CONVICT NOTABILITIES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 848, 9 September 1864, Page 6

CONVICT NOTABILITIES.

A correspondent of the Argus, in a letter descriptive of tlie penal settlement in • West Australia, gives the following account of some individuals whose names attained considerable temporary notoriety in England :—

At Freemantle the visitor is sure to fall in with Redpath—now on his ticket of leave—a tall man, of good address, living on the proceeds of sundry small shipments of fancy goods consigned to him by English friends. Jfedpath has always maintained a position above the ordinary class of ticketers. Even in prison he never made his own bed nor cleaned out his cell. These menial offices were performed by some obsequious convict, ausious for the reward of the great man's smile, a reward not frequently but judiciously bestowed. Now that he is at large, ticketers touch their bats to the distinguished brother, who promenades the street, writes clever letters under a nom-de-guerre to the local press, is the founder and the honorary secretary of the working men's Association, and is specially shunned., by ihe free classes, who profess to regard him as a social agitator. Reilpath is both clever an-1 observant, and a book from his pen on men and manners in Western Australia would probably be a smart producti n, well worth reading. He has a great desire to exchange the Swan for the Eastern colonies, and a year or two back he applied, it is understood, to a.'Minister of the Crown in Melbourne to use his influence to get him tranferred to Vittoria.

At Freemantle, also, there resides a remarkable individual, who found it necessary in England to dissolve his marriage contract by the simple but effectual operation of cutting off his wife's head. He now rills a highly respectable mercantile situation. Not deterred by his first matrimonial mishap, he has taken to himself a second wife, to console him during his long sojourn in the land, and he is now bringing up a numerous family. Kobson, who is also at large does not receive at a'l a g<iod character. He lost one or two situations at Perth tbtough his own raiscomluct. After this he went into business as a photographer, and now he keeps an academy, while the colonial Mrs Robson assists with a preparatory school. Next to dissipation, Robson's principal recreation seems to be writing poetical effusions, which duly obtain publicity through the medium of ths Perth newspapers. In these productions he lays Byron and Gray under heavy contributions-in fact, is guilty of an unblushing appropriation of their verses. As Byron aid Gray do Dot appear, however, to be "familar as household words" in Western Australia, Itobson enjoys a great reputation as an utterer of "thoughts that breathe and words, that bum." The Rev. Mr Beresford, a Church of England minister, whose zsal in writinar and altering other people's wills, was called by an ugly name, and led to his separation from bis parsonage, and his aristocratic relatives, is to .03 found at YoTk, where be is tutor to a publican's family; whiie the -'Boy Jones," the individual whose anxiety for an interview with Her Majesty led hi.n to present himself through the unusual medium of the palace chimney, is declared to be identical with a t*'remantle retailer of " hot pies, pies all hot." The stranger who feels averse to mixing with these English celebrities has no occasion to do so. Society in the Swan settl ments is most select—more exclusive than it is in eastern circles- Gause and effect are obvious. A lord can afford not to be over precise in his associates ,• but a gentleman in a dubious position, must be particular indeed as the status of guests.