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Westgarth, William, 1815-1889

"Personal Recollections of Early Melbourne and Victoria"



EDWARD WILSON, CHIEF PROPRIETOR OF "THE ARGUS," "THE TIMES" OF THE
SOUTH.
"The good I stand on is my truth and honesty;
I fear nothing
What can be said against me.
--Henry VIII.
I was long and intimately acquainted with Wilson. He was a man of high
qualities and noble longings, and scorned meanness of all kinds; and he
had, like his predecessor Kerr, some good and pungent literary
pretensions, although he could not be placed on a level with Kerr while
the latter enjoyed adequate health. But, on the other hand, he greatly
marred his influence by what might be called impetuous intemperateness
in his early press career. Indeed, "The Argus", in its later stages,
must needs emerge, as in fact it did, from its chief owner's editing, if
it was to take the position of "The Times" of the South. He had a great
antipathy to indecision in public men, and he entered upon a furious
crusade against the Superintendent and his surroundings, as the prime
causes in the delay in "the unlocking of the lands." Mr. La Trobe was
dubbed "the Hat and Feathers," as though these trappings were the most
of him; and this vulgarity, excusable only under small "Eatanswill"
conditions, passed into the great developments of the golden age.


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