WILLIAM DANA

A HORSEWHIP THRASHING
On the 5th June 1845, William Dana was fined five pounds for thrashing Gideon Manton. Both belonged to the “swell” portion of creation, and Dana, hearing that the other had been talking too freely about him, knocked one evening at the residence of a Mrs. Musgrove, at Collingwood, where Manton was staying, and demanded an explanation. This was not given, and a horsewhip leathering was administered to the reputed maligner, who found refuge in a neighbouring house. (1)

A RUMPUS AT THE QUEEN’S THEATRE IN MELBOURNE
As a rule, the Queen’s was a paradise of propriety compared with the Pavilion; but on the evening of the 18th May 1846, however, there was a regular rumpus through the misconduct of
A POLICE PEACE BREAKER.
Mr. William Dana, brother of the Commandant of Native Police, of which force he was second officer, was, with a boon companion named Croker, comfortably enjoying a cigar in one of the boxes or dress circle. The “blowing of the cloud” soon attracted the olfactory attention of the proprietor (Mr. Smith), who rushed to the footlights, declared smoking to be prohibited, and requested the offending party to desist. Dana coolly replied, “He would see him hanged first,” whereupon Smith invoked the assistance of Sugden, the Chief Constable, who happened to be in the house, but he declined to interfere until there was a breach of the peace, with which he was soon gratified. Smith, summoning some of the employees to his assistance, proceeded to eject Dana, who showed fight, and cuffed and kicked all round, Croker remaining a passive, amused spectator. Smith was very partial to the display of large white shirt fronts, and in the fray one of these fineries was irretrievably demolished. Dana was at length overpowered and cast forth, when he fell into the clutches of another batch of Philistines the Chief Constable and some of the police by whom he was unceremoniously hauled off to the lock up, but was bailed out during the night. The next morning the case turned up before the Police Court, when Smith appeared to prosecute, and Mr. Stephen (Barrister) was defendant's Counsel. The presiding Magistrates were the Mayor (Dr. Palmer) and Mr. James Smith; and on defendant being ordered to stand forward in the prisoner's dock, he refused point blank to do so. The justices declared that they could not recognize any distinction of persons charged before them; but, as doubts were entertained as to their power to compel a person accused of making a disturbance to appear in the felons' dock, they remanded the hearing for a few days, and renewed the defendant's bail. The case was resumed on the 25th May, before two other Magistrates (Messrs. Henry Moor and M'Lachlan), when it was proved that, in addition to other improprieties on the evening of the fracas, Dana had given a general challenge to the dress circle to fight single handed all its occupants (ladies and gentlemen) in rotation, and that one man had not only accepted the challenge, but had thrown off his coat preparatory to engaging in hostilities, which the subsequent events prevented. A copy of a printed circular was put in to the effect that no smoking would under any circumstances be permitted during theatrical performances. The defence set up was that Dana was only smoking in the theatre, for doing which he had been roughly treated, that smoking in a theatre was not per se illegal, and, ergo, the original removal and arrest were illegal. In their decision the Magistrates adroitly evaded an opinion on the point of law propounded, and simply fined the defendant 40 shillings, and costs for resisting the constables in the execution of their duty. (2)

(1) Garryowen (Edmund Finn), The Chronicles of Early Melbourne, Ferguson and Mitchell, Melbourne, 1888, page 966.
(2) Ibid, page 476.

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