VALPARAISO.

Auckland Chronicle and New Zealand Colonist, Volume 2, Issue 36, 11 April 1844, Page 4

VALPARAISO.

The following letter was addressed to (he Editors of the Sydney Herald:

Gentlemen, Observing by your paper that many poor and unthinking people are emigrating from Sidney to South America, and that you kindly caution them, 1 consider it a duty to undeceive them also, suspecting that they are imposed on by some persons Tor the sake of their passage money. You may remember that I went some time since to South America on my way to England. I remained a month at Valpariso, which is the most miserable place 1 almost ever was in, very like St. Jago, Cape de Verde Islands. I then went on to Peru, where I was for nearly three months. I again res, turned to Chili for a month, aud all my time I was imployed in active enquiry. I conceive, therefore, that lean give a correct account. I assure those who may go to any part of that coast that they will encounter privations amounting to punishment. Thi re are so many labourers there already, that wages are only from 2d. to 4d. a day, finding themselves, The houses are hovels of reeds, plastered whh mod, with little, or no furniture, and comfort is utterly unknown. Earthquakes are common, and' sometimes (as at the cities of Conception, Callo, &c.,) they ere truly teiriole. There is a constant daily succession of strong gales of wind, and the east .and north are far worse than * brickfielders.’ Morals are at the lowest ebb, and no religion is allowed, out of Valparaiso, except tbat of the Church of Rome. Their manners and customs are strange to us, and often dreadfully disgusting. Many there, once in these colonies, are working hard to get mouey to come back. I cannot now recollect names; but a man formerly of Port Phillip, and doing well there, called Edwards, is keeping a small sailer’s grog shop, and doing little, A moment’s reflection would.convince that it is not a country to go to. Grain is there bought to be put on board the ship at Is. 3d. per bushel; and, after it is brought J 1,000 miles (by course ) it is sold in Sydney at less than we can raise it. Even Van Diemen’s Land, with its cheap convict labonr, and only half as many hundred inffes distant, cannot compete with them. How, then, can farmers there pay labourers? —and how can master or man encou» rage mechanics ? If those in New South Wales had seen the distress that I saw at home, among labourers and mechanics, they would be thanklu! that they were in the climate of New South Wales where distress is only for the instant. Yours, &c,, JOHN UDNY, M. D,’