MR. LATROBE AS SUPERINTENDENT 259 



12th of April he formally opened the Court for legal business in a 

 small, inconvenient brick building at the corner of King and Bourke 

 Streets. The salary of the Judge was 1,500 per annum. Mr. 

 Henry Field Gurner, who was Clerk of the Court, had 450 ; Mr. 

 James Croke, the Crown Prosecutor, 400 ; and Mr. James Mont- 

 gomery, the Crown Solicitor, 300. In advising the Secretary of 

 State of these appropriations, Sir George Gipps felt it necessary to 

 call attention to the salary of the Superintendent, and to urge that 

 it should be at once increased to at least 1,500, in order that he 

 might not be subordinate to the Judge in the Civil Service, a 

 recommendation that was promptly acceded to. 



It is more than probable that the community with which Judge 

 Willis was brought into contact, not having had any experience of 

 the majesty of the Law as Britons understand it, did not pay the 

 conventional deference to his Court or to himself. A good many 

 of the settlers, risen from a humble rank in life, had become rich 

 by speculation, and gave themselves airs which the Judge regarded 

 as offensive. It was currently believed that there had been a good 

 deal of sharping in some of these dealings, and during the financial 

 crisis, which culminated while Willis was on the bench, many cases 

 came before him that seemed to display a reckless disregard of 

 obligations and a dishonest effort to avoid implementing them. 

 His severity in dealing with such cases had made him popular with 

 the poorer classes, and had it been limited to what was officially 

 before him, the violence of his comments might not have injured 

 anything but the dignity of his office. But unfortunately he took 

 upon himself the office of censor for the whole community. He 

 refused to hear a solicitor who appeared before him wearing a 

 moustache, and so vehemently threatened to have him struck off 

 the rolls if he appeared again unshaven, that the unhappy man fled 

 to the nearest barber and returned to find forgiveness. He was 

 incessantly inveighing against the extravagant habits of the colon- 

 ists and their proneness to get into debt. He declared publicly that 

 he was not directly or indirectly connected with any land or com- 

 mercial speculation, nor had he any relatives interested in them 

 nor in any of the public companies of the colony. On one occasion 

 he loftily applied to himself the words of Samuel : 



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