Ferdinand von Mueller

Melbourne botan Garden

27. Oct 68

Sir

I have the honor to solicit, that you will be pleased to consider the propriety, whether not the ferryman at the Yarra, living opposite to the Jollimont road, should receive official intimation, that he is to convey any one passing his ferry on official garden duty free of fare. I am at this moment placed in this position, that I must look upon a free ferry passage as a favor or pay the ordinary fare. It is not because I wish to save the small sum, which I thus may annually expend, that I submit this communication, but because it places me in a false position if I pay common fares towards a man, who has the concession to live within the ground under my surveillance, but over whom I have comparatively no control, but who should be dependent on my orders. I may thus remark that when in the earlier part of this year I directed the ferryman to provide for the better accommodation of the people by widening the walk leading to his ferry, I was for a long time unsuccessful in inducing him to spend even a few shillings in such improvement, and that he deferred for a considerable time to act on my order to render the river bank close to his ferry secure, so as to avoid accidents to children and others walking along. Indeed these improvements, altho' involving only a trifling expense, were only carried out after I sent a letter of complaint to you. What rendered the circumstance all the more vexatious at the time was this, that I had spent a considerable amount of garden labor in forming the path leading to the ferry, some distance away from the latter. I may also remark, that I have now oftener, then in former years, occasion to pass the ferry, because the willow lines along the opposite bank of the River require my frequent inspection. I may in conclusion also state, that the ferryman carries on a very lucrative business, which is still more enriched by the extensive sale of refreshments particularly on Sundays, so much so, that he ought to pay a far higher licence fee than that obtained from him within the last years, when the original much higher licence fee was reduced.

1

An unidentified official minuted on 26 November 1868: 'The licensee of this ferry is Edwd Brander he pays for the privilege the sum of £20 pr ann. There would be two objections to this conceded. In the first place the licensee distinctly holds the license with the understanding that he can charge every one . Secondly there was a time when govt officials were exempted from paying tolls punt charges &c but this exemption has been abolished. All our Bailiffs pay their charges and this would form a singular exception, a precedent to present rule & practice'. The Assistant Commissioner of Crown Lands and Survey, C. Hodgkinson, ordered (26 November) that M be informed 'that all Govt Officials including members of the Board of Land & Works pay when they cross ferries the ordinary fare charged by the licensed ferrymen'. This was done in [...] to M, 28 November 1868.

The President of the Board of Lands and Works.