Letter #55 to son Alex in Australia
Glasgow, 24th.May, 1861
145 Great Eastern Road.
My Dear Son,
I have received your's and Jack's of 23rd. March. I feel well pleased
that you are all located in Smythesdale, as each will spur or check the other.
Each of you have a good lookout and I hope no one will meet with a shiver. I
trust you are to turn out a first rate businessman and that you will not be
many years in making a competency.
William is a rising young man and sure of another good or superior job. Jack
did not expect when he set foot in Australia that he would have an empty pocket
4 years thereafter. His good and long pull has been unavailing, but there is
now a brighter sky overhead and Smythesdale is his settled home and he has a
fine job by this time. And it is very pleasant that you are all together.
I hope you got the letter I sent to William. There was with it a leaf from Cassel's or the
London Journal, giving an account of a method of extracting gold from quartz. It
is the same in part as grinding indigo, only the mill is perpendicular instead
of horizontal and a little fire underneath causes the mercury to take up every
particle of gold.
I got Grant's Black Watch. I heard of Allan Robertson spending his
latter years in Edinburgh, but I never heard of Grant's marvellous and Ossianic
tale.
You would hear of the death
of John King's father in law. Mr. Dick at Busby had a death in his family and
J. Wilson's daughter Jessie died.
Busby engravers are now feeling the inroads of the Pentegraphs. Most of
the steel engravers are reduced to 30/- per week. They are to work at copper. 4
machine engravers are to work at the pentegraphs. Wm. Glen is off to
Barrowfield. It is feared that the 30/- per week wont continue long as the
pentegraphs are getting improvement after improvement. Block printing is nearly
at a stand in Busby. This was expected as it was old patterns we were doing. 3
new patterns only were cut. The style took and there are now 20 patterns of the
same class being done by the pentegraph,
William Wilson is thriving
in his hotel at Maryborough. He is putting up a large addition to his premises.
Young Aitcheson superintends a cutting on the railway at Warrenheip.
The hubub in America must affect our trade seriously this summer. Public
works are stopping in America and some of the hands are coming over. I doubt
Australia is not the country to supply large quantities of cotton at 6d per lb.
You are to raise the finer kinds at 2/-per lb. America has advantage over every
other country in cheap and rich land. The cotton planter exhausts the soil and
removes to new land. The land in Queensland is too dear and too limited for the
American method and it will be very expensive to manure, but I fancy Indian and
Chinese labourers will be as cheap as American slave labour. India may come
into close competition with America.
The New Icelanders are brave but European weapons overpower them. The
Governor had no adequate cause to slip the dogs of war. Civilized nations should
take a civilized method of instructing the uncivilized.
We have promising weather
for the season and we bid fair for a good harvest. Trusting that brotherly love
will continue,
I remain,
your affectionate Father,
Alex'r
Dick.
Names
& Notes on Letter #55
Allan Roberson
John King
Mr. Dick, Busby
J. Wilson
Jessie Wilson
Wm. Glen
William Wilson
Aitcheson
- transcription and
Names/Notes by Ian A Scales, c.1989 (note- the ‘original’ transcription was in printed format on
paper, and has been re-formatted using OCR – so may have some inaccuracies
which have escaped my editing – C. S-P)
Scans of the original letter (click
on the image below for a larger version; note
the order of the pages p.4-1, then p.2-3):
p.4,1
p.2,3
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