The Chronicles of Early Melbourne/Volume 2/Chapter 51
CHAPTER LI.
SOLDIERS, CEMETERIES, POUNDS, AND APOSTLES.
SYNOPSIS:— Colonel Collins Garrison Orders. —Departure of Colonel Collins. —Military Changes. —The First Military Court-martial. —The First Military Funeral. —Military Gossip. —Burial Grounds. —Burial Hill. —Early Interments. —The First Monolith. —The Jewish Burial Ground. —Funeral of Miss Davis. —Prayers Read by Mr. Michael Cashmore —Mr. Lewis Hart's Interment. —The Old Cemetery. —The First Male Interment There. —The First Female Interment. —John Batman's Funeral. —Memoranda of Cemetery Grants to Denominations. —A Funereal Tariff. —Primitive Funerals and Undertakers. —The First "Professional" Undertaker. —Resurrectionism and Ghosts. —Abduction of a "Lady" Corpse. —Point Ormond Burial Ground. —The Graves at King's Island. —Melbourne General Cemetery. —Pounds. —A Marvellous Magpie.
IN 1878 there was issued from the Government Printing Office a Parliamentary paper intituled, Early Historical Records of Port Phillip, and it would not be easy to find more curiously interesting reading, as it treats of the exploration of Port Phillip by Mr. Charles Grimes, the New South Wales Surveyor-General, in 1802-3; and the abortive attempt of Lieut. Governor Collins to found a convict colony at Sorrento in 1803-4. Its contents are three-fold: (a) The Journal of Exploration, (b) The Order Book of Collins, and (c) The Journal of the Rev. Robert Knopwood, Episcopalian chaplain, appointed to the cure of souls in the projected settlement. Such historically invaluable relics would, in all probability, have never seen the light of publicity but for the praiseworthy industry of Mr. John J. Shillinglaw, the Secretary of the Central Board of Health, who succeeded in disinterring in the Colonial Secretary's office (Sydney), the Grimes' Reliquiæ. The second mentioned was supplied by Mr. C. E. Collett, Sub-librarian of the Tasmanian Parliament; and the third is a presentation to the Victorian Government by Mr. J. E. Calder, an ex-Surveyor-General of Tasmania.
I avail myself of the opportunity now offered to testify to the laudable public spirit manifested by Mr. Shillinglaw (no mean authority himself in all appertaining to our early annals), and to thank him for his invariable courtesy to myself, his readiness to oblige whenever consulted, and the kindly interest taken in my efforts to save from oblivion many a by-gone incident that would otherwise have been irretrievably lost.
Military.
The first armed force stationed in Port Phillip dates back more than thirty years before the arrival of either Batman or Fawkner. Accompanying the Collins Convict Expedition was a detachment of Royal Marines, the rank and file of which consisted of:— First Lieutenant, William Sladden; Second Lieutenant, J. M. Johnson; Third Lieutenant, Edward Lord; Sergeants, 3; Corporals, 3; Drummer, 1 Fifer, 1; and 39 privates. Their duty was to maintain order, and protect life and property at the Convict Settlement at Sorrento, where they were under canvas. David Collins, the Commandant or Governor of the little colony, was also a Colonel of Marines, and on the 18th October, 1803, as Commander-in-Chief, he issued the subjoined "Garrison Orders":—
"The Lieut.-Colonel on taking command of the detachment of Royal Marines, landed at Port Phillip, entertains a hope that they will all feel a just sense of the honourable situation in which they are placed. They have been selected by their Sovereign to compose the garrison for the protection of this infant settlement. He trusts this will stimulate them to use their best exertions, and enable the Lieut.-Colonel to report to the Secretary of State that such a trust has not been unworthily placed in them. He hopes they all know that obedience to orders, sobriety, and cleanliness form the
The salutary lessons instilled by this proclamation may be learned with advantage now as then, and as a rule they were acted up to by those for whose benefit they were intended, though there was occasionally a notable exception. It was only on the following day (the 19th) that the Commandant was obliged to constitute a tribunal for the trial of delinquents, in the form of a Garrison Court-Martial at 11 a.m., at Lieut. Johnson's marquee, when a prisoner was tried for drunkenness and insubordination, and the result was thus publicly announced on the 23rd:—
"Sergt. Richard, sergeant of the 1st parade company having been found guilty of the crime with which he stood charged before a Court-Martial, was sentenced to be reduced to the pay and duty of a a private centinel, but some alleviating circumstances having appeared in the course of the proceedings, and in the defence offered by the prisoner, he was recommended by the Court to the clemency of the Commanding Officer, which recommendation he was pleased to confirm, and the prisoner was restored to his former situation."
A perusal of the several Garrison Orders issued by Collins during his brief stay (from 16th October, 1803, to 26th January, 1804), discloses an amusing inkling of the military life of the period, and a few extracts will be read with interest.
"23rd October.—This being the anniversary of His Majesty's accession to the throne, the detachment will assemble in front of the encampment at twelve o'clock, and fire three volleys in honour of the day, after which the guard will mount at two o'clock.
"The presence of the officer of the day being at all times indispensably requisite in the camp, he is not, on any pretence, to quit it without the knowledge of the Commanding Officer. The comfort and appearance of the military depending much upon their cleanliness, the Right Honorable the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty were pleased to admit a certain number of women to accompany their husbands on the present expedition, for the purpose of contributing to that end, by washing for the detachment. The Commanding Officer therefore directs and appoints the following women to be so employed, and in the following manner, namely:—The wife of William Bean, private, to wash for 15 persons; the wife of George Carley, private, to wash for 15 persons; the wife of James Spooner to wash for 14 persons; and as an ample supply of necessaries has been sent out with the detachment, he will not admit of any excuse for their appearing in a dirty, unsoldierlike manner, discreditable to themselves and to the corps to which they belong. The different packages and cases in which the marine stores and clothing are contained, are not, on any account, when emptied, to be destroyed or converted to any other use without the approbation of the Commanding Officer.
"1st November.—The Commanding Officer is obliged to direct that in future the allowance of spirits shall be mixed with three waters, and issued twice a day to the detachment. The officer of the day will taste it when mixed. The quarter-master will continue to receive the allowance daily from the Commissary, but he will take it into his charge, and see that it is mixed agreeable to the above order at the marine store tent.
"8th November.—The two casks at the watering-place, which have been appropriated to the use of the civil and military officers, being properly prepared to be shut up during the night, the centinel at that post will be withdrawn at seven o'clock at night, and planted there at the same hour in the morning. The keys of these casks are to be lodged with the Adjutant, and the persons concerned will attend to the regulation, and cause whatever water they may require to be got within the above hours.
"13th November.—The quarter-master will employ the tailor belonging to the detachment, and such other tailors as the Commanding Officer may appoint, in altering the clothing that became due in June last. The suits are to be fitted to the men, and made up according to the pattern established by the Admiralty. Each suit when finished is to be labelled, and put into the care of the quarter-master, until the whole are completed, when they will be issued. This work will be put in hand on Monday. A review of arms and necessaries to-morrow morning as usual, after which the Articles of War will be read.
"16th November.—A copper being erected near the watering place for cooking the provisions, and proper persons appointed to attend it, the Lieutenant Governor prohibits the making of fires for cooking the convicts' provisions, in any other part of the encampment except on the beach near the carpenter's hut, where another copper will be put up for the accommodation of the people at that end of the encampment. The superintendents will attend to this regulation.
"21st November.—The Commanding Officer is concerned to be under the necessity of establishing the following drill for the non-commissioned officers. On Wednesday from six until seven in the morning; on Saturdays from two until three in the afternoon.
"23rd November.—The Commanding Officer is surprised to observe the unsteady appearance of the men at the evening parade. This can only proceed from their determination to evade the regulations which he adopted in the hope of preventing this unsoldierlike appearance that he complains of in them, and which if persisted in will compel him not to increase the quantity of water, but reduce the quantity of spirits which is at present allowed them.
"30th November.—The Commanding Officer hopes that no one of the detachment under his command, but such an unsoldierlike character as Thomas Hodgeman, would be concerned in any dealings or transactions with the convicts. They must perceive that the bad consequences that ever must and will attend such disgraceful conduct, and which he trusts none of them will ever be guilty.
3rd December.—The detachment will parade at eleven o'clock to-morrow in the forenoon, for the purpose of attending Divine Service. The guard will in future mount on Sundays at eight o'clock in the morning. The troop will beat as usual at ten, and the Church drum at eleven in the forenoon.
"27th December.—The Commanding Officer is concerned to observe the shameful conduct of several of the soldiers of the detachment. Drunkenness is a crime that he will never pass over, and to prevent as far as in him lies their disgracing themselves, and the Royal and Honourable Corps to which they belong, by incurring the censures of Courts Martial, he directs that in future their allowance of watered spirits shall not be taken to their tents but drank at the place where it is mixed, in the presence of the officer of the day. If this regulation shall be found insufficient, he assures them that the first man who is found guilty of drunkenness by a Court-Martial shall never again receive the allowance of spirits.
"The quarter-master will immediately cause to be dug a pit, at a convenient distance from the Southernmost part of the marine line, to be used by the detachment as a privy, and they are on no account to use any other. Earth is to be thrown into it every morning."
It will be observed from this notification that what is now adopted as the modern specific for an universal nuisance, was one of very early introduction into the colony.
"3rd January, 1804.—The Commanding Officer is willing to believe that the unsoldierlike behaviour of the prisoners Rae and Andrews will never be imitated by any of the detachment. He feels it necessary to point out to them that it is the duty of all good soldiers to discountenance such a proceeding, and report it to their officers, as their concealing it may be attended with consequences very fatal to themselves, as well as injurious to the Service of their Sovereign, to whom every man has sworn and owes allegiance.
"17th January. The detachment will parade at half-past eleven in the forenoon to-morrow, and at twelve o'clock fire three volleys, it being the anniversary of the day upon which Her Majesty's birth is kept. The quarter-master will issue a new clothing to the detachment, who will wear it to-morrow."
The penal settlement was broken up on 30th January, 1804, and Collins passed away for good from the harbour of Port Phillip.
In consequence of the semi-convict element in the primitive population of Port Phillip, and the existence of un-manumitted prisoners in the Government and assigned service, the presence of a detachment of soldiers in Melbourne was indispensable, and consequently four days after the arrival of Captain Lonsdale, the first Police Magistrate and Commandant, the "Stirlingshire" from Sydney (5th October, 1836) brought Ensign King with a detachment of 30 men from the 4th Regiment, and such was Melbourne's first military garrison. In 1838 a slight augmentation was made, bringing the number up to 35 rank and file, under two subalterns, with a "band" consisting of a drummer, minus a fife or other accompaniment. In January, 1839, there was a further increase, the town was made the headquarters of a Company, and the Officers were—Captain Smith, Lieutenant Vignolles, and Ensign M'Cormac. In December, 1840, the military establishment of Port Phillip is thus classified:—Captain: Charles F. H. Smith; Lieutenant Francis Durell Vignolles; Ensign Samuel Rawsen, Present—fit for duty at Melbourne—1 Captain, 2 subalterns, 2 sergeants, 3 corporals, 1 drummer, and 26 privates. At Geelong 1 sergeant, 1 corporal, and 6 privates. On escort to Sydney—(not returned)—1 sergeant, 1 corporal, and 5 privates. Commissariat Department: Deputy Assistant Commissary General—Charles Howard.
At the commencement of 1841 Captain Smith retired from the service, and the command for the time devolved upon Lieutenant Vignolles.
In 1842 the military consisted of a detachment of the 80th Regiment, and there were stationed in Melbourne:—Captain C. Lewis; Ensign M. D. Freeman; with 2 sergeants, 1 corporal, and 37 rank and file. At Geelong : 1 sergeant, 1 corporal, 6 rank and file; and at Portland: Lieutenant H. A. Hollinsworth, 1 sergeant, 6 rank and file. Commissariat, as before.
Thus the number went on alternating, and in a few years substantially increasing, the Officers were popular, and identifying themselves with every sport, amusement, and reunion on the cards; as ready to ride in a race as to participate in a duel; to dance at a ball as to assist in putting out a fire, and on the whole considered thorough good fellows. The Non-Commissioned Officers and privates also fraternized with the townspeople. Their duty mainly consisted in supplying gaol-guards and escorts, and only on a couple of occasions were they called out to quell a popular tumult.
The military for several years were miserably barracked, the soldiers in hovels, and the Officers in huts with some, but small, pretensions to comfort. The first barracks was a clay, bark, and bush erection on the "Government block" between King and Spencer Streets; the second the old brick gaol in Collins Street West, on its vacation as a prison; the third a corrugated iron range of buildings off Spencer Street, at the end of Latrobe Street, and the present barrack site on the St. Kilda Road was not thought of until January, 1849, when an Ordnance Officer from Sydney selected it.
The first Court-Martial held in the colony was on the 25th August, 1839, presided over by Major Ryan, from Launceston, when a private named Stokes was tried for robbing a comrade, and received a sentence of seven years' transportation. The second occurred on the 9th June, 1846, when Private Warrington was convicted of the double offence of drunkenness and using abusive language to Sergeant Leary. The Report of the Court was transmitted to the Commander of the Forces at Sydney, and the final result was three months' imprisonment. The first soldier's funeral in the colony was on the 11th March, 1844. Sergeant M'Culla, of the 99th Regiment, was seized with sudden illness, and died in a few hours, presenting the indications generally attendant upon Asiatic cholera. His body turned blue, and when this got to be known, there was great alarm through the town, and rumour speedily circulated the astounding intelligence that several persons were attacked by similar symptoms, which was subsequently ascertained to be only a scare. Notwithstanding the temporary panic, M'Culla was interred in the (now) old burial ground with military honours, and a firing party of twenty placated his manes with the orthodox farewell volley.
In April, 1847, four small pieces of Ordnance were received in the town, and carriaged outside the barrack walls in Collins Street West, with their muzzles pointed towards the Yarra, as if to warn off any invading force rash enough to come up the river. There were then no intervening buildings to intercept the view.
The gold discoveries in 1851 necessitated a further increase of the military force, and consequently, on the 27th December, a reinforcement of Ensign Finch and 31 rank and file of the 11th Regiment arrived from Sydney. The immediate purpose of the addition was to enable the Officer in command (Captain Conran) to provide a Non-Commissioned Officers' guard for the Treasury, where much of the gold brought by the escorts from the diggings, used to be deposited; and an Officers' guard for the Gold Commissioners' tent at Mount Alexander. Lieutenant Maunsell was ordered to the Mount with a contingent, which was not to do any police duty. He was to have 10s., and the men 2s. 6d., extra pay per diem, an arrangement to which they could have no objection.
As with everything else, so with the military, did the immediate future work changes little expected by even the greatest wiseacre of the time.
The Old Colonist with the "marvellous memory," to whose kindness I have referred in other chapters, has favoured me with a memo. of military gossip of a highly readable kind. His style is more discursive than my sketch, and he does not limit himself to the chronological lines which I have drawn. As he writes solely from personal recollection, some discrepancies may be noticeable between him and me; but, after making all reasonable allowancies, the communication may be perused with much interest at the present day:—
"The first Garrison in Melbourne was composed of a detachment of the 4th Regiment, the 'King's Own,' a renowned and highly distinguished contingent of the British army. For upwards of 200 years this corps had been noted for its bravery, especially under Wellington in the Peninsular campaign When Sir Richard Bourke visited the infant settlement of Port Phillip in 1837, and landed where is now the Queen's Wharf, he was received by a guard of honour of the 'King's Own.' Captain Lonsdale, the first Police Magistrate of the new Province, and other officials, belonged to the same regiment, as also did Mr. George Wintle, the first gaoler, who had been regimental drum-major.
"In 1839 the barracks, consisting of a long slab building on the 'Government Block,' between West Bourke and Collins Streets, were occupied by the Grenadier Company of the 28th Regiment, who all wore bearskin hats, branded with the regimental number on the front and back. This distinction was given them to commemorate a deed of valour displayed when they landed at Aboukir Bay, in 1801, under General Sir Ralph Abercrombie. They were encountered by a French Infantry Regiment, which, at the point of the bayonet, they drove up the sand hills near the landing place, and, while thus engaged, were suddenly attacked in the rear by another French regiment ; but they were equal to the occasion, for while the front rank defeated their antagonists, the rear rank faced about and served their opponents in a similar manner, an event unique in the annals of war, and worthy of being held in remembrance. One of their number died while in Melbourne, and the funeral procession, preceded by a fifer and drummer, playing 'Adeste Fideles,' passed down Collins and along Queen Streets, to the cemetery.
"The 28th were succeeded in Melbourne by the 80th, the head-quarters of which were stationed in Sydney. A Company, under the command of Captain R. Lewis, was ordered to Melbourne. Captain Lewis was a Waterloo veteran, and a very determined man, as was shown by a circumstance that happened during his stay in Melbourne. A riot took place at the time when Mr. Henry Condell was elected a member of the New South Wales Legislature in 1843. A mob attacked the premises of a Mr. Green, an ironmonger, in Elizabeth Street, opposite the Post Office, and he used firearms to protect himself, and the soldiers having been sent for, the 80th, under Captain Lewis, appeared on the scene with fixed bayonets, and charged up Elizabeth Street from the Post Office as far as St. Francis' Church. The mob being thus dispersed, Captain Lewis told them to be careful and not bring them down a second time, otherwise he would have some of their lives. The warning had so much effect that no further trouble was given. This brave veteran eventually became Colonel of the Regiment, and saw much service in India. Lieutenant Beers, the second in command of the Company, and a cadet of a distinguished North of Ireland family, died here, and was buried by his comrades early one morning in a very quiet manner. The detachment of the 80th Regiment was replaced by a Company of the 99th, the head quarters of which had recently arrived in Sydney. The 99th Regiment, all told, numbered 1100 men, with an average height of 5 feet 7 inches. Several of their superior Officers were Peninsular veterans, and altogether they were a splendid Regiment. They had a capital band, which introduced the celebrated 'Railway Galop' to these colonies, and delighted the citizens of Sydney by playing frequently in the Domain. The 99th lost their Colour-Sergeant while stationed here. Going out duck-shooting in the swamp, near Batman's Hill, and catching cold, it settled on his lungs, and carried him off in a few hours; he was buried with military honours. The Company of the 99th did not remain here long, and were relieved by a company of the 58th, only lately arrived from England, in New South Wales, and in about twelve months they in their turn were relieved again by another Company of the same Regiment, which arrived by the 'Shamrock' steamer from Sydney; and as there was not sufficient room in the barracks for two Companies, they were quartered in a store in Flinders Street. A number of juveniles were present to witness their landing, and as there were two Grenadiers with bearskins among the number, one of the boys was quite frightened by their appearance, and bolted off. The following Sunday the citizens were gratified to see two whole Companies of soldiers marching to church. They came along by Bourke Street to William Street, where the Protestants filed off to St. James', while the Roman Catholics, headed by Grenadier-Corporal M'Guinis (who afterwards joined the police), proceeded to St. Francis'. Sergeant Matthews, who was watch-house keeper for many years, also belonged to this Regiment.
"The 58th did not remain long here, as owing to the Maori outbreak in New Zealand, the 58th and 99th regiments were ordered off there, and some hundreds of the soldiers lost their lives through the incapacity of the Colonel of the latter Regiment, who was the senior officer. The 11th Regiment, which, by this time, had arrived in Sydney, supplied a Company to replace the 58th, under the command of Major Blosse, and during their stay the Orange riot at the Pastoral Hotel took place, in reference to a dinner given by the Orange Lodge on the 13th July, 1846, when banners were hung out of the windows, occasioning an exciting popular tumult. A number of men broke into Blundell's (a gunmaker's shop in Queen Street), and carrying off all the arms they could lay hands on commenced a fusillade at the hotel. The soldiers were summoned, and paraded under the command of Lieutenant Wilton, a Roman Catholic (as Major Blosse, the Commander of the Company, was laid up with a broken leg). He ordered them to load with ball, and if directed to fire, to fire low. They then marched off to the Pastoral Hotel, and on arriving there two sections were placed facing up and down Queen Street, and other two sections in Little Bourke Street. The Mayor then read the Riot Act, and requested the people to disperse, which they did very quickly, and thus the soldiers were saved the very disagreeable duty of firing on them. The 11th were succeeded by a Company of the 99th Regiment again, under the command of Major Reeves, and after remaining some time were again relieved by another Company of the 11th, under Captain Conran. The 11th were stationed here when the Prince's Bridge was opened in November, 1850, and fired a salute from some cannons placed on the south bank of the Yarra. They remained in Melbourne until the advent of the 40th Regiment in November, 1852. Much had been heard of this celebrated corps, so that when they arrived in the 'Vulcan' troopship, the townspeople were sorry to learn that owing to sickness on board, the vessel had been placed in quarantine for a few days. As the 'Vulcan' was anchored off St. Kilda, the residents of that locality were delighted every evening by hearing the strains of the magnificent regimental band. At length the day came when the Regiment was transhipped into the 'Diamond' river-steamer for conveyance to Melbourne, and as she passed the abattoirs on her way up the river the band played that beautiful air from Maritana, 'In Happy Moments.' This favourite piece was the first and last music heard from the 40th band, as it was played by them when leaving the Railway Pier for New Zealand in 1860.
"As many of the men wore two medals for service in India, and were of splendid physique, there were few Regiments in the service that could have presented such an appearance. The colonists were proud of having such a distinguished Regiment in their midst, and many will never forget the numerous musical treats afforded them by the band, under the leadership of that efficient musician and first rate performer, Mr. Henry Johnson, who is still in our midst as collector for the Melbourne Hospital. It seems almost as if the good old times and the Fortieth Band were inseparably associated.—Adieu."
Burial Grounds.
The eminence north-westward of the township of Melbourne, and then away in the country, which was afterwards used as a signal station for shipping, was first named "Burial Hill" by the European settlers. In after times it was favourably known as the Flagstaff Hill, for it was a most popular and pleasant recreation ground for the inhabitants.
Here upon the green hillside was inhumed the first white corpse—the remains of Willie, the child of James Goodman, who was buried there on the 13th May, 1836—the first of the new colonists who found an early and final resting-place in a Melbourne Cemetery.
The second funeral there was that of Mr. Charles Franks and his shepherd, murdered by some of the Goulburn blacks, on Franks' station, at Mount Cottrell, near the River Werribee. The bodies were conveyed on a dray to Melbourne, and accorded a species of public funeral.
The next occupant was a seaman attached to the revenue-cutter "Rattlesnake," a cruiser between Sydney and Melbourne. One day a boat shoved off from the vessel to land some firearms at Williamstown, and whilst the deceased was handling a loaded gun, it exploded and accidentally shot him.
The next was the wife of John Ross, a carpenter, who, in a fit of delirium tremens, committed suicide by shooting herself with a pistol. Her husband survived her for several years, and was a well-known resident of Heidelberg.
The infant child of a Mr. Wells closes the small death-roll.
In 1836 there were only three deaths recorded in Port Phillip, and but one in 1837, whilst the number ascended to twenty in 1838. In the beginning of the last-mentioned year the unsuitability of the place for a burial-ground capable of satisfying the increasing requirements of an enlarged population was so manifest that funeral operations were abandoned on the hill, and a more convenient locality sought elsewhere. It is to be regretted that the half-dozen corpses embedded in the Flagstaff Hill were not transferred to the first regularly constituted cemetery. Some years ago, on the transformation of the hill into a public garden, the burial-ground was not only securely railed in, but distinguished by a monolith, lettered on one side with the following brief, vague, and sad story:—
ERECTED
to the
MEMORY of
SOME of the EARLIEST of
The PIONEERS of this COLONY
Whose REMAINS were INTERRED
NEAR this SPOT.
This monument stands on the rise of the hill, a short distance from the Garden entry, at the intersection of Latrobe and King Streets. An erroneous impression prevails, no doubt strengthened by misconceptions of old colonists, that no white people were ever buried on this hill, and that the human remains admitted to be there were the relics of half-a dozen Aboriginals, the first who died in the Melbourne district after its European occupation. But there never was any reasonable ground for such a supposition. After the appropriation of a regular site for a burial-ground, some blackfellows and executed criminals were interred outside its Northern boundary, near the Eastern corner, a portion of the now Queen Victoria Market in Victoria Street. When certain excavations were being made there, the poor remnants of mortality were rudely disturbed, and those who were unable to account for the circumstance were only too willing to assign it to some terrible unatoned-for tragedies perpetrated during the exceptionally sensational crisis which marked the first two or three years supervening on the gold discoveries.
There is a curious history connected with the first Jewish burial-ground. It was a piece of land presented for the purpose by a Mr. Abraham, one of the early colonists. It was on a stony rise at the Merri Creek, between the now Northcote and Merri Creek bridges, and in no way adapted for such a mortuary purpose. The deceased was a lady of nineteen, a Miss Davis, the daughter of a Melbourne innkeeper. Previous to the interment a sexton was despatched to prepare a grave; but when he commenced to do so, he found himself working on what nature had designed for a quarry, and he was able to make little or no progress downward. Two quarrymen were enlisted to help him; pick and shovel and crowbar delved away amongst the bluestone, and by the time the cortège had arrived the excavation was not half made. In fact the grave had to be absolutely quarried, and the funeral was delayed for several hours. At length Mr. Michael Cashmore—one of our Corporation Inspectors in 1884—read the usual prayers, and Miss Davis might be said to have found a resting-place in a sort of rude sarcophagus. Subsequently the coffin was exhumed and transhipped to Hobart Town. As a repetition of quarrying operations would be inconvenient on future occasions, the Jewish community applied to the Government for a burial-ground adjoining the reserve granted for a general one, and it was in some degree owing to the exertions of Mr. Ashur Hymen Hart that the request was, after some delay, acceded to. It is a singular and melancholy fact that the first Jew buried there was Mr. Lewis Hart, brother to A. H. Hart, by whom the obituary services were rendered. Mr. A. H. Hart afterwards had a handsome tombstone erected to the memory of the deceased. This monument bore the first Hebraic inscription in the colony, and it was written by the bereaved brother.
The Old Cemetery.
Unoccupied land abounded everywhere, and it had only to be asked for for public purposes. Accordingly an area of eight acres was assigned in 1838 as a public burial-ground. This space was afterwards extended to satisfy the demands of the various religious denominations. The Episcopalians obtained the first grant, next the Presbyterians, and the Wesleyans, Roman Catholics, Independents, and other sects at various times. Though the Government freely parted with the land, no public funds were allowed for fencing, and for a while the cemetery was an open common, trampled by cattle and horses and swine. To remedy in some measure this disgraceful state of things recourse was had to a public subscription, and the preaching of charity sermons. The management of the cemetery was very defective, probably by reason of the divided proprietary. The heads of the several religious communities were culpable for their irreligion in this respect, as a simple regard for the dead ought to have impelled them to concerted action. The Government neither cared or interfered.
The first male interred there was John Smith, a shepherd in the employ of Captain Pollock, a primitive settler in the Geelong district. He was speared one day by the Aborigines, and his remains were brought to Melbourne for interment. The second tenant was a child of Mr. Skene Craig, the first Commissariat Officer in the province, and alive (1884) in England.
The first female buried there was a young unmarried woman named Hannah Mayne. As the deaths recorded throughout the entire province in 1838 were only 20, and 67 in 1839, and as John Batman's funeral took place on the 8th May of the latter year, his was, probably, about the thirtieth interment in the Old Cemetery. As to the necessity for keeping anything like a register of the interments, such a notion seems never to have occurred to the persons connected with the place; and some idea of the looseness observed may be gathered from the following extract of a communication with which Mr. George Walstab has favoured me:—
"My connection with the Old Cemetery as Secretary to the present 'Trustees, commenced in 1866, without records of any kind. The cemetery was closed by Proclamation, dated 1st June, 1854. The interments from 1866 to 1881, both inclusive, are 217." The "closure" indicated, was not an absolute prohibition to bury, as an exception was made in favour of those who had interment allotments purchased. The families of such persons still possess the right of burial there, but it is not often availed of. Even many who had relatives interred there purchased other burial sites, and had the human remains exhumed and re-interred in what was known for years as the New Cemetery.
It appears that originally the Governors of New South Wales were empowered to grant land for burial grounds and other public purposes—but by the Acts 5 and 6 Victoria, c. 36, sec. 3, special authorization was given to reserve land as sites for the interment of the dead. The following memo. on the legal history of the Old Melbourne Cemetery, supplied by a "learned friend," whose researches have occasionally been of a rather weird character, and dry-as-dust reading, is of sufficient interest from an antiquarian point of view, to be included in a narrative of this kind:—
"Previous to the year 1843, pieces of ground forming the Old Melbourne Cemetery seem to have been set apart and used by different religious denominations for the burial of the dead.
"On the 30th January, 1843, a Crown grant was issued to George Lilly, William Wilton, J. Jones Peers, Thomas Jennings, and William Willoughby, in trust for the interment of the dead according to the use of the Wesleyan Methodists.
"On the 18th May, 1843, a Crown grant was issued to the Right Rev. Wm. Grant Broughton, D.D., in trust for the interment of the dead, according to the use of the United Church of England and Ireland.
"On the 19th October, 1843, a Crown grant was issued to William Ryrie, James Oliphant Denny, and J. Hunter Patterson, in trust for the interment of the dead, according to the use of the Church of Scotland.
"On the 18th December, 1844, a Crown grant was issued to Michael Cashmore, Solomon Benjamin, and Ashur Hymen Hart, in trust for the interment of the dead, according to the custom of the Jews.
"On the 30th November, 1847, a Crown grant was issued to Robert Dunsford, Godfrey Howitt, Edward Sayce, and John Bakewell, in trust, for the interment of the dead, according to the use of the Society of Friends.
And on the 30th November, 1847, another Crown grant was issued to the Rev. Alexander Morison, Thomas Fulton, and Edwin Mawney Sayers, upon trust, for the interment of the dead, according to the use of the Independents.
"The pieces of land comprised in these grants do not include the whole pieces of land known as the Old Melbourne Cemetery, but there is a portion which was used by the Roman Catholics, and another portion which was set apart for the burial of Aboriginals, which appear to be still vested in Her Majesty—no grants appearing of record.
"By the Act 14, Victoria No. 19, sec. 18, the Officer Administering the Government of Port Phillip was empowered by Proclamation to close the cemetery, except as to vaults or enclosed portions of land that were private property.
"By Proclamation of 1st June, 1854, John V. Foster, the Officer Administering the Government, closed the cemetery in accordance with the last-mentioned Act. After this Proclamation, the Old Cemetery seems to have slept for 10 years, and all about the previous title, too, seems to have been forgotten.
"By Order-in-Council (18th April, 1864), Richard Hale Budd, Alexander Brock, J. Cosgrave, J. Phillips, Robert Smith, and Moses Rintel, were appointed Trustees. This Order seems to have been made ignoring the previous Trustees altogether, and under the assumption that the provisions of the Cemeteries Statute 1864 were applicable.
"N.B.—These Trustees seem to have acted as under the Cemeteries Statute, 1864. 
"By Order-in-Council (28th October, 1867), under the last-mentioned Act, it was ordered that burials in the Old Cemetery should be discontinued, except by persons having rights of burial, who claim the right by notice in writing, left at the department of the Public Works within three months. This Order is published in the Gazette of 8th November, 1867.
"Application was made to the City Council to allow the foundations of a new wall proposed to be built round the Old Cemetery to be brought out on the footpath, and it appears that a new wall was built by arrangement with the City Council without reference to the parcels actually included in the grants of the Old Cemetery."
The Episcopalian subdivision of the ground was consecrated 18th April, 1838, by Dr. Broughton, the Metropolitan of New South Wales, on the occasion of his first Episcopal visitation, to Port Phillip; and on 20th October, 1844, a similar ceremonial was performed for the Roman Catholic compartment, by Archbishop Pohlding, then in Melbourne from Sydney.
In 1839, the Church of England authorities issued a formidable looking Schedule of Diocesan Fees, from which I transcribe the following items, as bearing on the topic under treatment:— Burial in a grave—Clergyman, 2s.; Parish Clerk, 1s.; Sexton, 3s. 6d.; Total, 6s. 6d. Burial in a brick or stone grave—Clergyman, 10s.; Parish Clerk, 5s. 6d.; Sexton, 5s. 6d.; Total, £1 1s. Burial in a vault—Clergyman, £1 1s.; Parish Clerk, 7s. 6d.; Sexton, 7s. 6d.; Total, £1 16s.
The proportionate equity of this tariff of required disbursements is not so self-evident as would be desirable, for one cannot well see any just reason why a Clergyman should be paid five-fold as much for reading at a stone grave as at an ordinary one, and more than ten-fold in a vault; or that whilst the Clerk's responses were worth only a shilling in one instance, they should run up to 7s. 6d. in another, without the addition of a single syllable in the latter case. The Sexton as the hardest worked, was underpaid in proportion; but then his grave digging was soft and shallow, and in no way to be compared with similar work at the present day. The charges made by other religious denominations were much the same, and except the prayerful portion, whose efficacy I do not presume to question, precious little equivalent was given. In addition to these items the ground had also to be paid for. One of the pioneer grave-diggers is, I am informed, alive in the year of grace, 1884, a resident of Collingwood. His name is William Willis, and though past his seventy-sixth year, is a hearty old buffer, who was provident in making provision for the sunset of life, and is reported to be fairly well in.
As was to be naturally expected, the tenanting of graves was followed by the erection of tombstones, and other more ostentatious monumental remembrancers. Some of the mementoes were fabricated of wood, and those of stone were chiselled out of a material imported from Hobart Town. Vaults after a time followed. The most skilful artist in this branch of masonry, was an individual named John Hughes, who stuck to his craft until after the gold discoveries of 1851, when he turned shopkeeper in a general way, and sold his wares at a small tenement in Bourke Street, next to the now so well known "Beehive" corner. He died in a few years, leaving a wife and son. The wife still lives in Fitzroy, and the boy, grown into a curious looking mannikin, was a well-known pauper exhibit in Bourke Street, where with a tin plate, inscribed "The Oldest White Child in Melbourne," fastened on his breast, he solicited the alms of the thousands of wayfarers who daily passed him. He too has followed his father to that country where mendicancy is unknown.
Primitive Funerals and Undertakers.
Nothing could well exceed the rough-and-ready style in which some of the early funerals were conducted, before the era of solemn-faced undertakers, glass hearses, nodding plumes, and automatic mutes. The coffins were uncouth specimens of clumsy carpentry—small packing-cases—wherein the defunct were thrust, with little or no attempt at sentiment. In one notable instance, an un-coffined corpse was buried in Melbourne. One day in November, 1838, the remains of a man recently dead, were found in a hut a short distance from the intersection of Collins and Queen Streets. No one knew who he was; and there was no one to care what became of him. But, to permit his body to remain in a scorching hot wind was out of the question. At length three or four of the townsmen wrapped the poor corpse in some old bagging, placed it on a chair, and so chaired it away to the cemetery. Arriving there, there was no official to render any help; the buryers had to turn grave-diggers, and the ceremony perfunctorily got through was soon over.
For some years the conveyance of coffins to the grave was a carriage on men's shoulders, and for the best of reasons, viz.—there was no other town mode available.
There has been a controversy more than once raised as to the identity of the first person obliging enough to undertake professionally for the becoming disposal of the dead, and more than one claim has been advanced, for a distinction posthumous in every sense. The following advertisement (10th January, 1839) to my mind effectually settles the question:—
CARPENTER, JOINER, AND UNDERTAKER.
ROBERT FROST begs to inform the inhabitants at Port Phillip generally, that he has commenced business in the above branches, in Collins Street, Melbourne, and assures those persons who may honour him with their patronage, that all orders entrusted to his care will be promptly executed on moderate terms.
Funerals attended on the shortest notice.
This bill of mortality did not promise much for fortune making in the particular line, because, as before stated, there were only 20 deaths in the province during 1838, 67 in 1839, though the rate rose in 1840 to 198.
The luxury of a hearse was unknown until the arrival of Mr. Samuel Crook, who opened a "Cabinet and upholstery warehouse," in William Street, near the wharf. In January, 1840, he issued a trade manifesto, concluding with the consolatory intimation that "Funerals would be furnished punctually, and conducted in the neatest manner possible; and a hearse is in course of building and will be let out on hire." Crook soon after removed his coffin factory to the site of the present Victoria Coffee Palace, adjoining the Town Hall, in Collins Street, where he worked his mortuary appliances for many years. A year after, Mr. Thomas Croft endeavoured to improve on Crook's announcement for he "Combines the office of sexton and undertaker, and performs funerals on the shortest notice, and on the most reasonable terms." As an N.B. he adds "A mourning hearse if required." There was also a well-known undertaker for a long time recognized as a Melbourne identity. He was Mr. Thomas Jennings, who, in his day, saw many of the residents of the Melbourne cemeteries quietly disposed of, and it was not until 1884 that he followed them.
Formerly burial-grounds were identical with church-yards, and under denominational control. As a consequence, the parish clerk was a small pluralist as to his duties, commencing with his various ecclesiastical attentions to the pastor and other sacred belongings, and ending with grave-digging. All his functions were covered by his appointment as sexton, a term of much comprehension, and thus it came, that, when the grave-yards were placed apart from the religious edifices, the sexton's vocation made him as much at home in the cemetery as in the vestry. But the march of time and the change of circumstances rendered it incompatible with the dignity of the clerkship, that the amalgamation of the "professions" should continue, and it was so divided that, the grave-digger was declared to be a separate, though not an independent functionary.
Resurrectionsim and Ghosts.
For several years the Old Graveyard (cemetery it was never called) was quite outside the town. Northward the town in reality did not extend beyond Lonsdale Street, and the suburban residences in that quarter consisted of a few comfortable hut-like cottages, some of them more than a mile apart. Vulgar credulity was exercised by rumours of resurrectionism and apparitions; and if only a tithe of what was gossiped about had happened, the ghostly flittings must have been incessant from curfew to sunrise. If one were disposed to give the subject any serious consideration, it would be found utterly untenable; for assuming the reality of a pro-medical raid, there would be no company left to perform in the hobgoblin pantomimes declared to be of common occurrence. If the graves so gave up their dead for the pecuniary advantage of the human night-ghouls known in Cockney slangdom as "bone-grubbers," it is not to be supposed that the ghosts would remain behind, though where they would betake themselves is not so certain. The looting and the spiritualistic theories are therefore irreconcilable.
The "body-snatching" scare, I have little doubt, was kept alive by the drunken maunderings of a once Collins Street denizen, who was transported from England for plundering a London cemetery; and whenever he over-indulged (frequently the case) he loved to fight his churchyard battles o'er again, and prate of the unholy exploits in which he was concerned before the London slums saw the last of him. Certainly at the time I write of, there were no public institutions where a practitioner could procure a subject for surgical experiments. We had no Professors of Anatomy, no University Medical School or students requiring ocular demonstration in the science of dissection, and the Doctors and Surgeons of Melbourne were, as a rule, a jolly easy-going race, satisfied with a paying practice, and not troubling their heads much in adding to their store of demonstrative physiological knowledge. I have, therefore, not the slightest hesitation in pronouncing the wholesale assertion so made as simply preposterous, though I have heard of three cases which did really occur.
The operators at the graves and in the surgery have, like the abstracted bodies, passed out of this world to account for themselves in another. The children of some of them are now holding positions of consideration in the present generation, and I have therefore, no intention of awaking the silence of the tomb by mentioning names. The following incident was communicated to me recently by a friend to whom I am much indebted in connection with my Old Time Chronicles. Some years ago in company with a Melbourne mechanic (since dead) he was passing the Old Cemetery, at which the companion warningly pointed, and with an ominous shake of the head, exclaimed, "Well, Sir, I should not like to have been buried yonder in the old times." On being asked why, his answer was that once upon a time the vault of an old colonist in which his wife was supposed to rest in peace, was believed to require some repairing in consequence of the wet having penetrated the foundation. He was commissioned to have the work done, and in doing so the vault was opened, and a careful look inside revealed the extraordinary circumstance that the lid had been shifted from the lady's coffin, and the coffin was empty. Shocked at this disclosure the repairer did not know well how to act, but had the presence of mind to re-adjust the lid without an assistant workman becoming aware of the circumstances. The vault was then put to rights, and it was a source of anxious thought with the discoverer of the corpse abstraction, whether he should communicate the shocking occurrence to the husband. After mature consideration he made up his mind that as the harm had been done and the period of the crime was uncertain, no good could result from simply rendering the unsuspecting husband miserable, who consequently remained in utter ignorance of a diabolical outrage, which it would be impossible for him to avenge. So the abduction of the lady corpse remained a close secret, and is now given to the public for the first time, but without the slightest notion of establishing any identity.
The ghost stories were even much more unreliable, though strictly they could not be denied a "shade" of probability. Whenever a person at all notable died, the body was hardly cold in the earth, when it was rumoured the deceased appeared in some place or other; and though no person in sober senses was ever forthcoming to bear witness to the fact, the mystic canards obtained a large share of belief. John Batman, it was solemnly averred, perambulated his favourite hill at "high twelve" every night, and continued "beating the boundaries" until even after the first crow of cock. His ghost-ship was effectually laid when in 1870, the levelling of the hill commenced, and he never troubled it after. Twice he was said to have haunted his venomous rival "Johnny" Fawkner; once at Pascoe Vale on the Moonee Ponds, where J. P. F. resided for several years, and once in Smith Street, Collingwood, Fawkner's habitat for some time before he died. Fawkner when questioned on the subject, met it with an indignant denial. "Ho! Ho! take my word Batman would not be such a fool to play me such a trick, even if he could; and if he tried it on with me I would make it warm for the fellow." The comfortable old house in Victoria Parade, at the corner of Fitzroy Street, was erected at a very early date for Mr. Arthur Kemmis, one of the primitive merchants. He resided there only for a few months, when he died; and I have heard it solemnly asseverated that the place was haunted until Mr. (now Sir A.) Michie moved into it, and whilst there delivered a lecture on "Ghosts," in the Melbourne Mechanics' Institute. The presumed cause of the ghostly disappearance is the exorcising influence generated by the intellectual chemicals employed in the preparation of the lecture.
There is a popular superstition amongst believers in the supernatural, viz.—that ghosts particularly affect places of Divine worship, and consequently the old churches of St. James, St. Francis, the Wesleyan Chapel (once where the Bank of Australasia is now), and the first Scots' Kirk, had, in vulgar belief, their nightly disembodied visitants through the appearance of the several individuals who first officiated as clerks in these "holy places." Faint shimmering lights, it was said, used to be seen there, and whilst the attendant at the Roman Catholic Church loudly intoned a Litany, the others exercised their vocal powers in appropriate selections of hymnody. The most searching enquiry, however, could never elicit anything but the vaguest hearsay testimony on the subject. It used to be also stated and believed by not a few, that a ghost would occasionally make a night-run on the banks, unlock the safes, roll out the cash on the counter, and amuse himself as a teller by rattling the gold, silver, and coppers, without ever paying or receiving any current coin of the realm. The old Union Bank, at the north-west corner of Queen and Little Flinders Streets, was reputedly the most often so patronised whilst it was under the management of the late Mr. William Highett. In a conversation one day with him he assured me that the only nocturnal disturbance he ever heard there, was on an occasion when some depredators in the flesh displaced a number of bricks from the southern wall of the building, and would have succeeded in removing the bank safe with all the working cash, had he not been awakened by the noise, and appeared inside on the spot in the nick of time to spoil "their little game."
The early newspaper offices were particularly susceptible of spirituous influences, even of a more ardent flavour than the distillation of a cemetery, and it could not therefore be expected that such establishments should be disregarded in the spiritual world. The three primary journals-the Gazette, Patriot, and Herald, were consequently "ghosted," notwithstanding the efforts of "the Father of the Chapel" attached to each, to banish such inscrutable influences. The Gazette office was near the (now) Union Bank in Collins Street, and the haunter (or rather hauntress) was a white lady costumed in the style of an Irish Banshee, who was supposed to have "set her cap" (more properly her long undulating curls), at Mr. George Arden, the sprightly, smart pungent-penned editor. But her modesty prevented her ever appearing when he was there. The newspapers then were bi-weekly; so the editorial room was two-thirds of its time, especially at night, deserted. It was then she appeared on the tapis, overhauled Arden's writing-desk, sat in his chair, and read his letters. A veteran compositor, known as "Jupiter" Brown, declared that he often saw her. He used to be much about there at all hours, and she would glide quietly past him with as scant ceremony as if he had no existence, strike a light, not with a match-box as now, but by dipping the top of a lucifer in a small acid bottle, the primitive mode, quietly sit down, and set to work. He declared he had often followed, with the determination of questioning the unbidden intruder; but when he arrived within talking distance, some spell gave his tongue such a twist, and so benumbed his brain, as to render him unable to carry out his intention. When afterwards asked to account for his repeated faint-heartedness he curtly and invariably answered with a Latin quotation, the only one he was ever known to know or employ—"Obstupui, steterunique coma, et vox faucibus hæsit."
Old "Jupiter" often put me off with this illogical platitude, and it was my fixed conviction that, as there was a tavern known as the Imperial close by, where Brown was a frequent visitor, as Minerva is said to have sprung from the head of the Olympian Zeus, so by the aid of Bacchus the White Lady of Arden was the imaginary cerebral offspring of the Melbourne Jupiter. The ghost of the Patriot office, situated rearward of the now Union Club Hotel, Collins Street, was supposed to be the umbra of a compositor, first bullied and then discharged by the proprietor, J. P. Fawkner, when he went on a "bust," overdrank himself, got turned over into the Yarra, and drowned. To take it out of "Johnny" he watched his opportunity, penetrated to the limited premises when the men were away, and made "pye" of everything within fingers' reach. The disordered type was often shown to Fawkner, who would get into terrible tantrums, and vow vengeance on the dead man if ever he got hold of him. It occurred to me that the "pye" was the confectionery of living hands, for Fawkner's irritable temperament often thrust him into hot water, and made him the frequent victim of unseemly practical jokes. To all newspaper offices there is attached a subordinate ministering imp, designated the "Printer's Devil," and a diminutive specimen of this order of terrestrials was once connected with the Herald. He was simply known as Charlie, and no one, not even himself, could tell his patronymic. He was a wee street Arab, picked out of the gutter when such animals were scarce-a stray lamb rescued from destitution by Cavenagh, the first proprietor, and for his years was a smart, precocious, useful little fellow. One day he was killed by tumbling out of a baker's cart, wherein he was enjoying a free jaunt, and the sudden death of Charlie was regretted by all his confrères, old and young.
There was in the office a very smart compositor, named Mullins, rather given to "swiping," both on and off duty, and soon after Charlie's disappearance, Mullins, on what were known as "pub nights," declared that the boy used to appear to him at frequent intervals. Mullins would start, vow that the ghostling was right before him, grimacing and posturing, and then would rush to a neighbouring tavern, and absorbing there a counter-irritant, return refreshed, or, as he declared, all right for the time. The Herald office then comprised two detached cottages, situated near the Little Collins Street entrance to the Royal Arcade, and I had lately joined the establishment. One night I was up to my eyes with proof reading in the small, but not uncomfortable, editor's crib, when Mullins staggered in for something I was correcting. Looking up at him I banteringly asked, "Well, Jem, have you seen the devil to-night?" and I had no sooner done so than Mullins shook as if with terror, and pointing to the blazing wood fire in the corner, exclaimed, "Look, sir, there he is, perched on the uppermost burning log. Look! look! how he thrusts out his tongue and grins like a cat. Ah! there, he's off now, and I hear him tramping about the place in every direction." Needless to say, I neither saw nor heard anything to alarm me; so I told the scared Mullins that the devil tramping was in reality the D. T——ing" of certain spirituous influences peculiar to his system, and teetotally differing in flavour and smell from the graveyard emanations by which he seemed to be possessed. The manifestations continued whilst Mullins remained on the Herald, and when he left they evaporated with him, and the ghost of the so-much-talked-of poor little "printer's devil" was laid for evermore.
But the most hideously grotesque ghost "yarn" spun in the olden time, sprung out of the first and second criminal executions witnessed in Melbourne in 1842. The first men hanged in the colony were two Van Diemonian black murderers, on the 20th January, and the next batch three white bushrangers, 28th June of that year. The condemned burial-ground was, as before noted, close by the north-eastern corner of the public cemetery outside the fence. Herein were deposited the remains of the blackfellows, and nothing further was heard of them for more than five months, when they were joined by the white fellows, and shortly after it began to be rumoured that on certain nights of the week (Tuesdays and Fridays) the most unearthly doings were indulged in by the ghosts of the five defunct individuals, who had the outside graveyard to themselves, but who, so soon as the night was well in, jumped out of their graves, and plunged into vagaries of a most astounding character, a species of pedestrianism which might be termed a combination of corroboree and hornpipe. The blackfellows in opossum rugs, and the whites in shrouds romped about in wild confusion, kicking and sparring at each other, prancing along by the northern boundary, westward to where the Melbourne pound was situated, and back to the starting point. The cattle-yard was at the now intersection of Elizabeth and Victoria Streets, and persons engaged here at unseasonable hours declared that they witnessed such exhibitions. One of these individuals induced me to accompany him on a winter night to attest the performances, and though he protested he could see everything as described passing before his eyes, the only view I could obtain was the "cold, chaste moon," looking sulkily down through a dim cloud; and the only conclusion to which I could come was that my companion's superiority of vision was a species of second-sight, produced by the enlightening influence of an over-indulgence in alcoholism; and when I hinted so much I was plainly laughed at as a fool, who could not see beyond his nose. Richmond, Prahran, and Collingwood Flat had each its special guardian goblin in the popular fatuity, and though no reliable evidence, either direct or circumstantial, could ever be adduced to elicit a verdict of the existence of supernatural appearances, even from a jury of spiritists, a vague belief in such could not be effectually divorced from the public opinion of the period.
Readers at the present highly-educated time may consider it unpardonable trifling to reproduce such items of Port Phillip folk-lore, and my reason for so doing is a desire to convey an accurate notion of one of the idiosyncrasies of the time treated of. Besides, I am disposed to think that there is no country or era without its special psychological absurdities, and some of the supernatural fads of the present day are just as absurd and irrational as the gruesome traditions evolved from the Old Cemetery. From all I have read and heard of such mysterious influences, I have formed a conviction that the ghost theory in all aspects and ages is about the most arrant myth that ever imposed upon humanity. I cannot by any mental process bring myself to believe that any churchyard ever yawned in the sense enunciated by Shakspeare, or that in the discomforting dictum of Milton—
"Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth
Unseen, both when we wake and when we sleep."
Point Ormond Burial Ground.
Beyond St. Kilda, near what was once known as "The Little Red Bluff," moulders the dust of three men buried so long ago as the 21st April, 1840. Their names were—William Armstrong, Samuel Craig, and John James. They were passengers by the "Glen Huntly" immigrant ship, from Greenock, which arrived in the Bay on the 17th April, and having typhus fever on board, she was quarantined there, and all hands were camped near the beach. The three men were buried close by, and where they lay was enclosed with a wooden railing. The enclosure was preserved with some ordinary regard to decency for several years, but during the last decade, or more, it has been so utterly neglected that at the present time it is difficult to find the whereabouts of the graves. There are four or five old posts stuck in the ground, but in such a manner as not to distinguish the spot from the rest of the bare, weather-beaten plateau. Having, in the course of 1883, heard it stated that the municipal authorities of St. Kilda intended to take some steps to protect and specialize the locality in a befitting manner, and finding, after some time, that the project did not progress beyond the stage of intention, I ventured to communicate with the Town Clerk on the subject. For the courteous consideration accorded to my enquiries I beg to tender my acknowledgments, and as the topic has been lately ventilated in some of the Melbourne newspapers, I would hope that the following letters, addressed to me, may be deemed of sufficient interest to justify their publication:—
Town Clerk's Office,
Town Hall, St. Kilda,
7th January, 1884.
Sir,—I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your letter dated the 31st ult., enquiring whether the St. Kilda Borough Council has done anything to enclose and distinguish the spot where three persons were buried at Point Ormond, in 1840.
In reply, I beg to inform you that as yet nothing has been done in the direction indicated. Some two years since the matter was brought under their notice (the Council), and it was intended to enclose the graves, and erect a memorial slab. The matter, however, still rests in abeyance. Within the last six months the Council made application to the Lands Department to have the reserve at Point Ormond placed under their control, with a view to a fence being erected along the cliff, and to plant certain portions, but was not successful. The Reserve is at present under the control of a Committee of Management, consisting of the Honourable J. G. Dougharty, James Osborn, Samuel Griffiths, H. V. Duigan, and R. E. Jacomb, Esquires.
I have, &c., &c.,
Jno. N. Browne,
Town Clerk.
"Garryowen,"
Herald Office, Melbourne.
Town Clerk's Office,
Town Hall, St. Kilda,
16th January, 1884.
To "Garryowen,"
Herald Office, Melbourne.
Sir,—Referring to my letter of the 7th inst. acknowledging the receipt of yours of the 31st ult. respecting the graves at Point Ormond, I have now the honour by direction of the Council to inform you that it was their intention to expend a sum of money to enclose the graves of the three persons buried at the Red Bluff in 1840, had the ground in question been placed under their control, instead of which the Government placed this reserve under the control of several gentlemen, whose names were indicated in my previous letter. Whether those gentlemen will carry out the Council's intention in the matter I am unable to state.
I have, &c., &c.,
Jno. N. Browne,
Town Clerk.
It seems tolerably evident from the above that the St. Kilda Council has done all that could be reasonably expected to discharge its responsibility in the matter, and whatever blame may arise from a discreditable neglect must be transferred to other shoulders. To expend Borough funds in improving where no public ownership was legally vested, would amount to little short of a misappropriation. When the Government placed the reserve in a special trust, it was no doubt with the view that the Trustees should do something in the way of amendment, and the gentlemen nominated to the position, if they would not rest content with a somewhat inglorious sinecure, should bestir themselves in the public interest, and insist upon being supplied with sufficient funds to do at least what the Council offered. No outlay could possibly replace the Point in its condition in 1840, when the quarantine station was proclaimed there, for never again can it have the picturesquely umbrageous surroundings then so lavishly supplied by Nature. Civilization has not only shorn it of all its pristine attractions, but stripped it as bare as a picked bone. It is now a dreary, desolate, skeletony spot, though by a judicious and not excessive outlay, may be transformed into a most enjoyable and salubrious marine pleasure ground.
The Graves at King's Island.
There is another old graveyard, now almost forgotten, around which gloomier memories associate than any of the preceding. Though not within the territorial circuit of the colony of Victoria, as the catastrophe through which it was inaugurated once overwhelmed Port Phillip with a profound feeling of sorrow, it may be regarded as coming within the legitimate scope of this narrative.
On a rising ground at King's Island, wrapt in the murmurs of the sad sea waves, and washed by the wild storm-spray, are five common graves containing the relics of three hundred and four human beings, the melancholy remnants of three hundred and ninety-nine persons who, in August 1845, perished in the wreck of the "Cataraqui," an emigrant ship from Liverpool bound for Hobson's Bay. The spot was enclosed and a memorial tablet erected at the expense of the New South Wales Government. Unable to say if this mournful memento was kept in a proper state of renovation; and desirous (if possible) of ascertaining its present condition, I sought for information on the subject in various quarters; but in vain, for no one could tell anything about it. At length I found a friend in need in Mr. A. A. Le Soeuf, the Usher of the Legislative Council, to whom I am much indebted for valuable information in connection with several chapters of my Chronicles. He kindly volunteered his services, and most effectually kept his word. Through him I ascertained that the Melbourne Customs department possessed no special information on the subject. All that could be said was that King's Island was within the Governmental jurisdiction of Tasmania. A promise was, however, given that an official enquiry should be made. This was done accordingly, and on the 25th March, 1884, I was afforded an opportunity through Mr. Le Soeuf, of perusing a correspondence in relation to the matter. A communication from Mr. Alexander Wilson, Engineer in charge of Ports and Harbours, dated 24th March, enclosed a letter from Mr. Edward Nash Spong, ex-Superintendent of Cape Dickham Light, addressed to the Master Warden, Hobart. It was dated, Rhyndaston, 17th March, 1884, and supplied certain information, in the words of the writer, "chiefly obtained from my sons, who have often visited the spot." Next follows a rough pen and ink drawing of an "iron tablet about 6 feet by 3 feet, in three pieces fastened to a large rock just above high water mark." This description does not tally with the one printed in the Melbourne newspapers of the period. Next is given the "Inscription from Memory," also materially different from the published version. The communication proceeds thus:—"David Howie, the Straits Constable, arrived on the island three or four days after the wreck to visit the four Tasmanian women (Aboriginals) employed by him hunting for kangaroo on the island, and who informed him of the wreck. He buried all the bodies he found washed up, in two large pits, just above high water mark, which were afterwards fenced in by the Port Phillip Government, but all traces of fencing have long since disappeared from lapse of time and bush fires. The tablet is in a very corroded state from the action of sea water, and the lack of paint for so many years." The latter portion of this extract is, I fear, only too true; but the first half about the lady kangarooers is an amusing exercise of some fertile imagination. The circumstances under which Howie, at the time a sealer, found the survivors, and saved them from the horrors of starvation, have been truthfully and specifically detailed in the chapter devoted to Shipwrecks. As to the improvised cemetery referred to, it should be a sacred obligation on the Tasmanian Executive to save it from oblivion.[1]
The Melbourne General Cemetery.
As years rolled on, the City gradually spread its wings northward, and houses sprung up so close to the Old Cemetery, as to render it necessary to obtain another site more proportionate to the increasing mortuary necessities of the population. Accordingly, in February 1849, the City Council adopted a resolution on the subject, which was transmitted to his Honor the Superintendent, but nothing definite was determined until the following year, when on the 23rd May a communication was received by the Council intimating that 40 acres of land had been reserved for a new cemetery about one mile northward of the town, and this was the nucleus of the now "Melbourne General Cemetery." In September 1850, the Act 14, Vic. No. 19, was passed "For the Establishment and Regulation by Trustees of a General Cemetery, near the City of Melbourne." This new necropolis was opened for public use on the 1st June, 1853, and how admirably it has been managed there is no need to say. Its present extent is 100 acres; and, through the courtesy of Mr. A. Purchas, Secretary to the Trustees (who though far from being the least zealous of our public officers, is far from being the least abused), I am enabled to state that the number of interments there, viz., from the opening day to the 31st December, 1887, was 132,414, inclusive of both sexes.
The first male buried there was John Alexander Burnett, and the first female Jane Bell. If I mistake not, this Mr. Burnett was formerly chief clerk to the well-known mercantile firm of Dalgety, Borradale and Co., in Bourke Street West, and was esteemed a man of a highly-cultivated intelligence, and much commercial knowledge. Burnett Street, St. Kilda, was so named in compliment to him. Pounds.
The first Pound was established on the 13th March, 1839, off Flinders, between Swanston and Russell Streets, just northward of the Corporation Free Baths. Its keeper was a Mr. George Scarborough, who, though he would not take a champion prize for good looks, was a worthy and energetic fellow in his way. He lived in Melbourne until a few years ago, and often in days of yore had troublous times of it, in his altercations with goat-owning and fowl-loving ladies in their efforts to get impounded live chattels out of his grip, without paying his demands for fees and damage.
Ex. gra.—It is recorded that on the 4th March, 1846, as Police-Sergeant O'Connor and some constables were driving a mixed herd of about 150 goats, mobilized in Melbourne and suburbs, to the Pound, and whilst the jailer was gleefully making arrangements for the reception of his welcome guests, the owner of a portion of them came to the rescue. She was a Mrs. Neave (a market poultry vendor), and aided only by a chopper which she brandished in a thorough Amazonian fashion, and single-handed, effected a deliverance. For such audacious lawlessness the officer "pulled" her before the Police Court, where she was fined 35s., with 3s. 6d. costs.
A monster sale of impounded goats was held 1st February, 1849, when 140 animals were knocked down for £9, though the Poundage fees alone would amount to £30. The Yarra-bank Pound was in a position which left it an easy prey to any unusual flooding of the river, and the keeper was ever in a state of uneasiness as to the probability of a flood. The inundation of December, 1839, swept over the place, and carried off most of the fencing; but as there happened on that day to be only a few temporary sojourners in "limbo," no further injury was done. At the period of the August flood of 1842, the Pound was crowded with a mob of offending cattle, which had a hairbreadth escape from wholesale drowning; but Scarborough was just in time with a staff of volunteer drovers to prevent the disaster by transferring the prisoners to a large yard attached to the Caledonian Hotel, in Lonsdale Street, a short way from the south-west corner of Swanston Street, where an asylum was found well above any probable flood mark. This led to the removal of the Pound from contiguity with the river, to west of the Old Cemetery, near the corner of Capel Street.
A Marvellous Magpie.
There was for a time attached to the original Pound, as an aide-de-camp of the keeper, a member of the Ornithological tribe, a special favourite with the Pound habitués, from his liveliness of disposition, recklessness of habits, and looseness of tongue. It was a magpie, and such were the gifts natural and acquired of this wonderful bird, that he got to be known as "The Professor," though such an Institution as an University was about the remotest thing to be thought of. The biped had received a limited education, not taught at a Sunday-school, for his language was very bad, and his phrases, though choice, were extremely inelegant. He picked up a little of the worst slang from the ex-convict bullock-drivers and stockmen with whom he consorted, could fly into a public-house and call for "beer," and when a bar toper would oblige him, the "Professor" had the human accomplishment not disdained by some modern Professors of getting intoxicated, and when so muddled behaving in a very ungentlemanly manner indeed. Occasionally he would sink into the besotted condition that would justify a policeman in locking him up, not only as a drunken and disorderly character, but for using blasphemous and obscene language. But as he could not by even the longest stretch of legal ingenuity, be regarded as a "person" within the meaning of the Town's Police Act then in force, he possessed an immunity from the watch-house which he sadly abused. One Sunday forenoon the "Professor," through a desire to shake off the effects of a heavy spree, started from the Pound for a stroll up the Yarra. Captain Lonsdale resided in a comfortable cottage, at the western end of Yarra Park, then known as the Government Paddock. The inmates, with the exception of the lady of the mansion and a maid-servant, had gone to church, and the former was engaged in private devotions. The "Professor" hopped his way to the house, and noiselessly entering the parlour stationed himself in a corner, and for some time was an unseen and attentive listener to the precations he heard read. Suddenly the lady was thunderstruck by hearing within a few yards of where she sat, a cracked, screaming, unhuman voice, bidding her to be off at once to an unterrestrial region of a name unmentionable, and on turning round in extreme alarm to question the intruder, she was horrified at beholding not only a speaking but a swearing magpie certainly not a bird of Paradise, but more like a feathered imp, escaped from that mysterious region with the name of which he was so familiar. Whilst hesitating as to summoning assistance to eject the unholy visitant, the disturber solved the uncertainty for her by ejaculating a stunning oath or two, and making his exit through the open window.
But the " Professor" was gifted with another accomplishment less objectionable, and at times profitable to his proprietor. From habit in listening at the frequently-held Found sales, and a course of drilling, he acquired the art of bidding at the beck of the auctioneer. Of course he could only do so in the most restricted sense; as his lingual faculty in this respect was limited to the enunciation of the word "ten" whenever his master indulged in a peculiar nod. The bird would be stowed away in sight of the vendor, upon whom on all such occasions he would keep a constant eye, and so the moment the signal came from the one, the "ten" issued from the throat of the other. This style of puffing was often the source of endless fun, though occasionally a bidder was bitten by the magpie's intelligence. Once there was a largely-attended sale of impounded horses and cattle, and amongst the former was a filly, much fancied by a well-known publican ("Jack Lamb") who reckoned upon knocking her down for a trifle more than a song. The bidding commenced at a pound, and to the surprise of most present, was run up by two voices (Lamb's and some other unknown person's in the crowd). After Lamb's pound bid, the other clapped on a "ten," which the auctioneer was not slow to pick up, and thus it see-sawed between the pounds and the shillings, until Lamb made it £20, when the opposition ceased and he was declared the purchaser. It was not until after the money was paid that the vendee became aware that he had been victimized by the magpie, who thus conspired with the Pound-keeper in this almost incredible and irresistibly comical mode of "skinning the Lamb." The "Professor" terminated his earthly career by a fate which has destroyed many an inebriate since. He was a special favourite at one or two taverns in Little Flinders Street, which he used to visit and "shout" for himself. In these places he was on "free grass," and always got what he asked for without payment. One evening he overdrank himself, and labouring under some affection not unlike a touch of D. T. in staggering home, he missed his way, tumbled into the Yarra, was unable to recover his equilibrium, and there was an end of him.
The second Pound was established south of the Yarra, under the charge of a Mr. T. M. Atkinson, and others soon followed in various country places. By a strange chance the Pentridge Pound was within the reserve of the now monster prison. In 1845, a Mr. G. P. Anderson was the Pound-keeper, and he promulgated a notice that if a number of cattle in his custody were not released within a specified time, they should be sold without reserve in the Pound-yard. Pounds were then a kind of roughly-enclosed stockade, and as the Great Penal Stockade (as it was at first called) was not commenced until five years after, the one must not be mistaken for the other. The black cattle now under the charge of the Inspector Pound keeper-General, though select, are a very mixed herd. As they are not likely to be claimed, they would, no doubt, have no objection to be knocked down in "the Pound-yard," but the finding of purchasers would be rather difficult.