VAN DIEMEN'S LAND. [From the Hobart Town Courier, Aug. 14.]

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Issue 532, 7 September 1850, Page 2

VAN DIEM EN'S LAND. [From the Hobart Town Courier, Aug. 14.]

Escape of Smith O'Brien. — lotelligeuce is reported to have reached town of the escape of Smith OBrien from Maria Island. It is said, that as the Local Government were clearing the Island, he was requested to come to town in the steamer, hut declined doing so, preferring to wait until the Victoria, cutter, a Waterloo Point trader, should call at the station, in which vessel he has made good his retreat from the colony. Picture of Van Dxbmen's Land. — By an Irish state prisoner. — A lengthy letter by Mr. Patrick O'Donohoe appears in the Nation of April 27, in which the writer, in giving an account of his troubles in this country, acquaints his correspondent he was endeavouring to get up a newspaper ; but, having "no funds and no friends," !he' finds it a most " insuperable under talcing ;" but he does npt "entirely despair of success." The Government, he says, treat Smith OBrien with "gjeat cruelty." " Beef And mutton are dog cheap," and fowls are about the same price as in Ireland ;" the *' fish are scarce and bad," but black and diamond snakes are plentiful enough." Mr. O'Donoboe in another paragraph observes: — " I suppose the earth could not produce so vicious a population as inhabits this town : vice of all kinds, in its most hideous and exaggerated form, is openly practised by all classes and sexes." Lamenting over Ireland's miseries, he says — " Why, the greatest wretch here in a chain gang gets beef and mutton to eat every day, while the purest and most virtuous of the Irish race rot in the ditches for want of the meanest food." " You must not," he observes in another place, " think of coming out here. I would not consent to spend my life in it, if I were offered the whole island in fee. The police keep a very sharp look out after me here." He then speaks of a memorandum which he had entrusted to a friend with respect to the sketch

ferent places, <tuu .„«. room. The letter concludes with a rendered extract from a great Roman orator, whose words the writer hopes to adopt — " If I cannot be a member of a virtuous commonwealth it will be some satisfaction not to live in a bad one ; and as soon as I set my foot within a well regulated and free state, theie will I fix my abode." Mr. O'Donohoe hints at America as the place of his choice.