It has also been brought to me attention that today is All Fools Day and I feel the two facts are not unrelated.
Some poor devil probably did no more than wave an empty pistol about and steal a few potatoes for his supper because he was hungry and the result is that he's Robin Hood, Blackbeard, Rob Roy and King Rat in the Pantomime rolled into one terrible Dick Turpin.
I imagine I will have to dispatch a couple of Marines to the South Coast to deal with the matter of this, no doubt, ambitiously named "bushranger" or at the least appear and look fierce. Probably appearing sober would be enough of a challenge for the lads, but one can only hope.
Mr. Fisher's Pauper Labourers have continued to work about town. They have been busy chopping down trees in Brown and Morphett streets and, if anything, have made the streets even less passable since they have left both the fallen trees and the stumps to lie where they will. A number of people have attempted to help themselves to the wood for home purposes and have been repulsed by Fisher who has told them that the fallen trees are the property of the Company and are to be sold in a forthcoming sale.
They join the growing number of people who have been repulsed by Mr. Fisher. Indeed there is a rumour about the town that letters have been delivered to him from England advising him of his recall as Resident Commissioner. I doubt that they are true as I would have been also notified, but the fact that such rumours are welcomed and repeated is an indication of the depths of his repulsiveness.
The Magee case rattles on. The trial is set down for the coming week, barring unforeseen circumstances, and many will see it as an entertainment and attempt to get seating in the courtroom. Jickling, showing a hitherto unacknowledged exhibitionism, has suggested holding the trial in the open air "for the pleasure of the mutitude", but I have hit that idea on the head pretty quickly.
And speaking of repulsive, Widow Harvey's brat Harriet, who continues to infest the house, spoke her first word this week. It was, and I shudder as I write this, "Governor"! At least that is what Mrs Hindmarsh and Lucrezia aver. Since the infant lump had a mouth full of bread and milk at the time it sounded to me more like an incoherent mumble or, perhaps, a belch. But as I had, co-incidentally, walked into the room just as she uttered it then "Governor" it was.
Mrs Hindmarsh, as a result, is like a cow in a nursery rhyme and "over the moon", calling the "Dear little thing" "our First Grandchild"! The whole thing smacks of a child saying of a dog, "It followed me home. Can I keep it?" but I keep my own council.
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