Free The Mayne Inheritance by Rosamond Siemon Page B

of a stable and coach-house. The shortage of trafficable roads made the acquisition of a coach something of a trumpet flourish, but he, Mary, and the children would ride in as much style as any educated town doctor or high government official. Two weeks later he called tenders for the erection of two more imposing brick shops in Queen Street.
    The parliamentary election campaign was gearing up. Mayne’s close political association with George Raff had fuelled the false rumours that he, like Raff, would standfor parliament. He made an obvious show of being out and about and involved at all the rallies. He proposed the shipping agent, Henry Buckley, to represent East Moreton, seconded John Petrie’s nomination of Raff, and constantly and loudly down-cried D.F. Roberts, a solicitor and member of the Queensland Club, who aspired to represent Fortitude Valley. In retaliation, Roberts, who called himself ‘‘the Poor Man’s Friend’’, refuelled the anti-Mayne campaign with an advertisement in the Moreton Bay Courier of 1 May 1860:

    ELECTORS OF FORTITUDE VALLEY
    Be early at Poll and vote for Daniel Foley Roberts the Poor Man’s Friend.
    That great man with a smart whip in his hand by name Mister Paddy (I mean) Mr Patrick Mayne, says that by a wave of his magic whip he can undo all that the friends of D.F. Roberts have already done.

    ELECTORS OF THE VALLEY HAMLETS
    Don’t be gulled by what you may hear from Mister Alderman Patrick Mayne Esq. He thinks he can ride over you like he can a bullock.
    HURRAH FOR D.F. ROBERTS

    From this it is clear that Mayne had faced down some of the early ridicule in his customary manner, confronting his detractors in his rage and bitterness with the threat of his stockwhip. He also continued to display the power of his wealth by spending another £100 on two town lots at Lytton and eighteen acres of prime land at Enoggera.
    Then, abruptly, he went to Sydney. He left behind a newly pregnant Mary—she was carrying their last child, James O’Neil—and was absent from the new Council for the next five consecutive meetings, but there is no explanation of his absence. Had he been on Council business the minutes would have recorded it. In Moreton Bay this was a time of business optimism. Land prices were high and he was rich in land. He had sensibly slowed his buying during this last twelve months of a seller’s market. He was a player in the building boom and his two latest modern shops were well on the road to completion.
    One might question why a man so actively interested in politics should choose to be away at a time of great celebration to culminate their political efforts—the opening of the first Queensland Parliament on 29 May. It was also quite out of character for him to leave town when his political opponents were biting at his heels, and not to oversee the construction of his expensive buildings. Two things could have taken him on that uncomfortable lengthy trip to Sydney. A need to seek private medical attention during the anti-Mayne period of mental stress; or the need to raise a large loan from a Sydney bank for further business expansion. No other immediate business expansion took place, but by September 1860 he had accumulated a sizeable debt with the Bank of New South Wales.
    Soon after his return, his Queen Street shops were opened (July), to be hailed in the Moreton Bay Courier as an imposing feature of Queen Street’s architecture. Oneshop was let to Mr Kosvitz, a jeweller and watchmaker, and Mayne was congratulated on the plate-glass windows and brilliant gas lighting which enhanced the display of wares. His use of acetylene lamps, the first in Brisbane shops, was an innovation exciting to a populace accustomed to the limited illumination of oil lamps. It predated the general use of gas lighting by several years. But this show of wealth, business acumen and self-confidence was not enough. Public ridicule of him had