102 A COLONIAL AUTOCRACY. 



wives of " constables, clerks and other persons " were similarly- 

 admitted to a share in this profitable trade. 



The method of withdrawing licenses was open to objection 

 on grounds both of law and policy. Bent pointed out that the 

 magistrates had no power to act in the matter, but that the 

 license was withdrawn by the Governor " simply on the report 

 of the magistrates not stated to be made after an examination 

 on oath or any judicial examination whatever and that the 

 punishment is not to take place immediately but prospectively. 

 ... As all persons taking out licenses pay to the Colonial 

 Fund . . . the sum of 20 ... I cannot but think that the 

 Governor in such measures has exercised a species of Criminal 

 Jurisdiction not only not granted to him by his Commission but 

 expressly given to the Court of Criminal Jurisdiction." l The 

 fact of prospective deprivation was generally made known by 

 orders published in the Gazette, and these show not so much a 

 salutary severity as deplorable capriciousness. A few examples 

 suffice to illustrate this. 



In September, 1812, Joseph Chitham, a publican of Pitt 

 Street, lost his license because it " clearly appeared " that he had 

 been " in the habit of purchasing and vending a base kind of 

 spirits, clandestinely distilled, and that his conduct in other re- 

 spects had been highly reprehensible ". 2 There is no reference 

 at all to any judicial proceedings upon which these opinions are 

 based. 



The case of Elizabeth Watson of York Street was more 

 curious. The following account appears in a Government and 

 General Order: 



" From the evidence lately brought forward on the trial of 

 Ormsby and Eleanor Irvine, on an indictment for the wilful 

 murder of Serjeant Robert Morrow, of His Majesty's 7jrd Regi- 

 ment, in a public house in York Street, Sydney, it appeared that 

 Michael Casey, the occupier of that house, did not by any means 

 exercise the authority which it was his duty to have done in his 

 own house to restrain those altercations which unhappily took 

 place and terminated in the death of a well-behaved and loyal 

 subject : And a license having been granted to that house, in 



, ist July, 1815. R.O., MS. J G.G.O., iath September, 1812. 



