impossibility. The Act required that after the granting of a certificate recommending a license, such certificate, with the ,£25 license fee, should be received at the Sydney Treasury within fourteen days after date, and in the then irregular and slow-going sailing transit between Port Phillip and Sydney, this indispensable could not be complied with. Practically, then, the law was a dead letter, or rather there was no law, and there could be no legalized retail liquor traffic. This state of things, therefore, was growing intolerable. T h e Yarra water was at times so unpalatable that the brackish fluid would be all the better for a mixture with a little aqua vita;. There was no want of grog wholesale in some of the stores, but what was the use of this for people longing for "nips." T h e grocers could not yet sell "single bottles;" nor any one in quantities under five gallons. T h e people were Maine Liquor-lawed, ex necessitate ; but as " Necessity has no law," the would-be r u m and beer bibbers grew discontented. Fawkner at last declared he would face the emergency, and chivalrously opened a public-house. H e could not be said to be a " sly "-grog seller, for there was no slyness about what he did ; and it could hardly be said that he violated any law, for there was no law practically in existence. H e became in fact what might be termed " a n innkeeper on sufferance," and he so continued until others announced that they should do likewise. T h e Police Magistrate did not well k n o w h o w to act in such an awkward conjuncture, but he awoke slowly to the expediency of granting license certificates, though in law not worth the paper they were written on. In this manner " J o h n n y " Fawkner and a couple of others were "certificated," though "unlicensed" publicans, out of which arose a dilemma to be removed only by a Bill of Indemnity, and consequently, in September, 1837, the Legislature of N e w South Wales passed an Act validating the licenses irregularly issued upon the Port Phillip certificates, and discharging the holders from any penalties incurred. T h e Police Magistrate at Melbourne was also empowered to grant regular licenses, instead of having a roundabout recourse to head-quarters.
THE FIRST HOTEL. Fawkner's Tavern was built on a portion of the Custom House Reserve, rearward of the present building, towards the intersection of William and Little Flinders Streets, on about the spot long used as a telegraph office. T h e place was then the side of a green hill, gently sloping towards the river. T h e house was erected of quartering and broad palings, with a half-paling, half-shingle roof and hard-wood flooring. It was more properly one-and-a-half than two-stories in height, for the second or upper compartment was an attic, subdivided into bedrooms or " sleeping ovens," close enough in winter, but stuffy, stifling, and almost unendurable in the hot season. T h e ground floor contained six apartments or divisions, the front quarter facing the river was specially reserved for the accommodation of the most respectable customers. T h e bar was at the back, and over the door was elevated a signboard, on which was daubed rather than painted a row of large unevenly-sized, ill-proportioned letters, which a stranger after some hesitation deciphered to be Fawkner's Hotel. This hostelry was for a time largely patronized, for that very best of reasons that there was no other place to go to; and Fawkner (who in after years was wont to inveigh loudly against anything savoring of monopoly) was then the sole grog monopolist in the country. Here he established a queer sort of table d'hote (or, as he translated it, " table hotty " ) , over which he invariably presided himself, and in distributing the viands he was not only capricious but peremptory. O n e had to take whatever the host gave him, fat or lean, under or over done ; the whimsical taste of the carver was alone consulted, and if any eater dared to have a choice or opinion or taste of his own, the knife and fork were twirled in his face, and he was snarlingly told that if he did not like what he got (though too good for him) he had better clear out and go elsewhere, the irascible little Boniface being well aware that his "elsewhere" meant "nowhere." Never was there a more inflexible adherence to the well-known adage of de oustibus ?wn est disputandum, for no parleying was permitted, and there was no appeal. But there was a more unpalatable accompaniment. Fawkner indulged in an incessant chatter upon the few public topics of the time and as his views occasionally took very peculiar turns, and his temperament was not the most tolerant he would brook no contradiction; the Fawknerian dicta should be gulped d o w n with the eatables and drinkables and if a wry face were made, an expression of dissent uttered, or a negative head-shake ventured at the knife and fork pantomime, an invitation " to m a k e tracks " was the result, and direct
