BOTANY BAY.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2093, 18 September 1875, Page 3

BOTANY BAY.

To the Eev. P. Agnew. (Per favor of the Ere Ding Star.) Sib, —To your lecture on this subject on Thursday evening last I listened with much pleasure. In my opinion, to many persons such lectures must be very instructive, as there is a numerous class of persons who devoutly believe that England never has done, and never could do, wrong to her subjects. I therefore conolude that' this is the class which will benefit most by. knowing that there are two sides to that which they implicitly believe there is but one. In your humorous anecdote of Paddy Moony's overland route to China, and notwithstanding the folly of the fool as by you depicted, there was in him nevertheless, according to your testimony, such virtue and integrity 'as enabled him to achieve for himself and family an independence, seated beneath his own "vine and fig tree. v In all this I find no fault, but I refer to it as reminding me of what I dare say you must have known to be a fact, namely, the first Eoman Catholic priest who came to Sydney, the Eev. Father O'Flynn, was sent back again to England as no priest would be allowed to live in Sydney at that time. In your "remarks about all the convicts being required to attend the Church of England service, it is possible that you forgot to mention that the Catholics especially were commanded to attend, and as they especially disobeyed the command were especially flogged, and hung for not attending the Protestant religious service; you must also be aware that the greater number of those men were sent to New South Wales for the most trifling j political offences, and that physically and in spirit no nobler specimens of human nature could be found than they were. As you made reference to the liberality and toleration which now exists in New South Wales, well might you have said that those institutions were baptised by the blood of those unfortunate men who to the death resented and resisted that tyranny and persecution of which they were the unfortunate victims. The point to which I respectfully call your attention is that from your remarks it would be inferred that England at present has no persons of any such stamp in any of her penal establishments, and that the humanity of the English people would ' not allow it to be so. Tregret to remind you that such an inference is not correct, that in Dartmoor and other prisons she has a great number of Irish political prisoners whom she will not release on any account, men, the. very essence of "whose crime and treason was, a 9Mr Gladstone admitted, that they wished to enjoy equal rights and liberties with the other subjects of the Empire. lam sure you will observe tl^at some of the most iniquitous of the laws and_ institutions which those men conspired to overthrow have since been repealed and abolished, morally justifying their conduct, and rendering their detention in prison at the present day as great an act of tyranny as in days of yore.—-I am, VIATOB.

" He wooed and she wouldn't" is the way they put itj in Frisco wben a young woman declines a. proposal of marriage. " Some men," said a stonemason, " become useful citizens, and others become vagabonds ; just as some slabs of marble become useful doorsteps, and others become lying tombstones. 1' An Irish doctor lately sent in his bill to a lady ;it commenced as follows :—" To curing your husband till he died.'V "Vermont clergymen are never permitted to kiss the ladies they have just made brides. The dear creatures put up their hands, with the remark, " There, that'll do! I've seen you fellows afore !"

'(For remainder of News sec Fourth Pago.)