JUDGE MARCUS KAVANAUGH of Chicago and Judge Wm. H." McHenry of Des Moines are great personal friends and of the same na tionality. The two judges frequently visit together. On the occasion of their last visit the pair became interested in genealogy and decided to hunt up their ancestors and trace their pedigree back as far as possible. Ac cordingly both began studying Irish history and reading genealogical works. A few days later the two judges met again to compare notes. Meither looked very cheerful, but both had reports to make. Judge McHenry was the first to speak"Well, Mark," he said, "I've looked up my ancestors. I found four generations of them back in the Irish war and out of the four three had been hanged at the yard-arm for treason." Even this remark did not bring the smiles to Judge Kavanaugh's face. He waited a minute and then replied: "Well, Bill, I looked up my ancestors, too; but I'm d -d if I'm going to tell you what I found." And there the matter dropped forever. IN The Law Times Tighe Hopkins tells the amazing story of "Botany Bay in the Thir ties—A Felons' Paradise"; and from these articles the following extracts are taken: The free settlers were out-numbered by the felons, and it was this circumstance chiefly which gave a character unique, bi zarre-, and terrible to New South Wales. The felonry constituted a vast and most diversified order in the 'State. The various classes com prising it had many names. Thus there were "convicts," ticket-of-leave men," and "emancipists," and the "emancipists" were subdivided into "conditionally pardoned-convicts," "fully pardoned convicts." and "ex pires," or transported felons whose senten ces had expired. To these may be added the "runaway convicts," and the "bushrangers. There is no class known to civilized England, from the peasanty up to the dealers and shopkeepers, from the dealers to the mer chants, from the merchants to the liberal pro fessions, and from them to the landed gentry,
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and the people of leisure, which was not represented more or less faithfully amongst the felonry of New South Wales. . • i Bucolic felonry toiled in the fields, on the. roads, and at a variety of humble occupa-1 tions; felonry a little 'cuter than this got it self a snug rum-shop; adventurous felonry escaped and turned bushranger, "stuck up" the mail coach on the highway, and robbed banks, ware-houses, and private residences in full daylight; educated felonry, found a score of openings in the thriving capital; and the beauty and fashion of felonry displayed its jewels in the theatre and at the ball, drove its four-in-hand to the races at Parramatta, and its barouche amongst the gay equipages that crowded the "drive" to Bellevue Point, on the South Head-road. Arrived in port, lists of the convicts were made out and applications for their assign ment were put in by those of the settlers who were entitled to convict servants. The inequality of the punishment becomes mani fest at this point. The laborers and plain mechanics, who had nothing to recommend them but their capacity of hard work (with, perhaps, almost unbroken records of good character), were pretty certain to serve out the whole of their sentences. It was the "gentlemen legs" who found out the soft places in the colony, and the paths that led to fortune; accomplished clerks, of pretty appearance and sweet address, who had robbed confiding employers at home; nimble swindlers who had preyed upon the public for years, and elegant villians of all sorts and conditions. There was an elysium called Wellington Valley where many of these gentlemen were received on their ar rival in the colony, and very few of them lan guished long in durance. Easy berths were found for them in the Government offices, or a bribe or a plausible tale might produce an immediate ticket-of-leave or conditional par don. The cleverest among them seldom un derwent any real punishment. A young Irishman of good family. Luke Dillon by name, was transported for life from Dublin. He had drugged and brutally ill
