"The Port Phillip Herald,"
A third competitor for public favour, made its début on the 3rd January, 1840, and this caused quite a gust of dissatisfaction in the minds of the two others already in possession, who gnashed their typographical teeth, and vowed to make it hot for the intruder. The projector of the new journal was Mr. George Cavenagh, who had some managerial connection with the Sydney Gazette, and not only brought with him from Sydney all the mechanical means and appliances for newspaper "running," but a ready cut-and-dry Editor in the person of the Mr. William Kerr, already frequently alluded to in this work, and who soon took up a very prominent position in the early agitations of the settlement. In appearance the new journal was superior to the others, somewhat of same size a single five-columned demy-folio sheet. It was well got up, well printed, and, like the others, hoisted a cognizance in the three English words, "Impartial, not Neutral," a motto above all others in the Anglo-Saxon tongue, perhaps the most difficult to work up to. Its first "leader" embodied a profession of the journalistic faith, of which it was to be the expounder and missionary; but in this, as in other similar cases before and since, preaching and practice have been found to be very different things. "Being altogether independent of parties and partisans [so it prefaced]-in fact ignorant of any cause for division, we purpose pursuing the even tenor of our way, the only ends we aim at being 'Our Country's, our God's, and Truth's.'" Measures, not men, were to be dealt with, and should this rule be unavoidably departed from, there should be no descending to personal abuse. If reproof were necessary, the strictures to be administered were to be tempered with courtesy. There are two "sub-leaders," one of which indicated the probable early discovery of coal at Western Port. The Herald appeared for a short time as a weekly, but the trio soon were all bi-weekly, and their rates of subscription and other charges were much alike.
Melbourne had now its three newspapers, and for the first three months, their conductors observed the amenities of journalism though under evident restraint. This good behaviour was doomed to be shortlived, for the 1st of April had hardly set in when the three gauntlets were thrown down, and they pitched into each other with a will and in a way utterly disgraceful. It would be difficult to record who was the first transgressor, though I am disposed to debit it to the gentlemanly Arden; but it little matters, for they were all soon up to the ears in the muck; pounding and pelting and abusing each other mercilessly. The hostilities waged by the "Eat–and–swill" Editors so inimitably Pickwicked by Dickens showed decent warfare by the side of the Melbourne feud; and it would be a gross libel upon the memorable Daniel O'Connell and the Dublin fisherwoman episode to place it in the same category, for one of the talkers was grandiloquently verbose, and Biddy the "lady" was choice, though not super-polite in her repartee. An anthological garland might be woven from the language indulged in, but its perfume would savour more of the stews than the conservatory, for it reeked with the aroma of the Little Flinders and Bourke Streets iniquities, the Vinge's Lane of ancient, and the Bilking Square of modern times. They might be likened to an unwholesome group of street Arabs, quarrelling in the gutter, and scooping out filth from the channel-ways, with which they bedaubed each other. For the astonishment more than the entertainment of my readers, I present a few unculled samples. The Gazette stigmatizes the Herald as a "truly despicable journal;" and adds, "We thank our friend for having shown us the hole of the hypocrite, that we may thus drag out the unclean viper, and crush it with the armed heel of justice." The Herald declares that "deplorable spirit of personality and scurrility had displayed itself in the management of the Melbourne Press," whereupon Fawkner, over his name in the Patriot, denounces the Herald as "the most intolerant, bigoted, and lyingly censorious journal in the colonies—the greatest disgrace to the Melbourne Press." The Gazette compliments the Patriot as "an old woman whose low and impudent vulgarity would do no disgrace to the forensic abilities of a Billingsgate fish-hag," and designates the "Patriotic" effusions as "the senseless tirades of a blathering old b————h." The Herald dubs the Gazette as "this contemptible rag," and the Patriot to be "as base an ingrate as ever lived," whereon the Patriot classifies the Herald as a dung-hill cock." The Gazette is gibbetted by the Herald as a consummate ass," and the Herald is written of by the Patriot as "a mean-souled
