and pitched it on Brownhill Creek, above where Mitcham now stands, bought 15 cows and a pony and cart, and sold the milk in town at 1/ a quart.  But how little milk the cows gave in those days!  After seven months’ encamping, in which the family lived chiefly on rice—­the only cheap food, of which we bought a ton—­we came with our herd to West terrace, Adelaide.  My father got the position of Town Clerk at 150 pounds a year twelve months after our arrival, and kept it till the muncipal corporation was ended, as the City of Adelaide was too poor to maintain the machinery; but 75 pounds was the rent of the house and yards.  We sold the cows, and my brothers went farming, and we took cheaper quarters in Halifax street.

The Town Clerkship, however, was the means of giving me a lesson in electoral methods.  Into the Municipal Bill, drawn up under the superintendence of Rowland Hill (afterward the great post office reformer, but then the Secretary of the Colonization Commissioner for South Australia), he had introduced a clause providing for proportional representation at the option of the ratepayers.  The twentieth part of the Adelaide ratepayers by uniting their votes upon one man instead of voting for 18, could on the day before the ordinary election appear and declare this their intention, and he would be a Councillor on their votes.  In the first election, November, 1840, two such quorums elected two Councillors.  The workmen in Borrow and Goodear’s building elected their foreman, and another quorum of citizens elected Mr. William Senden; and this was the first quota representation in the world.  My father explained this unique provision to me at the time, and showed its bearings for minority representation.

After the break up of the municipality and the loss of his income my father lost health and spirits.  The brothers did not succeed in the country.  My sister had married Andrew Murray, an apparently prosperous man, in 1841, but the protecting of the Government bills bought for remitting to England, and other causes, brought down every mercantile firm in Adelaide except A. L. Elder, who had not been long established; and Murray & Greig came down too.  Mr. Murray was a ready writer, and got work on The South Australian, the newspaper which supported Capt.  Grey’s policy of retrenchment and stoppage of public works; so, with a small salary, he managed to live.  When I left Scotland I brought with me a letter of recommendation from my teacher, Miss Sarah Phin, concerning my qualifications and my turn for teaching.  I don’t know if it really did me any good, for the suspicious look and the question about how old I was at the time embarrassed me.  Of course I was only 13 1/2 and probably my teacher over-estimated me a little, but here is, the letter, yellow with the dust of over 70 years.

Melrose.  June 20, 1839.