may be useful, though his powers in the search of white criminals have been much exaggerated. An experiment of this sort was tried in the early days, and, after being tested for years, was given up in despair as an abominable, costly toy, which did more injury than otherwise. In 1840, a notion prevailed that the inauguration of a mounted corps of blackfellows to be used as a supplementary bush police, would be a capital thing and work wonders, especially in the detection of aboriginal evil doers; and accordingly the Legislature of New South Wales voted in the Estimates for 1841, £1000 to start the experiment. This was to be appropriated to the payment of a salary of £100 to a Superintendent, and the balance for rationing, clothing, and equipping thirty-five Aborigines as policemen. The organisation was soon after effected, and the expenditure as usual in all such projects, swelled considerably. Instead of one officer the corps had a 1st, 2nd, and 3rd in command. A depot or barracks was formed at Narree-Narree-Woran, near the Coran-Warabil Range, some twenty-three miles from Melbourne, in the trans-Dandenong country, and hence it operated for years, making a great noise occasionally, its chiefs quarrelling, and in one instance, as related elsewhere, with nearly fatal results. Periodical excursions used to be taken, "cooked" reports furnished to the Superintendent, any quantity of row and bustle, with little or nothing of utility to show. Instead of the native police "force," this piece of useless extravagance should be called the "farce," for it was actually one, relieved by a touch of tragedy which sent its second officer for years to Pentridge. It went on for some time, and, to add, if possible, to the absurdity, every year lopped off some branches from the main body, whilst increasing the ornamental part until 1847, when the corps actually numbered five white officers to hector four booted and belted blackfellows, the rate of pay graduating from top to bottom at from £5 to 1s. 9d. per week!
The rank and file were thus:— Commandant, Captain H. E. P. Dana, £250 per annum; Second Officer, Mr. W. H. Walsh, £100 per annum; Third Officer, Mr. W. A. P. Dana (the Captain's brother), £60 per annum; Sergeant Henry McGregor, £40 per annum; Corporal, £20 per annum; four Privates (natives) at 3d. each per day.
Of course there were, besides, such incidentals as rations, horses, equipments, uniforms, forage, and other etceteras. The nuisance was persisted in until it became simply intolerable, when it was abated, to the regret of no one except the few individuals, black and white, pecuniarily, and even pennily interested. This miserable abortion would soon have died out, but its life was prolonged by the unexpected breaking out of the yellow fever, which so changed everything that the coloured contingent shared the same fate as other branches of the public service in a considerable augmentation.
The Post Office: Mails and Mail Robberies.
Nothing in our history can be more amusing than the queer and shabby origin from which has arisen, first by slow gradation, and subsequently by leaps and bounds, the vast, complex, and multifarious system now head-quartered in the expensively ornate pile known as the Melbourne General Post Office. The birth of this institution in Port Phillip is wrapped in a nebula of fable, which it is difficult to penetrate, and though I have been a good deal mystified in groping through the haze, I have no reason to doubt the accuracy of the following narrative. After the first settlement of the province in 1835, the few letters that arrived for the small and scattered population were taken
