Letter #65 to son Alex in Australia
145
G. E. Road, March 18th. 1862
My Dear Son,
I received yours of 23rd.Dec’r and I hope you
had a good balance to reward you for your toil and anxiety. I see there is
still a considerable number of sailings from Melbourne to New Zealand and as a
proportion will no doubt be from Smythesdale you will still be in some anxiety
about the decline of your business. But I hope the worst is past and you will
still be able to secure a good paying trade.
Law & Dick are resolved to push as
contractors and seem satisfied they will reap both profit and honour. Ballarat
folks are building away and looking forward to future prosperity. Jack and
William seem to enjoy good health and good spirits.
As
block printers had a few weeks at Busby and there will soon be another order
for us I was out the other day and I saw Wm. Moody. He is in good health but is
not constantly employed. The cylinders are quite throng and doing a great
quantity of DeLaines. Mr. Loudon is looked on as a dying man; he has been very
poorly these ten months. Wm. Pollock, shoemaker, is very bad. Peter Clark and
John Gardiner are looked on as mending. Wm. Wilson writes that the population
is leaving Maryborough for New Zealand and that he has stopt going on with the
extension of his premises. The two youngest daughters of the late Wm. Hunter of
Busby are to sail for Queensland in a short time. They follow their two elder
sisters. Laidlaw, the drawer, tells me he intends to go to the diggings in Nova
Scotia. Jas. Hunter has taken a shop to sell toys, carpet bags &c. There
are many drawers idle as well as others.
The
American war is the great cause of the dullness of trade and it does appear to
be drawing to a close. Of late, success has been with the North. With what
spirit the South will meet adversity is unknown, nor is it known if the South
is nearly unanimous in the quarrel with the North so that no guess can be made
of what turn the war may take. One thing we know, the North cannot continue the
present rate of expenditure for many months without causing great distress in
its own territories, so that both parties may have an inclination to peace by
& by.
The report goes that Mr. Glen retires from
the firm of Glen &. Mclndoe and that James Hall goes in partner with
Mclndoe.
I
should have mentioned that when my grandmother saw David Dick and Jean Airth at
the birth of Douglass Dick, they assured her that should they have a daughter
they would name her Mary. The advertisement for the heirs mentioned 2 daughters,
one named Ann. The name of the other was not given, but I was informed by a Mr.
Dick in Castle Street that her name was Mary. Alex'r Dick, writer, Queen
Street, told me he would get me some money if I got anything like proof for my
statements, but I fear that is what we will never get.
Alex'r
Russell is still out, Annie is still in the cap warehouse at 7/6 per week and
Auntie is in her usual. I always come to Camlachie when idle as I like my
lodgings better than any other I have met with and it is fully more lightsome
wandering about her than about Busby and I can get into a reading room for 1
/2d per visit. I irnprove my Arithmetic
sometimes. I have written some of it half a dozen times over.
I
am happy at you all keeping on terms with one another. William informs Jack and
he have Magee & Dick for backers and that is very pleasant. I often wonder
if Jack & Wm. have a scolding match over their work now a days, but I
believe them more civilized now.
I am your affectionate Father,
Alex'r
Dick.
Names & Notes on Letter #65
Law
& Dick
Wm.Moody
Mr. Loudon
Wm.Pollock
Peter
Clark
John
Gardiner
Wm.Wilson
Wm.Hunter's
four daughters
Laidlaw
Jas.
Hunter
Mr.Glen
of Glen & Mcindoe
James
Hail
Grandmother
(Mary Douglass)
David
Dick & Jean Airth
Douglass
Dick
Ann
Dick
Mr.
Dick, Castle Street
Dick
Alex'r
Dick, writer, Queens Street
Mary,
Annie & Alex'r Russell
Magee
& Dick
- 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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