"The Gazette", after a brief career, under its very able
but rather erratic owner, went to the wall. "The Patriot", under
Boursiquot, who had succeeded the overworked Fawkner, was, somewhat
later, bought up by the "Argus", under Wilson and Johnston, in
succession to Kerr. The Herald, when quitted after an excellent and
timely sale by its founder early in the gold times, was soon after
shipwrecked in the storm of vicissitude that characterized some of the
first years of gold-digging.
With the editorial pen Kerr was in his element, and his naturally
combative tendencies found their fitting expression in the motto he
adopted, and which still heads the paper, "I am in the place where I am
demanded of conscience to speak the truth, and therefore the truth I
speak, impugn it whoso list." But even the little "Argus" required
management, and Kerr was no manager. He was induced to sell it, and for
no great sum--pounds going a long way in those times--to Mr. Edward
Wilson, who thus laid the foundation of his subsequent great position
and fortunes.
Kerr was fortunate after this in securing the town-clerkship of
Melbourne, in succession to Mr. John Charles King, the first clerk. The
Corporation was still hardly beyond infancy, and Kerr's natural legal
acuteness was of great service at his new post, where reigned he
practically master, and was an authority far outside his official
sphere, and even in legislative difficulties of the young Parliament,
for we are now entering into Victorian life, and the importance that was
fast being developed with the gold.
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