24 December 1936

GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS FIGHT IN CITY STREET

How Differences Were Settled 100 Years Ago

When boys quarrel they usually fight it out, and after the fight are often better friends. Politicians quarrel, and after they have referred to one another in insulting terms the Speaker calls on them to withdraw and the incident is closed. At least, that is what generally happens.

In the early days of South Australia, however, two men holding what would be political positions today —Colonial Secretary and Colonial Treasurer— fought out their quarrel under most unusual circumstances. Robert Gouger, was Colonial Secretary when South Australia was only a year old. and Osmond Gilles was Colonial Treasurer. The natures of these men were quite different, Gilles being of a blustering type, and one who believed in stating his mind without reserve.

Gilles was in Gouger's office transacting public business when the trouble started. The Governor (Sir John Hindmarsh), Mann, the Advocates-General, and others were present. Gilles said something to Gouger to which the latter took exception, and he told Gilles that he would kick him out of the office. Gillies, replying equally strongly, told Gouger he would blow a hole in his carcase. Gilles went out and Governor Hindmarsh told Gouger— 'in the frank and decided terms used when the Governor spoke his mind' — what he thought about the affair.

The matter was not allowed to rest, for Gilles went to his friend Mann and discussed the question of demanding an apology from Gouger for his remarks. Gilles maintained that the apology must be made before the Governor, in whose presence Gouger had threatened to kick him out.

Mann saw Gouger, and obtained his admission that an apology should be made. Mann, as mediator, presented the apology to Gilles, who refused to accept it. 'No apology from Gouger will satisfy me unless it is made before the Governor,' he maintained vehemently.

Mann, apparently because Gilles would not accept the apology he had taken pains to obtain, then joined Gouger in trying to obtain an apology from Gilles for the way he had reacted towards Gouger's apology. Mann's part in the whole affair is open to two interpretations. Either he was anxious to patch up the quarrel and thought that he could do it best by supporting Gouger, or else he turned traitor to Gilles. Later events support either of these contentions, though the keenly partisan 'Register' and the Governor both denounced him in no uncertain terms.

The outcome of the affair was that Mann went to Gilles's office and suggested that he should meet Gouger. They went down the street together and came across Gouger and his friend, John Morphett, who afterwards maintained that he was an 'impartial and unprejudiced witness.' When they met high words passed between them. Both became excited, and called each other rogues, rascals, vagabonds, villains, and scoundrels indiscriminately. It appears that Gilles called Gouger a liar, for which Gouger pulled his nose. Gilles, quick tempered at anytime, sought to retaliate, but Mann held his arms. Gouger took him by the collar, and proceeded to belabor him with a walking stick Mann had dropped. The stick was broken over Gilles's bare head, although he took many of the blows on his arms when he wrenched himself away from Mann.

The mediator then stepped back, rolled up his coat sleeves, and adopted a fighting attitude against Gilles, asking whether he wanted a fight. Before any blows could be struck bystanders intervened, and Gouger and Mann walked off, leaving Gilles to have his bruises treated by nearby residents.

Governor Hindmarsh heard that the affair was in progress, and immediately sent for the Sergeant of Marines, and ordered him to arrest both combatants. Gouger was arrested in his office and taken to Government House with Gilles, but both were released on a bond of £500 to keep the peace to wards one another after they had been there for a quarter of an hour or so. While Gouger was being marched to Government House he was hissed and groaned at by passersby.

Governor Hindmarsh dismissed Gouger from the position of Colonial Secretary, and appointed T. B. Strangways, a young man who was engaged to his eldest daughter. Gouger protested vigorously to the authorities in England, maintaining that the Governor could not make the dismissal him self, but only on instructions from his council. The majority of this body, Gouger maintained, was on his side, and against his suspension. John Morphett and John Brown protested against the fact that a party of marines, without a civil order, had been employed to arrest Gouger while he was working in his office. In supporting the Governor's action, the 'Register' maintained that no constable could be found who would act, and the only way to stop the quarrel was to send marines. As has been stated before, Mann's part in the quarrel was doubtful.

Governor Hindmarsh regarded him as being equally or more culpable than Gouger, and held that he had urged the latter to assault Gilles. The 'Register' regarded the attack as premeditated and deliberate, in which Mann had played the traitor towards Gilles, and had enticed him to meet Gouger in circumstances which must necessarily be unfavorable to him.

In evidence at the enquiry, John Morphett said that he had gone with Gouger to take notice of what Gilles might say in answer to Mann's demand for an apology to Gouger. Robert Hill, the deputy storekeeper who went up to the group before blows were struck, maintained that Gouger did not strike Gilles while Mann held his arms; but the fact that Gouger did strike Gilles with the stick, and break it, was not denied. A number of bystanders maintained that Gouger had struck Gilles while Mann held his arms. Mann's explanation of this was that he tried to prevent Gilles from hitting Gouger.

Gouger, on his suspension, went to England, and two years later, in June, 1839, returned to South Australia, once again as Colonial Secretary.— H.

[See https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/gouger-robert-2109 ]

[See https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/gilles-osmond-2097 ]

Aborigine Observation

Brought up by the old hands on wonderful stories of blackfellows' eyesight when looking for bees' nests, we jumped at the chance of taking old Joe, from the reservation, along with us one dry spell when we were out of honey. He was as good as his reputation; spotted a bee, traced it to a high branch, and drew our attention to a cloud of bees flying round the entrance, which we would not even see when our attention was directed to the right spot.

Promising Joe a fair share of the comb for his trouble, my brother shinned up the tree with a handful of clay, a short bamboo stick, and his pipe. He thrust the stick into the aperture leading to the hive, cemented it into place with clay, stopped one or two cracks in the wood with what was left, and commenced to blow smoke into the hive. When a sufficient quantity of black twist had gone inside, he descended and the tree was felled. Inside ten minutes the hive was robbed, the queen set free, and a kerosine tin filled with honey. Comatose from the smoke, not a bee attempted to sting us.

Old Joe looked on in amazement, as he had never seen this method before. One could see that he was storing every detail up in his memory for future use. He received his share of the hoard and went back to the reservation. A few days later, Joe turned up at the kitchen door, the picture of misery, his face cut and blotched, his neck swollen, and both eyes bunged up. In addition, his clothes were torn, and he was badly shaken.

'Gottem blue-bag, missus, quick?' he asked. After his wounds were doctored and dressed, Joe told his story. It appeared that he had not much faith in our method of robbing a hive when it came to a practical test. He had done as we had, felled the tree, and then been stung repeatedly and badly. In his haste to escape, he had fallen into a gully, where he was still convinced that he had broken his neck.

No amount of questioning seemed to shake his story, so he was asked to give a practical demonstration of what he had done in order that any faulty procedure might be detected. Joe secured some wet clay lit his pipe and plastered up a crack between two slabs in the barn. He put his pipe-bowl through the clay, cemented in the stem and commenced to smoke peacefully. Joe had failed to observe the piece of bamboo, apparently concluding that it was the business end of the pipe, and not the smoke from the stem, that put bees to sleep.

'By cripes, boss,' observed Joe, when matters had been explained and the laugh went against him, 'that just like time when you were little phella, and Joe made you a shanghai. Boss remember pullem rubber the wrong way and damnear knockem eye out?' Joe scored his honey after all, with out further effort on his part. The boss thought that it would be better for the reservation to know as little as possible about the shanghai episode, and despite his one faulty piece of observation, old Joe was really the prince of mimics.— 'Greenhide.'

Foreign Matter In Wool

A few months ago Japanese wool buyers complained that foreign articles had been found in wool bales, but they have not come across any snakes or goannas yet.

During shearing operations at a shed near the Queensland border, the wool roller got a surprise when a lively and venomous copper-colored snake wriggled out of the fleece that he was rolling on the table. No one knew how it got there, one theory being that the snake had crept in amongst the wool, which was long and thick, whilst the sheep was lying down in the paddock. Neither the shearer who shore the sheep nor the picker-up who bundled the fleece from the board noticed it, the remarkable thing being that all three men who had been roughly handling the fleece escaped being bitten. Had it not decided to leave of its own accord, the snake may have been rolled up and placed in the bale, thus giving the purchaser a just cause for complaint that the wool contained too much foreign matter.— P.G.

Real Life Stories Of South Australia (1936, December 24). Chronicle (Adelaide, SA : 1895 - 1954), p. 13. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article92345728