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withdrew with the utmost reluctance and ill-grace. The reason for this warm reception of Mr. Edward Curr, w h o in other respects had proved himself a staunch friend to the Province, was his known sympathy with previous " hole-and-corner " proceedings, and his anxiety, as an employer of labour, to procure that article by any means, not caring m u c h about its quality, provided he could have as m u c h as he required, and at a low figure. But the speech of the evening was delivered by (so the orator styled himself) "an humble bushman from the Plenty." After the principal resolution had been proposed and seconded, there appeared at one of the side wings an ungainly, slouching figure of a rustic, garbed in a blue-serge shirt, w h o with a cabbage-tree hat clumsily carried in one hand, delivered an oration in a soft, mellow tone of voice, with a well-attuned inflection, and an emphasis which at once rivetted attention. His speech, evidently well prepared and committed to memory, was both argumentative and rhetorical. T h e thunders of applause which it called forth were positively deafening, and, figuratively speaking, the " house" was absolutely brought down by the following passage :— " For the inconsiderable inconvenience to a few, will you sacrifice the welfare of the multitude ? Will you imitate the antiquated folly of the Egyptian priests w h o sacrificed bullocks to blue-bottleflies? Will you agree to inundate your land with a cataclysm of immorality ? Will you agree to receive such m e n as a Jeffrey, w h o violated the mother, and then dashed out her infant's brains while the unconscious innocent was smiling on its brutal murderer? O r will you agree to receive such m e n as the cannibal Pearce, who, according to his o w n dying confession, devoured the flesh and muscles of seven of his fellow creatures ?" T h e speaker afterwards became well known as "Barney Reynolds," w h o delivered other addresses, both on political and temperance subjects, but no other effusion of his equalled his first. "Barney," for one night at all events, grew into a star of thefirstmagnitude, and he and his Anti-transportation speech formed the chief item of town talk for the following week. O n e of the newspaper proprietors offered to take him on his staff, but " Barny " had no notion of chaining himself to the unending toil of a newspaper office, and afterwards found his way to California, whence no tidings of him were ever received. At this period of the agitation the Argus fought vehemently against the reception of convicts under any possible circumstances, in which it was followed, but in a more measured style, by the Herald. T h e Patriot had been "got at" by the Pro-transportationists, and advocated diluted felonry, whilst the Gazette was see-sawing from one publication to the other. T h e " T h o m a s Arbuthnot" arrived from Portsmouth on the 4th May, 1847, with a cargo of 288 "exiles" from the great prison depots of Pentonville, Parkhurst, and Millbank. R u m o u r s as to the ingenuity and cleverness of this large mixed batch soon spread abroad, and the stories told of their doings on board occasioned m u c h uneasiness to the public. During the voyage out they started a newspaper, under the loud-sounding and menacing designation of the Tliunderbolt. Like Fawkner'sfirstjournal, it was in manuscript, but very unlike it in other respects, as some of its articles (in prose and verse) displayed an ability so marked as most decidedly to m a k e it compare favourably with any journal then printed in the colony. T h e great fault with this penal production was that its tone was too good to last; and its ethics were pitched in too high a key, considering the sources from which the inspiration was drawn. A s a counterblast to the literary engine, the ship also brought out a completely organized gang of burglars, with a captain and all necessary equipments, such as an extensive variety of skeleton keys, pick-locks, files, jemmies, and trifles ejusdem generis. T h e personnel of the "exiles" was no less remarkable, for in their "roll call" mustered a licentiate of the Church of Scotland, a barrister, half-a-dozen other legal mongrels, two doctors, and a Lieutenant of a Line Regiment. Amongst them also was William Whitelaw, declared to be the individual who, at the Canterbury riots, arrested the m a d m a n Courtenay, alias " Thorn," the m o m e n t after he had shot the officer. This compatriot, though expatriated for his country's good, strangely enough brought out such strong recommendations that the great Anti transportational Mayor (Moor) actually placed him in the T o w n Police. After landing in Melbourne the " T h o m a s Arbuthnotians" soon forgot or unlearned the moral teachings of the Thunderbolt, for, instead of betaking themselves to honest labour, before a week was over some daring robberies were perpetrated with a skill that defied the vigilance of the police and the "exiles" when spoken of were classed under the generic term of " Pentonvillaifis," irrespective of their having c o m e from either Millbank, Parkhurst, or Pentonville. About fifteen