CHAPTER LXVII. S O M E PECULIAR PEOPLE.
SYNOPSIS:—William Cooper, "The Literary Blacksmith."—•" Tom" Watson -Buckland.—James Ballingall.— Thomas Stevenson. —" Jemmy the Pieman."—M .—"Micky Mac"—" Big Mick."—•" Long M ."— Daniel Wellesley O'Donovan.
HERE are in all communities certain units of the population who may be classified as unaffiliated or individualized " o d d " fellows, in the literal acceptation of the term. In a large city like the Melbourne of to-day, the peculiarities of such people attract comparatively fp-1 little public attention, for they become merged in the great vortex of humanity, but in Melbourne, such as it was up to 1852, the reverse formed the rule, and some of the old townies, the subjects of mild eccentricities, became notabilities in their way, and were a source of much amusement and banter. S o m e of them have already appeared in these sketches, and to omit others would occasion an hiatus incompatible with completeness. T h e gap must therefore be stopped, and the revival of any names previously mentioned is for the purpose of supplying details excluded for the convenience of the narrative in other places.
i it
was known as "the literary blacksmith." His smithy was a wooden shed in Little Collins Street, he plied his muscular vocation with remunerative assiduity, and was a "striking" example to his brethren in the trade. Cooper's forge was during working hours never cold, for
WILLIAM COOPER
" From morn till night, You could hear his bellows blow ; You could hear him swing his heavy sledge, With measured beat and slow, Like a sexton ringing the village bell When the evening sun was low."
The world went on swimmingly enough with him until the incorporation of Melbourne. The tide then turned in Cooper's life, and the ebb of prosperity set in and so continued to recede until he was completely stranded. T h efirstCorporation election was a regular pitched beer battle, in which most of the successful candidates fought their way to the head of the poll through the fumes and froth of spirituous and fermented liquors. M r . Henry Condell, one of the first T o w n Councillors and Aldermen, and Melbourne's first Mayor and Legislative Representative, was a well-to do brewer, and as he jumped into the Civic arena he determined to roll himself on to the goal of his ambition astride his o w n beer casks. T h e erstwhile busy forge was n o w quenched; the welding of iron and shoeing of horses passed over to other and surer workshops, and Cooper himself went completely to the dogs. For the remainder of his life he existed mainly on fermented suction, and his downfall soon followed. For seven or eight years he was a thorough tavern cadger, in which line, as he was in his way jovial, good-humoured, and harmless to all save himself, he was regarded as a sort of street favourite, and could always c o m m a n d a liberal supply of free drinks. Fortunately for him, when he could not hold out m u c h longer, the Benevolent Asylum was opened as a refuge for the destitute, and, in 1851, "old Cooper " enjoyed the rather questionable distinction of being the " number o n e " of its inmates.
