FIFTY YEARS AGO.

TO THE EDITOR.

Sir - It is interesting to read, your leading articles of 20th June, on " Fifty Years Ago" and " The Press." The writer is able to go back in experience to the modest starting of the "Moreton Bay Courier," when Mr. "Pegleg" Lyon, as he was called, launched the little craft. Mr. Lyon was assisted by the brother of the writer's mother, Mr. T. H. Green, merchant, from Waterloo Store, Sydney, and predecessor of the late J. and G. Harris, at South Brisbane, who was one of a family of eight or ten Greens and two Costins, who came to Sydney from England as cabin passengers in the barque Minerva in the Thirties. The late sculling champion was one of the family. When Mr. Lyon was editor of the little " Courier" the writer was printer's devil and distributor ; at the time the paper was printed in South Brisbane. That part of the city was for some time the most important centre-say, from '47 to '49; but later on the A.S.N. Company's steamer, which formerly berthed at the South Brisbane wharf, moved to North Brisbane. After Mr. Lyon we get William Wilks in the conduct of the " Courier," a vigorous and most facetious writer, as will be remembered by some old residents. Later on, we have on the literary staff Mr. Charles Lilley (now Sir Charles) and T. P. Pugh, T. B. Stephens, and a host of others, not forgetting the venerable James Swan, who had bought the paper in the meantime - most of them gone over to the great majority - men with perseverance and industry for anything, and the politics of the paper were generally sound. The gentlemen named were aided by such men as the late and Honourable George Raff (Honest George, as he was called), together with George Edmonstone and the late Robert Cribb, who fought our battles manfully and fearlessly in the   struggle against the introduction of   coolies and other alien races, and especially in the great fight for separation from New South Wales. - I am, sir, &c,

WM. J. Costin.

Brisbane, 24th June.

FIFTY YEARS AGO. (1896, June 30). The Brisbane Courier (Qld. : 1864 - 1933), p. 7. TROVE