202, Bank Street,
Ottawa,
_October 22nd_, '84.
My Dear Old Daddy,
You wrote to me under the expectation of getting a reply from me, so
here you are. Before I proceed further, let me wish you joy, as I
suppose you are married by this time. May God bless you both, and
may your patients have all the faith in your skill as a doctor, and
your honour as a man, that you deserve. I don't know whether to
address to you at Hope Cottage or not, as nobody has told me exactly
when you are to be married, or where you are going when you've been
and gone and done it. Well, by Jove! I know you're a cautious sort
of chap as regards the L.S.D., and that you generally seem to know
about how much coin you ought to have, but if I had your incipient
fortune, I would swear by my own ghost and set up a blacksmith's
shop alongside the Houses of Parliament. I would call myself a
dooke, nothing less. Why it's magnificent. You'll soon be sporting a
donkey cart or a balloon to pay your morning calls in. I would'nt
have horses on any account if I were you, they're vulgar, and then
if you should have to ride anywhere you would make a much greater
sensation on a high mettled donkey with half the attendant personal
danger.
No time for more at present, old chap. Give my love to your wife,
and believe me,
Your affectionate Brother,
J. SETON COCKBURN.
202, Bank Street,
Ottawa,
_October 22nd_, '84.
Dear Mother,
As I am also writing to Daddy by this post, I am afraid you will not
get a very long letter. There's a confisticated great buzz-fly
knocking about, and I can't kill him. I told you in my last letter I
would give you some idea of what Ottawa was like, but now the time
has arrove for the ordeal, I don't like it; descriptions of scenery
are not my forte, and they're always uninteresting both to write and
to read. By-the-bye, before I begin, how's old Frank's ear, poor old
chap, I suppose he growled away by himself, till it was found out by
accident by some of you. I hope it will soon be all right again, and
that he will be able to let me know how he is getting on at the
Works, though three words will probably describe the state of
affairs to perfection, "same as usual." Still, I should like to know
what Major says to him, and if he or any other members of that
fossilized firm are beginning to wake up to a consciousness of his
merits. You know, it's always been my idea, that they will find out
that they have let the two best men they ever had slip through their
fingers, namely, the two senior engineering members of this
remarkable family, and that it will eventually occur to them that
they had perhaps better hold on to the third. The fact of their
giving him 22/- a week while they are sacking other men looks
promising for my theory, and if only he can establish a claim to any
particular qualification, he may yet succeed in drawing some sort of
a prize, where I, and even Pot, have only succeeded in drawing
blanks. I believe Frank does possess a special qualification, and
that is a power of managing and organizing work. Drawing or
designing, etc., is not his strong point, though he would often
succeed in that, as the tortoise, where many a hare would fail; but
give him an erecting job or anything of that sort, and he would so
arrange that the work first wanted should be first ready. This does
not sound very much to boast of, but it is a very useful knack to
have. I certainly do not possess anything of it, and many a scrape I
get into at the Works through forgetting to order certain things at
the proper time. For instance, when I had a dredger to get ready for
action, it was found, when it came to the scratch, that there was no
scum cock for the boiler, no posts for the handrails, etc.. etc. I
was more sinned against than sinning that time however, as the job
was suddenly thrown on my hands, when Pot left the Works in a state
of semi-completion, and I did not know, and in the hap-hazard way
things were done there, I could not find out whether certain details
had been ordered or not. I believe, had Frank been given that job
and told the dredger was to be chiefly the same as number so-and-so,
that every drawing would have been sent out in proper order, and
every question as to alteration, etc., broached in proper time, so
that, when the bosses came to see it tried, it would have worked
well without delay.
That's a very long eulogium on the poor dear "smiler;" let's hope it
will also turn out to be true of him. Do you ever hear from the old
Coke? I suppose you do too, though it seems as if from London to
Dawlish was so short a distance it was scarcely worth writing. How's
he getting on, and which is he? A manager or a millionaire, or,
peradventure, a clerk? Tell Pot to let me know as soon as he makes
his first tanner from his invention, and I will stand myself a cigar
in honour of the occasion. I ought to write him a jaw too, but in
case I shouldn't be able to at present, just tell him, please, that
even supposing he fails in getting the advantages of his machine
recognised in England, he would stand quite as good, if not a better
chance, of doing so here. This country, or better still as I
believe, the States, is far more ready and willing to accept and
make use of improvements than the old one, and he may possibly not
know that an English patent does not hold good here, and vice-versa,
though both countries are under English rule. Just to give you an
instance of the go-ahead nature of the Works here, I can tell you
that Hartley, my employer, has had sixteen patents to procure from
one Works alone, in the space of six months. I believe it is a large
saw mill, or any way there's a large saw mill connected with them,
for the machine I am engaged upon now is for sharpening saws, and
they light their Works by gas. "made from sawdust," which is another
of their patents.
Well, I've got off the scenery so far, and there's the weather to
come yet, lots of it too. We've been having no end of weather
lately. Sunday was cold and dull, nearly freezing the whole day.
Monday ditto, with the addition of a breeze. Tuesday, no breeze, and
as warm as toast, simply a beautiful summer's day. Wednesday just as
hot, but blowing hard, and to-day. Thursday, cold as ever, and still
blowing. I suppose at this time of year it's bound to change any
five minutes. _Friday._--I must mail this in about an hour, but half
that time would suffice to run me dry. By-the-bye, I may as well
tell you that my watch goes beautifully. It needed a good deal of
regulating, and that took a long time, but at length I have got it
quite near enough to perfection for all practical purposes. It gains
steadily now at the rate of about a minute and a half a week. I have
timed it by a gun that is fired every day at noon from the grounds
of the Houses of Parliament. It goes off by electricity, I believe,
or the time is given by electricity from Montreal. Doesn't it sound
rather funny, to hear of the _grounds_ of the Houses of Parliament?
It would to a Londoner, I know, but such is the case. There is such
heaps of room everywhere in this great draughty country, that they
may just as well take twenty acres for their buildings as two,
that's just about it, I should think; it must be quite twenty, and
not a single flower or, even as far as I know, a flowering shrub in
the place; nothing but level lawns and walks or roads, beautifully
kept, I admit. Anyone of the lawns would make half-a-dozen
first-rate tennis courts, but the whole affair, seen from a little
distance, looks like a painted scene. It's just a mass of even green
relieved or embarrassed, as the case may be, by the straight up and
down yellow houses, which houses also, in my opinion, have precious
little architectural beauty to boast of, bar the centre one,
perhaps, which is the house of Parl., par excellence, the others
being only departmental ones. There is a very jolly walk, though
round at the back of them, where I went last Sunday, you see the
houses with their grounds occupy a sort of promontory, which juts
out into the river, or rather into a little lake formed by it at its
bend. The lawns must be from eighty to one hundred feet above the
level of the water, and it is about half way down the banks, which
are more than steep, that the walk in question runs. Fifty years ago
this must have been one of the prettiest spots in Canada, and now
anyone standing there has only the great wooden-looking houses at
his back, and a colony of saw mills in front. The saw mills are
out-and-out the most interesting of the two. The amount of wood cut
up there every day is enormous. I believe Ottawa is the lumbering
centre of Canada; any way, there are acres and acres of wood all cut
up into planks or battens, and stacked thirty feet high and as close
as possible, yet it all looks new, which shows that it must be
shipped away at an enormous rate. Going to shut up now suddenly.
Give my love to Miss Harley, or something a little milder if you
would rather, and believe me, with love also to the rest of the
family circle, which will now, I suppose, include a Mrs. Daddy
Cockburn,
Your loving Son,
J. SETON COCKBURN.
202, Bank Street,
Ottawa.
_November 7th_, '84.
Dear Mother,
This is Friday night again, and I have not begun a letter till now,
but the pure fact of the matter is, that I can say all I have got to
say in about ten minutes. I have been making enquiries in accessible
quarters about rents and taxes, etc., and it seems to me that in the
towns at any rate they are just as high as they are in England. Most
of the houses in the quiet, respectable sort of streets average
about twenty to twenty-five dollars per month, including everything
but water-rate, which is three dollars per month. The cost of living
I should say, is decidedly less, or else how can lodging-house
keepers board and lodge people for from three-and-a-half to five
dollars per week in the towns, and from as low as two-and-a-half in
the country. Of course, I can't tell you anything about the actual
cost of the different articles of food. I would as soon go and
bargain with a linen draper about a fathom of calico as go and
enquire the price of vegetables while standing between two fat old
market women. You see I know precious little about the country, bar
half-a-day or so spent at Hardy's farm, I have never been out of the
towns. Every time I sit down to write to you I spend half my time
thinking who I can tackle on the subjects of your enquiries, and
every time all that comes of it is, ask Barnet. Barnet and Hartley
are the only two people I know here as yet; the former, you know, is
the man that got me my job. He put my name down yesterday for a
member of "The St. Andrew's Society;" the subscription is one dollar
per annum, and the avowed objects of the Society are the finding out
and assisting of needy or unfortunate Scotchmen. I did not join on
account of any charitable feelings toward my countrymen, but simply
for the purpose of making acquaintances. It will all help in making
general enquiries about the country. Besides, who knows if I may not
be in want of a kilt myself some day. (When I send you a photo' of
myself in full war paint you'll know I am hard up again). Talking
about clothing matters, I do not think they are much, if at all,
more expensive than in England. You can get a very good great-coat
or a suit of clothes for ten dollars, though of course that is
mostly in the ready-made department. I asked to-day what a coat like
my ulster would cost, and they said from 20 to 24 dollars, equal
from £4 3s. 4d. to £5. The price in Gateshead was £4 10s. So it
seems that clothes made to order are very much the same, and ready
made are perhaps rather dearer. I got a fur collar put on my
monkey-jacket, which cost 7 dollars; it's a good deal, but I may be
able to do without a fur cap, as the collar when turned up comes
nearly up to the top of my head; it's just about six inches deep of
beaver skin, which, being a light brown, looks simply swagger on my
dark brown coat. We have had a taste of winter here lately, and
though the thermometer did not go much below 10 or 15 degrees under
freezing temperature, the wind, which blew hard, cut so sharply that
I felt certain that when it got 40 or 50 degrees colder I should
feel very glad I had got a warm animal on my throat. There was about
two or three inches of snow which nearly all thawed before it froze.
The snow fell on Tuesday, then it turned to rain, which continued in
a regular down-pour till Wednesday morning, by which time the
streets were a sight to behold. Spark Street, the principal mud path
in Ottawa, looked like a canal of pea soup. It was covered from one
end to the other with about three inches of liquid mud. One
enterprising shop rigged up a canoe and moored it to the side walk,
all decorated with flags, and with "boats or yachts on hire" painted
in large letters. That night I went to an oyster feed at Hartley's.
I had made up my mind to be bored, but was most agreeably
disappointed. Hartley met me at the door, and immediately began
offering me all that his house contained in the way of dry socks,
slippers, etc. From the moment he appeared in a smoking-cap and
dressing-gown, with a tremendous pipe, leading the way, I knew I had
not come out for nothing. We went slick up to his den, where he put
a box of famous cigars by my side, and a box of chessmen and a board
in front. I played away perfectly happy as you may imagine, and with
the assistance of three smokes succeeded in vanquishing all comers,
including my "boss" himself. He evidently thought he had got me
easily, for he had taken two or three of my pieces, but I had laid a
foul plot, and at last "The Assyrian came down like a wolf on the
fold" and I nobbled his king without a struggle. We then adjourned
to visit the oysters; there were two great washing-basins chock
full, and we all squatted round in the kitchen and set to work to
get rid of them as fast as we could open them. I lasted them all
out, and finished both dishes. I guess I did about four or five
dozen. Misfortunes never come singly, no more do the opposite, and
next day I had some more in the regular fare of my diggings. What do
you think of that for a boarding-house? And last night I had some
more again in an eating-house. They are only 20 cents a dozen, and
very good.
This is a fearful scrawl, but it's being done at a tremendous rate
to see if I can't fill up this sheet before mail time. By jove! no,
it's a quarter to eight. Love to everybody.