(From the Pembrokeshire Herald)

The Nation has a letter from Mr. O'Donoghue, one of the persons sentenced to death for participating in the Irish Rebellion of 1848, but who, with the other convicted leaders, was transported for life. He received a ticket-of-leave on his arrival in Australia; but, having broken bounds, he was sent for three months to the chain-gangs at Port Arthur. The unhappy man gives the following account of his sufferings while undergoing this punishment:—

"The entire number of convicts at this station of Port Arthur was 300. These were divided unto gangs of about 60 each, with two overseers over each gang. I was placed in the gang called the 'agricultural gang', at task work. The 300 men slept in a long, narrow, low-roofed shed, called a dormitory, their beds, or berths, or places of sleeping, are called 'bunks'. There are two tiers of them, one over another — the bunks being separated by mere laths — each bunk is merely the length and breadth of a man — you must crawl in on hands and feet, roll yourself in a filthy rug and blanket alive with vermin, and there sleep if you can. A clean pigsty in any part of Ireland is preferable to a Port Arthur bunk ...