"Mr. Strode must have been an enterprising printer. Among other shifts and experiments he contrived to make a roller of india-rubber, but the small quantity in town prevented him making one large enough for use. Eight years after, a London gentleman took out a patent for this discovery. Mr. Strode was the first colonial illuminating printer. At a loss for large letters in the early days, he had to cut all above four-line letters; and, after many trials, he found seasoned New Zealand pine to stand the sun and water best for his cutting. Beset with difficulties in 1839, when contending against Mr. Fawkner's weekly Patriot, and the drunkenness and insubordination of his two workmen, he performed a very miracle of labour. For six weeks he contrived, single-handed, to bring out his bi-weekly issue, without dummies, and without delay. The first finger was so inflamed with incessant picking up of type, that he had to employ the next finger. He allowed himself but two hours' sleep each night."
The first number of the Gazette was, under existing circumstances, a creditable production. Its motto was, "To Assist the Enquiring, Animate the Struggling, and Sympathize with All." It was a small four-paged publication, each page of four columns; had a show of advertisements, a very limited supply of news, English and colonial summaries of the latest intelligence, and a commercial corner. The "leader" was well written, but in it Mr. Arden hoisted a neutral flag, which, after no very long time, he found it necessary to strike. In this maiden manifesto he thus announces the course he then meant to steer:— "Politics, elsewhere the great theme of contention, particularly wherever the Press has room to exert its influence, will, in this instance, be held in abeyance; the yet comparatively infant state of our settlement affords us fair reason to withhold our direct interference or comments upon a subject so rife with disquietude; with those of other and distant territories, what have we in our industrious, painstaking, and money-making town to do?"
The first advertisement was about the "Firefly," a little steamer laid on between Melbourne and Williamstown. Mr. Lamb, the first barber, intimated his readiness to hair cut, and a Mrs. Lily was as obliging towards the public in the sale of baby clothes. The merits of two stallions, Romeo" and Young Clydesdale," were paraded by their respective owners, two "Johns," viz., M'Nall and Hodgson, and there were two Auctioneers, named Lilly and Hill, in the field. The principal store advertisers were W. F. A. Rucker, John Hodgson, J. M. Chisholm, and P. W. Welsh.
The Gazette appeared uni-weekly until April, 1839, when it was made a bi-weekly, and its charges were 10s. per quarter, or 1s. per number. Advertisements, six lines and under, 3s., and 3d. every additional line, each insertion. All "ads" were to be prepaid. Births, marriages, and deaths were inserted gratuitously for subscribers; otherwise to pay 2s. 6d. each. The first office was in Queen, and in December, 1839, it was transferred to Collins Street, next westward to the present Union Bank site, whence it shifted in a few years more westerly, and abode there until its demise. Occasionally it would issue a supplement, and on the 20th November, 1839, the following apology appeared in print "In consequence of some of our compositors being absent—Drunk—the supplement will not be published until noon to-day."
"The Port Phillip Patriot."
The indefatigable Fawkner was not to be beat; a newspaper he could, should, and would have; but delays of one kind or other supervened, and it was not until the 16th February, 1839, that his anxious dream was re-realized. For six months previously he had a compositor engaged at £2 10s. per week, and was at length able to set the man to work. Advertiser was too tame a name, and the resuscitated journal appeared under the more attractive and inspiriting designation of the Port Phillip Patriot and Melbourne Advertiser, with the following motto surmounting the leader column:—
"This is true liberty, when free born men
Having to advise the public, may speak free,
Which he who can and will, deserves high praise;
Who neither can, nor will, may hold his peace;
What can be juster in a State than this?"
