Dr. £ s. d.
April 1. To Balance in hand 21 3 3
May 9. ,, J. Ruskin, by cheque 55 15 3
—————————
£76 18 6
=========
Cr. Current Expenses. £ s. d.
April 26. By H. Swan, (salary) 10 0 0
May 2. ,, Watch Rate 0 5 0
” ,, Poor Rate 0 10 0
17. ,, Water Rate 0 5 8
” ,, Gas 0 13 3
June 29. ,, Rate on New Land Allotment 0 2 3
———————— 11 16 2
Repairs and Fittings.
April 15. By J. Smith, for making paths 1 19 3
26. ,, J. Ashton, brass taps 0 3 9
” ,, S. Bower, card mounts 0 3 10
” ,, Walter Nield, cases 5 10 0
” ,, J. Smith, paths 1 14 10
May 12. ,, Sheffield Water Works—repairs. 0 5 8
13. ,, Silicate Paint Co. 2 0 9
” ,, J. Smith 1 3 8
19. ,, Mr. Bell, for applying silicate 0 15 0
June 4. ,, Mr. Aitken, fixtures, etc., 1 0 0
pertaining to the two cottages
26. ,, C. Collingwood, materials 5 4 0
for paths
29. ,, G. H. Hovey, floor-cloth 4 11 0
Petty expenses 1 13 5
———————— 26 5 2
Balance in hand 38 17 2
—————————
July 20, 1876. Examined and found correct, E. Rydings. £76 18 6
III. I give the following letters without changing a syllable; never
were any written with less view to literary fame, and their extreme
value consists precisely in their expression of the spirit and force of
character which still happily exists in English youth:—
“Astoria, Columbia River, Oregon, North America.
“I hope you flourish still on this terrestrial sphere. I have been
watching my chance to hook it for a long time: however, I may get a
chance to-morrow. If I do, I will write and let you know immediately.
This is a nice country, only there are a great deal too many trees. We
have been up to Portland, and are now down at Astoria again, waiting
for 250 tons more cargo, and the ship will proceed to Queenstown for
orders, so that if I do go home in her, I shall not get home till
about, the month of August. There was a bark wrecked here the other
night, and the crew spent a night in the rigging; hard frost on, too.
We have had snow, ice, frost, and rain in great abundance. The salmon
are just beginning here, and are so cheap and fresh. I am steward now,
as the other steward has run away.”
“Brookfield, Columbia River, Oregon,
“I have just started another business, and knocked off going to sea:
yours truly is now going in for salmon fishing. I had quite enough of
it, and the ship would have been very unpleasant, because she was very
deep, and I think short-handed.
“One night five figures without shoes on (time 1 a.m.) might be seen
gliding along the decks, carrying a dingy. We launched her over the
side, and put our clothes, provisions, etc., in her, and effected as
neat a clear as one could wish to see. We had been watching our chances
for the last week or so, but were always baffled by the vigilance of
the third mate: however, I happened to hear that he and the boatswain
had also arranged to clear, so we all joined together. We were to call
the boatswain at twelve o’clock: the third mate and all of us had our
clothes up on deck, and the boatswain backed out of it, and the third
mate said he wouldn’t go; but it would have been impossible for him to
go in the ship, for all must have come out” [gentle persuasion,
employed on boatswain, given no account of]. “We started: favoured by
the tide, we pulled fifteen miles to the opposite shore; concealed the
boat, had breakfast, and slept. At twelve that night we started again,
and went oh a sandbank; got off again, and found a snug place in the
bush. We hauled the boat up, and built a house, and lay there over a
fortnight, happy and comfortable. At last the ship sailed, and we got
to work.... We live like princes, on salmon, pastry, game, etc. These
fishermen take as many as 250 (highest catch) in one boat in a night. I
suppose there are about five hundred boats out every night; and the
fish weigh” [up to sixty pounds—by corrections from next letter], “and
for each fish they get 10d.—twenty cents. They sell them to canneries,
where they are tinned, or salt them themselves. They pay two men a boat
from £8 10s. a month. If I can raise coin for a boat and net (£100), I
shall make money hand over fist. Land is 10s. an acre: up-country it is
cheaper.”
“Care of Captain Hodge, Hog’em, Brookfield.
“May 9th, 1875.
“I am now in pretty steady work, and very snug. All the past week I
have been helping Hodge build a house, all of wood; and every morning I
sail a boatful of fish up to the cannery, so altogether it is not bad
fun. I am getting four pounds a months and if the fishing season is
prosperous, I am to get more. A sixty pound salmon is considered a very
big one. There is a small stream runs at the back of the house, wherein
small trout do abound.... I shall catch some. The houses here generally
are about a mile apart, but the one Tom works at is alongside. It is
pretty cold of a night-time, but we have a roaring fire. You are not
allowed to shoot game during the next three months, but after that you
can: there are plenty of grouse, pheasants, ducks, geese, elk, deer,
bears, and all sorts, so perhaps I shall do a little of that. There are
some splendid trees about, some of which are 10 feet thick, from 100 to
200 feet high, and as straight as an arrow. Some Indians live at the
back of us,—civilized, of course: the men work in the boats: some of
the squaws have got splendid bracelets; whether they are made of gold
or brass I don’t know. It rains here all the winter, and the moss grows
on the people’s backs: up around Portland they are called webfeet.
There is a train runs from Portland to San Francisco every day. Tom is
with a very nice old fellow, who is very fond of him, and gave him a
new pair of india-rubber thigh boots the other day, which I consider to
be very respectable of him.
“The boats go out of a night-time mostly; they have a little store on
board, and we have coffee, cake, and bread and butter, whenever we feel
so disposed.”
“In the first place, I will describe all hands belonging to this
shanty. Captain Hodge is a man characteristically lovely, resembling
Fagin the Jew whilst he is looking for Oliver Twist. Still he is
honest—and honest men are scarce: if he is a rum’un to look at, he is a
d—l to go. He has a cat whom he addresses in the following strain: ‘It
was a bully little dog, you bet it was: it had a handle to it, you bet
it had: it was fond of fresh meat, you bet it was.’ The next one is Jem
the cook: he is a Chinaman, and holds very long and interesting
conversations with me, but as I have not the slightest idea of what
they are about, I cannot tell you the details. Then comes Swiggler, who
is an old married wretch, and says he is a grandson of a German Count.
One or two more of less note, the dog Pompey, and myself.
“I can keep myself in clothes and food, but I can’t start to make
money, under £100.
“So F—— will come for £10 a month, will he? He could make that anywhere
while the fishing season lasts, but that is only three months; and this
is rather a cold, wet climate. I have had my first shot at a bear, and
missed him, as it was pretty dark: they are common here, and we see one
every day—great big black fellows—about a hundred yards from the house:
they come down to eat salmon heads.
“I met an old ‘Worcester’ friend, who had run away from his ship, the
other day in Astoria: he was going home overland.
“Hodge offers to board me free all the winter, but as friend Hodge says
he can’t afford wages, I’ll see friend Hodge a long way off.
“I am very well and contented, and shall be about a hundred dollars in
pocket at the end of the season.”
“July 19th.
“We expect the fishing season to last about a fortnight or three weeks
more. Tom and I got some old net from Hodge, and went out fishing: we
caught about six salmon the first night, for which we got 4s. We went
out again on Saturday, and caught eighteen, for which we got 9s. 3d.,
and as that is extra money we profit a little. There are plenty of
bears knocking around here, and Tom and I got a boat and went out one
night. We don’t have to go more than two hundred yards from the house.
About dusk, out comes old Bruin. I was very much excited, and Tom fired
first, and did not hit him; then I had a running shot, and did not hit
him either. He has taken a sack of salmon heads, which I put out for a
bait, right away to his den, and I have not seen him since. However—the
time will come, and when it does, let him look well to himself.
“Did you ever taste sturgeon? I don’t remember ever having any in the
‘old country,’ but it’s very nice.
“Hodge has a fisherman who has caught over eight hundred fish in the
last seven nights; he gets 10d. per fish, so he is making money hand
over fist.
“I have not decided on any particular plans for the winter, but shall
get along somehow.
“Send me any old papers you can, and write lots of times.”
“The last fortnight we have been very busy salting and taking salmon to
the cannery. I have been out four times with Hodge, whom I call Bill,
and the first drift we got twenty-eight; second, twenty-eight; third
and fourth, thirty-one.
“I like this sort of business very well, and am quite contented.
“I wish you would send me out some English newspapers now and
then—‘Illustrated London News,’ ‘Graphics,’ etc. It does not much
matter if they are not quite new.
“The people out here are a rough lot, but a very goodnatured sort.
Hodge has got a nice piece of ground which he intends to cultivate: he
put some potatoes in early last year, and has not looked at them since.
However, I am to be put on to work there for a bit, and I’ll bet my
crop will beat yours.
“There are wild cherries and strawberries growing in the woods, but of
course they are not ripe yet.
“My idea was, or is, to stop till I raise money enough to come home and
get a farm, which I am able to do in two, three, or four years.”
“Alder Point (so called because we’re ‘all dere’),
“Sept. 4th.
“I have been paid off now about a month. I received fifty-one dollars
(a dollar equals 4s. 2d.), and a present of a pair of gum boots, which
every one said was low wages. Tom had fifty, and Jackson a hundred and
fourteen dollars. We combined these, and bought a fishing boat for
ninety dollars, and sail for five more. We then set about to find a
land agent; but they are scarce, so we didn’t find one. Then we went
down to the sawmills, and bought 2094 feet of assorted lumber. I can’t
tell how they measure this lumber; but our house is 24 feet by 16½,
with walls 9 feet high, and a roof about 8 feet slope. The lumber cost
twenty-eight dollars; hammer, nails, etc., about fifteen dollars. We
then chose a spot close to a stream, and built our house. It’s built
very well, considering none of us ever built a house before. It is
roofed with shingles—i.e., pieces of wood 3 feet by ½ foot, and very
thin; they cost seven dollars per 1000. Our house is divided into two
rooms—a bedroom, containing a big fireplace and three bunks; and in the
other room we grub, etc. At the back of the house we have the sword of
Damocles, a tree which has fallen, and rests on its stump, and we know
not at what hour he may fall. In the front we have the Siamese twins, a
tree about 200 feet high, with another tree, about 100 feet, growing
out of him. Nothing but trees all around us, and the nearest house is
two miles away.”
“The Alder Point Mansion.
“I have now shifted my quarters, and am living in my own house, built
of rough wood, in the woods on the bank of the river, and free from
ornament save ‘Sweet Seventeen’ and ‘The Last Days in Old England,’
which I have framed and hung up.
“I am now, to use the words of the poet, ‘head cook and bottle-washer,
chief of all the waiters,’ in my own house. It stands in its own
grounds—for a simple reason, it couldn’t stand in anybody else’s. It
has an elevated appearance,—that is, it looks slightly drunk, for we
built it ourselves, and my architectural bump is not very largely
developed. Our floor is all of a cant, but Tom settled that difficulty
by saying we were to imagine ourselves at sea, and the ship lying over
slightly.
“I am very poor,—have not had a red cent for some time; spent it all on
the house, boat, etc. We have got grub to last us a month and a half,
and ‘what will poor Hally do then, poor thing?’ Probably bust up and
retire. I can’t help envying you occasionally. I am a rare cad in
appearance; an old blue shirt is my uniform. We live principally on
bread and butter and coffee, sometimes varied by coffee and butter and
bread. I have made a dresser, and we have six knives, forks, teaspoons,
plates, cups and saucers, three big spoons, a kettle, frying-pan, and
camp oven, also a condensed sewing machine, which some people call
‘needles.’”
“Sept. 17th.
“Our house was invaded by wasps the other day for our sugar. I
accordingly rigged myself up in shirts, etc., to look something like a
man in a diving suit, and went and seized the sugar and put it in the
chimney, and then fled for dear life. Whilst I was gone the sugar
caught fire, and about forty pounds were burnt, and the chimney also
was nearly burned down. Tom and I and hot water then slaughtered about
four hundred wasps, but that don’t sweeten the coffee.
“I have just been building a slip to haul our boat up on, as it blows
very stiff here in the winter, and there is a good sea in consequence.
Tom and I have been bathing this week or so, but the water is cold. We
see one mountain from here on whose summit there is snow all the year
round. It’s rather monotonous living here; we see no one for days
together. I heard there were two bears below here, so at about nine
o’clock one night I started in the canoe. The river was smooth as
glass, and it was a glorious night; and I guess Bruin thought so too,
for he didn’t give me a sight of him. Ducks are beginning to show round
here, but my gun, which is a United States musket, don’t do much
execution. It is dark here about half-past five or six in the evening,
so I don’t know what our allowance of daylight will be in the winter.
“I remain yours, etc.”
“Oct. 27th.
“Thus far yours truly is progressing favourably. My latest achievement
is in the lifeboat line, which you will hear of, no doubt, from other
sources. The bears have all retired for the winter, which shows Bruin’s
sense. To-morrow I’m going to work up at Brookfield, clearing land. I
shall probably work there three weeks, and then—well, I mean to go to
Portland, and work till Christmas.
“Supper is now ready:—
Poisson. Légumes.
Salmon heads and potatoes.
Entrée.
Potatoes and heads of salmon.
Pièce de resistance.
Salmon heads and spuds.
Dessert.
Bread surmounted with butter.
(Note.—You can’t manage the bread without ¾ inch of grease,
called for decency’s sake ‘butter.’)
Wines.
Café avec beaucoup de chicorée.
Finish off.
A smoke.
“Having digested supper, and trimmed the yeast powder tin with lard in
it for a lamp, I resume. The sport going on here at this time of the
year is sturgeon fishing, with lines a fathom or so, and any number of
hooks. The sturgeon run very big: I have seen one that measured eight
feet from stem to stern. In the spring there are swarms of smelts; you
take them with a net the size of a landing-net, with small meshes.
There is good elk shooting, and deer away back in the woods; but you
must go after them for about a week, and that is poor fun in this sort
of weather. We got one of our big trees down the other day with a big
auger: you bore two holes in the tree, stick a live piece of charcoal
in it, and blow like mad, and the tree will catch, and in a few days
he’ll burn and fall. Very interesting, but it fills up.”
“Oct. 28th.
“It’s some time since you last had a letter, and I guess you deserve
this. Tom and I are both all right, and the other man, Jackson, is, I
think, going home. Since I wrote last the rainy season has commenced,
and at times it blows like my namesake ‘Old Harry.’
“During a heavy squall some days ago, when Tom and I were returning
from Brookfield, a boat about three-quarters of a mile behind us
capsized, and a man and boy who were in her managed to climb on to her
bottom. Tom and I bore away and picked them up, and they were truly
grateful—not without cause, for, but for our assistance, they must have
lost their lives.
“The man was * * *, who has lots of money, but he hasn’t given us any.
Perhaps he saw the necessity of our saving him,—made a virtue of a
necessity, and virtue is its own reward. So much for my new ten
shilling hat, lost in the rescue.
“I am in with all that’s going on in London and England, for I get lots
of papers, and as soon as I have done with them they are in great
request all along the river. A boat has just called here, and John
Elliot, a New Brunswick man, was grateful for a ‘Graphic.’
“The ‘London News’ has just come to hand,—the ‘Prince’s visit to India’
edition,—and is certainly quite a furore amongst the boys. On Tuesday
night there was a hurricane here: it blew a great deal of the cannery
down, and the place presents the appearance of a wreck. The house was
swaying to and fro, and all hands had to leave for their lives. It
nearly blew a man 6 ft. 3 in. off the wharf, and everybody was crawling
on their hands and knees. Great trees were rooted up by hundreds: and
at the next cannery above this, the owner had just left his house and
gone to play a game of cards, when a tree came down on his house and
smashed it into many pieces.
“I am working here clearing land: I don’t work when it rains, so I get
about four days a week to myself. However, this week has been an
exception, for we have had three fine days. Snowed thick last week:
weather cold and bracing. Am getting one dollar fifteen cents a day’s
work, but am living up to it.”
“Nov. 23rd.
“You doubtless think I am quite uncivilized: however, whilst I am
writing a cat is purring on my knees, if that is any evidence of
civilization.
“To-morrow I am going out to work for about three weeks, clearing away
bush for a Swede. I shall ask a dollar a day, but I don’t expect it. I
may add, necessity alone compels me to take this step, as I am
beginning to forget what a dollar is like, it is so long since I had
one. I am heavy on the axe: I cut down five trees to-day, and the trees
out here are by no means small. A troop of five wild-ducks came round
here on Saturday, so I loaded my old musket and let rip into the middle
of them: singular to relate, they all swam away. Then occurred one of
the most vigorous pursuits the human eye has ever witnessed. Hungry H.
H. H. v. the ducks. I broke three paddles and my own nose, and then
they escaped. However, one white one was sighted, and in the evening
the old mud-stick (i.e. musket) was again prepared, and next day we ate
wild-duck for dinner.
“On the whole, I like this much better than being on the ship, and I
don’t think I shall come home for two or three years.
“I am rigging a model of a ship, and I am not unhandy at it, and I
calculate it will fetch me twenty dollars.”
“Dec. 26th.
“I will begin by wishing the house a Merry Christmas and a Happy New
Year, if so be it is not too late. We had a quiet Christmas Day with
our select few. We were going to have a deer hunt, but the weather,
which made a regular old-fashioned Christmas, stopped us. We had a good
dinner, but no turkey or sausages. There is a strange old character
stopping here, an ex-prizefighter, and in the evening he gave us a
short sermon on the Star in the East, and asked us if we remembered
Christmas Eve 1800 years ago. He then gave us a step-dance, so as not
to dwell too long on one subject. Italian Sam gives a dance on New
Year’s night, and I may go.
“I got my discharge from Megler on Tuesday week, after putting in 25½
days’ work since November 1, in consequence of bad weather, for which I
had the large sum of 0 to take, being one dollar in debt. However, I
struck a job right away, which is pretty stiff work—cutting cord-wood,
making one dollar a day and board. Cord-wood is a pile of wood eight
feet long, four high, and four broad, about one foot thick, and it is
pretty hard work swinging a heavy oaken maul all day long, splitting
the wood with wedges. But it’s good for the muscle. Goodbye.”
“Alder Point. Date uncertain.
“It’s about a month since I last wrote to you; I had no writing-paper,
and no coin to buy any; however, Oleson paying up enabled me to lay in
a stock. The rainy, blowy, galy season has set in, and it is pretty
miserable down here. We had a heavy gale the other day, but did not
suffer any damage, though many people predicted we should lose our
boat; but the gale is over, and the boat is still there, so that it
shows public opinion may sometimes err. We were scared lest some of the
big trees should come down, but they did not. If you could spare
Gladstone for a bit, I would board him free, and he could wire in all
round here free gratis for nothing. After the gale, the next day looked
fine, so Tom and I (a puff of wind just came, and I thought the house
would succumb, but no! it holds its own) went up to Brookfield. Coming
back, there were lots of squalls; I was steering, and we saw one
coming, so shortened sail: the boat was nearly capsized, and we had to
take out the mast and let it rig, and so saved ourselves. There was a
boat behind us, and we were watching her as the squall passed up: they
shortened sail and tried to run before the wind to Brookfield, but—over
she went. So Tom and I made all haste to save the crew. She was about
three-quarters of a mile off, so we up sail and ran down for her. The
crew, * * * and a boy, were sitting on the bottom of the boat white as
ghosts. We took them aboard, picked up his oars and rudder, and then
took them ashore to a house where we all got dry clothes and something
to eat. They certainly owed their lives to us, and it was very lucky we
saw them, for they must otherwise have perished. I lost a new 10s. hat
in the rescue. * * * has lots of money; but he has offered us none,
yet. Perhaps, as he saw that we must of necessity save him, he made a
virtue of a necessity, and virtue they say is its own reward. So much
for my new hat.”
IV. I beg all my readers who can afford it, to buy ‘Threading my Way,’
by Robert Dale Owen, (Trübner, 1874). It is full of interest
throughout; but I wish my Companions to read with extreme care pages 6
to 14, in which they will find account of the first establishment of
cotton industry in these islands; 101 to 104, where they will find the
effect of that and other manufacturing industries on the humanities of
life; and 215 to 221, where they will find the real statistics of that
increased wealth of which we hear so constant and confident boasting.
V.—Part of letter from an honest correspondent expressing difficulties
which will occur to many:—
“I thank you for what you say about the wickedness of ‘taking interest’
consisting in the cruelty of making a profit out of the distresses of
others. And much of the modern spirit of looking for bargains, and
buying in the cheapest market, is precisely the same. But is there not
a radical moral difference between such deliberate heartlessness, and
simply receiving interest from an ordinary investment? Surely it is
very important that this matter should be made clear.”
The difference between deliberate and undeliberate heartlessness;—
between being intelligently cruel, with sight of the victim, and
stupidly cruel, with the interval of several walls, some months,
and aid and abetting from many other equally cruel persons, between
him and us, is for God to judge; not for me. But it is very important
that this matter should be made clear, and my correspondent’s
question, entirely clarified, will stand thus:
“If I persist in extracting money from the poor by torture, but keep
myself carefully out of hearing of their unpleasant cries, and
carefully ignorant of the arrangements of mechanism which enable me, by
turning an easy handle, to effect the compression of their bones at
that luxurious distance, am I not innocent?” Question which I believe
my correspondent quite capable of answering for himself.