Kerr had a high order of abilities in certain literary directions, which might have given him a much better position than he ever secured but for his indolence and negligent want of method.  He had also a bad physical constitution, which had probably much to do with the other defects.  Perhaps it was his literary turn that led him first, in his new home, to try a stationery business, which, under the style of Kerr and Holmes, afterwards Kerr and Thompson, in Collins-street west, was, I think, the precursor of that particular trade in little early Melbourne.  But that had to be given up, and after some looking about, with not overloaded means, he established the Melbourne “Argus”.  The preceding press efforts had, at my arrival, established three papers, which, by tolerant mutual arrangement in a bi-weekly issue respectively, gave the small public the almost indispensable food of a daily paper.  Almost at the beginning, Fawkner’s practical hand supplied “The Patriot,” hand-written for the first eight or ten numbers, until type came from Launceston.  This was soon followed by “The Gazette” of George Arden, and that again by “The Herald” of George Cavenagh.  All three had, I think, the common prefix of “Port Phillip”.  “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.

But after a time the old besetting infirmity turned up here also, and in a rather serious form, as connected with irregularities in Corporation moneys and accounts, which might have been compromising to any other than Kerr, with his well-known indifference to such vulgar good things.