Letter #61 to son Alex in
Australia
Glasgow, Nov'r 19th. 1861,
145 Great Eastern Road
My Dear Son,
Yours of 22nd. Aug't
arrived, though rather late. I have again to thank you for five pounds. I stood
in no need of it happily and it keeps up one's spirits these dull times to have
a little money in one's pocket.
We are by with it at Busby
for the present and we cannot say when we will have more work there. A great
many printers are idle and applying for relief. Hamilton, Caldwell & Co. are
down.
Mrs. Muir and daughters
sailed for Australia in the "Morning Light". I could not get a
portrait of Queen Mary. There is no such thing on sale. A publisher offered to
sell one that has hung in his room these thirty years for £1, but it was from
the same painting as the one in Miss Strickland's work dedicated to Sir W. Scott,
but larger. But it is not what you wanted, too pretty. I thought it superfluous
but I have a friend keeping a look out.
I send traditions of the Dicks and Robertsons per mail. We are true
Scots, our forefathers having been upwards of 600 years in the country, how
much longer we know not.
I sent two papers
containing a full account of laying the foundation stone of the Wallace
monument. I send a penny photograph of the building. When the building is
finished there will be good and correct photographs going. I will mind to get
one or two. Your portrait to the Wee Black does look a little older than
the one I brought. You are browned a little, but I suppose the one being on
glass the other on metal goes a little way to making the difference.
I think it good policy to
get another store, for should trade fail in one district you have a chance of
the other doing good. I think another still would do no harm with attentive
management. I anticipate you are to be decidedly successful. Jack & William
have not found a land of plenty yet, but I hope their diligence and sagacity
will get them up the brae and that they will cock their bonnets with the best
yet. I hope they have not gone to New Zealand with the rest. John Campbell,
wright that William wrought with is dead.
The dullness thrown over our trade here by the American war wont hurt
you. Cotton shirts and tobacco may rise but there will be cheap consignments of
other goods to make amends. It will throw no persons out of work or on half
time and bring down no firms. Your staple products of gold, wool, hides &c.
are in as much demand as ever and you pass though the American crisis
unscathed. Here it is a different tale, nothing but complaining.
You have just to get
payment of members made law and you are done as a self-governing colony. The
upper house will save you from this curvering degradation. An audacious fluent
spouter however ignorant and poor can command a constituency. Want of funds
will compel some of the poor ones to resign and prevent others from trying
legislation. Your voters will get wiser and you may yet do some credit to
liberal institutions. But really you have shown little judgement in the
meantime.
Alex'r Russell is out of a
job at present. A shopkeeper advertised for a man lately and had 150
applications. Annie is still in the cap shop and little odds on Aunty and no
changes among our friends at Leven. So I suppose I will be laid for the winter
months to recruit again. I was somewhat worn out at the end with carrying Toby
tubs &c. but I am getting gradually stronger than when I came home. The
doctor thinks there is not much wrong with my side. It is just the weakest part
and first felt and if by nourishing diet I could get the whole body
strengthened I would not feel it so readily, so I have been trying that.
I hope you will continue to
prosper and that I will soon of Jack & William being rising young men. With
grateful thanks, I remain your affectionate Father,
Alex'r Dick.
Narnes & Notes on
Letter #61
Mrs. Muir & daughters
"Morning Light"
John Campbell
Mary, Annie & Alex
Russell
- 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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