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next sought the irate Ross, and with the oil of a persuasive tongue so salved the lawyer's wounded dignity that he expressed himself as being " thoroughly satisfied." O n the day after, Judge Therry visited Black and thanked him cordially for the trouble he had taken in arranging the unpleasant difference that occurred in Court. H e added that having learned something of an intended hostile meeting, he had recourse to measures that would have prevented such being carried into effect, but he was thankful to Dr. Black for having relieved him from what would have been, under the circumstances, an extremely disagreeable duty. In March, 1845, a comical rumpus occurred between two gentlemen in the Commission of the Peace. A meeting of Territorial Magistrates was being held at the Police Office, to consider the propriety of a separation of the town and district business, which, u p to that time, had been transacted in the Court-house, whereby detriment and inconvenience were entailed upon suitors. Amongst those in attendance were M r . Edward Curr, the political Nestor of the province, and Dr. George Playne, a fashionable, youthful Club Physician. B y the term " Club " it is not meant to convey that Playne was what is known as a " Club Doctor," attending the invalid members of a Benefit Society, for a dole hardly sufficient to find the medical attendant in boots, but an habitue of the Melbourne Club, having plenty of money to spend, and knowing h o w to spend it. Whilst Curr was addressing the Chair, Playne contemptuously ejaculated the remark " paltry," whereupon Curr turned round, and looking his interrupter sternly in the face, declared " it was time he was taught to use the language of a gentleman." Playne boiled up with indignation, but with much difficulty kept his choler bottled until ten o'clock next morning, w h e n he uncorked it in the form of a challenge to the other, which was entrusted for delivery to M r . John Carre Riddell, w h o waited upon Curr and presented a written mandate, requesting an apology or the alternative to n a m e a friend. Curr declining point blank to do either, was, for his contumacy, posted at the Club. T h e following day he quietly repaired to the Police Court, and had Playne bound to the peace. Curr subsequently addressed a long letter to the newspapers, in which he elaborately vindicated himself from accepting the challenge, and certainly for reasons, the sound good sense and logic of which it would be difficult to controvert. H e considered himself more than justified in not "going out" with his challenger, because Playne was simply " a Bachelor Justice," and k n o w n only as the Secretary to the Club, whereas he (Curr) was " an ancient patriarch of the land," with fourteen children under his roof, to be provided for; and furthermore, he was of such bodily bulk, that any person capable of drawing a trigger could hardly, by any possibility, miss him. T h e conditions, domestic and corporeal between himself and Playne were so different, that no cowardice could fairly be attributed to him for declining a battle so unequal. T h e good sense of the Curr manifesto was so irresistible, that its writer secured the sympathies of the public, and after the Doctor had passed through a lively ordeal of laughing and chaffing, all recollection of his unprovoked indiscretion quickly passed away. A very amusing attempt to vindicate the offended dignity of wounded honour occurred, although I a m unable to state the precise day or year, but it was probably in 1845, or thereabout. Mr. Synnott disposed of a station at the Anakies, near Geelong, to a M r . Frederick Griffin, and amongst the chattels to be taken over, according to the Griffian notion of the bargain, were some poultry. This was disputed by the vendor, and the vendee, determining that he would not be victimized by what he considered rather " foul" play, incontinently challenged the other to mortal combat. N o w , Griffin was as m u c h of afire-eateras the other was a fire-hater; the one vowed " he'd pepper the other," and this other was thrown into an awful funk that more than half killed him. If there was a thing in the world he dreaded, it was a pistolling encounter, and what on earth he was to do he did not know. O f course, he could, if he wished, decline to meet the other, but to be publicly pilloried as a coward was only next to being shot, for he was not in heart a craven ; though overwhelmed by a species of nervousness, almost indistinguishable from fear. T h e seconds were nominated, and in the course of the preparatory arrangements, from what they had ascertained of the perturbed state of the Synnott mind, they were led to believe that it would be an absolute impossibility to bring the second m a n to the scratch, if the meeting were to be a bond-fide one. Under such exceptionable circumstances it occurred to them that a ruse would not only be excusable, but justifiable, and they consequently