1961 - The Richmond-Atkinson Papers Vol II - Chapter 6, New Social Portents, 1872-74, p 321-387

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Chapter 6

New Social Portents

1872-74

In June 1873 Sir James Fergusson, who had been governor of South Australia, came to New Zealand in succession to Sir George Bowen. He resigned at the end of 1874 to engage again in British politics.

The peace ministry led by William Fox was ousted late in 1872 by a Stafford administration which lasted only a fortnight. Then the principal members of Fox's team returned under the leadership of George Marsden Waterhouse (1824-1906), who had been premier of South Australia and was now in New Zealand and in the Legislative Council. Waterhouse was premier for less than six months and Fox for a like period until Vogel reformed the cabinet.

Though there were still occasional alarms in the Maori districts, Taranaki enjoyed a considerable period of peace. A threat of invasion by Tawhiao at the end of 1873 proved baseless. H. A. Atkinson in 1872 was engrossed in farming, with occasional indulgence in racing. Later in the year he was elected M.H.R. for Egmont, and in 1874, after some hesitation he joined the administration of Julius Vogel as secretary for lands and minister of immigration. Charles Christopher Bowen joined at the same time as minister of justice. The family letters show the misgivings that Atkinson felt about joining Vogel and his gradual conversion to the views then advanced. He had himself advocated reform of the provincial system but he did not anticipate being called upon to carry the abolition resolutions in the House.

In Taranaki there were important changes. Atkinson in 1873 contested the superintendency unsuccessfully against F. A. Carrington and Charles Brown. Re-elected to the council, he took a firm stand against the type of administration that had prevailed for some years.

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In 1874 this dispute came to a deadlock and eventually Atkinson became Carrington's provincial secretary on his own terms: 'I wrote out conditions on which I would join. I to be head of the government and nothing to be done without my being first consulted.' The intensity of political feeling led to Atkinson instituting proceedings against his chief critic, who apologised and paid part of the court costs.

A few months later Atkinson broke with provincial politics and took office in Vogel's government as secretary for lands and minister of immigration, a service which in that year (1874) brought 31,000 new people into the Colony.

J. C. Richmond, who in 1872 again contested a Nelson seat, left for Europe in 1873 to educate his family, in Germany, Switzerland and England. His travel notes, with their wistful glances towards art in every form, are always fresh. There is an interesting description of Syrgenstein Castle, in Bavaria, where Margaret Taylor lived with her sister (Catherine Whittle) and two generations of Richmonds made rendezvous. Richmond relished his contacts with European artists, musicians and philosophers. In 'this curious world,' as he found it in 1874, he again indulged his religious theories.

There is a letter of outstanding interest from Alfred Domett to A. S. Atkinson (of 20 November 1872), recording his impressions on returning to live in England after thirty years abroad. A characteristic growl about weather, men and manners is enlivened by anecdotes of encounters with great figures in literature, notably Robert Browning (who welcomes 'Waring' back with unalloyed affection), Richard Holt Hutton and Alfred Tennyson. This letter of Domett largely parallels the diary which is the basis of E. A. Horsman's publication. 1 There are also letters from E. C. J. Stevens, an elder statesman of Canterbury, on the evolution of politics and the decay of manners in a colonial society.

While presiding over the Hawkes Bay Native Lands Alienation Commission in 1873 Judge Richmond kept a journal which scintillates with bright impressions and character sketches. Amongst his acquaintances in Hawkes Bay were Frederick Maning and members

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of the missionary family of Williams - apparently Bishop W. Williams and Archdeacon Samuel Williams (of Te Aute). This pleasant encounter evoked a shrewd judgment: 'I fancy they would have been good leaders of settlement had fate so willed.'

From Jane Maria Atkinson there is a vigorous feminist letter to Anne Shaen discussing the reconciliation of science with religion and the acceptance of miracles. 'I am a believer in women's rights, but I do wish some of its advocates had more commonsense and tact, for they seem to retard the cause. I have no expectations that conferring the franchise on women will revolutionise society or effect any sudden change, but I do think that a great change is needed. The ordinary life of women is either constant drudgery or complete frivolity out here, tho' happily with some bright exceptions.'

Maria Richmond ('Lely'), the matriarch of the family migration, died on 19 Dec 1872, aged 81. The eldest of the Atkinson brothers, William Smith Atkinson, passed away on 3 Sep 1874, aged 48.

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H. A. Atkinson to A. S. Atkinson - - - New Plymouth, 2 Mar 1872

... I have not sold Titanium yet. W. Bayly has offered me 4 first-rate cows for him, but I should have some difficulty in selling them so I have not taken it. Bill has also now offered me £35 in three months; this I should have taken but I had .. . agreed to let him on halves to one of the constabulary and run him at the races. You will perhaps be as surprised as I am but the total cost to me, including every thing, will be £3.10 and I think the difference in the price I shall get, if he wins, is worth this risk . . .

v 7, p 8

C. W. Richmond to Emily E. Richmond Hokitika, 16 Mar 1872

We got into Westport at 10 on Wednesday night. . . Dr Giles was absent holding a court at Charleston ... At midnight we screwed off again to Hokitika - a lovely calm starlight night. Yesterday morning about 10 we were off this place, and after a wait of about 2 hours came in; the bar being quite imperceptible.

The Foxes are still on the coast. Mr Fox [the Premier] has been down to Okarita to see the glaciers. He has been taking sketches and headers in the glacier-fed rivers. Their return to this house was expected last night from Ross, but they did not come. Mr Lahmann, 2 with many apologies, explained that they had got possession of the large sitting-room which I generally occupy - or rather as he put it the ladies (Mrs Fox and Anna) were to have the room. He also begged that I would take my meals with him for the present; and I believe the Foxes also eat with him. I have got the green sitting room which the county chairman commonly occupies. There are 14 names on the calendar, but nothing heavy. . . .

The Bishop of Nelson was a fellow passenger with us from Westport. He goes on to Greymouth today - no doubt to be in time for the races. Tomorrow is St Patrick's day.

Captain Whitwell [s.s. Kennedy] was exceedingly kind and gave up to me his deck cabin which made the voyage much pleasenter to me. To my great surprise I found on his little shelf of books Ecce Homo, Darwin on The Origin of Species, the Duke of Argyl on Primitive Man, and several books of J. S. Mill. I had thought that he was a good but very narrow Scripturalist. I promised to lend him Hume's Essays - the volume containing the essay on 'The necessary connection of cause and effect'.

1872/2

H. A. Atkinson to A. S. Atkinson Hurworth, 5 Apr 1872

. . . Titanium did not do as well as we had hoped. He was too fat; he only won one race, but ran second in all the other ones he ran in, so he saved his stakes each time. Bill will have cleared about £3.

The fine weather unfortunately broke up on the 1st . . . Only the life boat went off to the steamer on Tuesday . . .

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Honi Peama [? Pihama] came to Bill the other day with a story which he had got from a Maori from Mokau way ... to the effect that they had begun to fight in Waikato about connecting the telegraph . . . Some Maories came down and cut the wire. This was mended by the Maories and pakehas making the line, and a watch kept. Seven of the rebels came down to cut it again but instead the watch killed 6 of them, the seventh escaped and went to the King who has moved down in force. Honi seemed to think the thing likely but we don't think much of it. Parris is away in Wellington . . .

v 7, p 8

J. Macassey 3 to Colonial Secretary - - - Dunedin, Otago, N.Z., 22 Apr 1872

I have the honor to forward you herewith a copy of a draft bill to amend the Court of Appeal Act 1862. The bill will probably be introduced into the Colonial Legislature by a private member unless the Government should intimate . . . their intention of adopting the bill as their own ... It is most desirable that the opinions of the judges should be taken upon it.

The strongest objections to the proposed measure are . . . that (1) it dispenses with argument, and (2) consultation among the judges . . . My answers to them are (1) that the bill will be merely permissive ... (2) that it will obviate the enormous delays which at present attend the hearing of appeals, and (3) the expenses of an appeal will be reduced to about one tenth of its present cost . . .

I may be permitted to say as a member of the legal profession . . . that the proposed bill will confer a signal boon on the public, although that will doubtless be at the expense of the profession.

v 7, p 9

Harman and Stevens to C. W. Richmond - - - Christchurch, 24 Jun 1872

Your tenant Mr Crocker applies to know whether instead of now purchasing the farm he holds on lease from you, he may have a new lease for fourteen years as an extension of his present one. The new rent to be fourteen shillings per acre and the lease to contain a right of purchase for ten pounds per acre. His object appears to be to be enabled to make certain improvements on the land especially to build a good granary and a substantial shed for housing his sheep and lambs in winter. He has about 100 acres of the farm sown down in English grass.

1872/4

H. A. Atkinson to A. S. Atkinson - - - Hurworth, 11 Jul 1872

... I should certainly apply for your volunteer land. I believe under the Act you are entitled if you serve as a volunteer say for five years, and two out of that on active service to receive your £30 grant as an efficient volunteer and five pounds for every six months of active service in addition . . .

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How are your fowls getting on? I have nearly completed a new house and yard for mine . . . They did very well considering last season but began to lay very late . . . I have got two splendid young Dorking cocks, which you will envy when you see them next summer . . .

I am preparing a memorial to the Assembly about Carrington's land grant and the old land claims generally. I don't know whether you and James will like to sign it. The job is, I believe, even worse than I thought (i.e. F. Carrington's getting for himself a special grant of land) the memorial will be well signed here. I think the prayer will be to repeal the C.L.G. Act 4 and to refer all the claims to a judge of the supreme court as in Whitaker's and Lundon's claim. I shall give a short history as to how the claims arose and reasons why Carrington should not be treated separately from the rest of the claimants. . . .

P.S. Kelly will present the Memorial to the H.R. and move the repeal . . .

v 7, p 14

Jane Maria Atkinson to Miss Anne Shaen - - - Nelson, 14 Jul 1872

Xmas for a wonder found me unwell and in the doctor's hands (for the first time for 12 years, unless for natural events) and though I was soon well again the summer holidays, which you must remember in this topsy-turvy world are identical with Xmas holidays, brought so much business, preparing and despatching daughters, nieces and nephews on summer trips, receiving visitors at home, making jam, and arranging picnics, excursions etc, that there was no spare energy for writing letters .. .

Arthur passed his examination . . . and became a legally qualified barrister and solicitor . . . Judge Johnston . . . has told various people that Ar passed 'a brilliant examination'. You will excuse my being rather proud of Arthur when you know that he was only at school for about a year in his life, never had any tutor or was at any college and has educated himself since we were married, not whilst living as a gentleman but busily employed as a bush farmer, volunteer on active service, clerk in the Native Department, editor of a newspaper, and member of Parliament! and finally as judge's secretary, in which last capacity he had real leisure to study . . . Wishing for some practical experience . . . before starting anywhere for himself, he made a temporary arrangement to work with a young solicitor in good practice here. At the end of the stipulated six months, the two worked so well together, and liked each other so much that Mr Fell offered to take Arthur into partnership and the firm has been Fell and Atkinson since the 1st of Nov last. . . Ar has a good business ready-made, which will bring him not less than £700 per annum at once, and a partner exactly to his taste in all respects and we are enabled to remain here close to two of my brothers, where our boy can receive an excellent education and we have many conveniences and social advantages not obtainable in so small and remote a province as Taranaki.

Arthur is, however, so true to his first N.Z. love, that he will be long in calling

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himself a Nelsonian, if he ever does. The very misfortunes of Taranaki seem to have endeared the place to us as much as its beauty and fertility. We still possess several hundred (330) acres of land there (bringing in the magnificent rental of £20 per annum) and imagine ourselves retiring when our fortune is made to build and beautify our estate. However, it is highly probable this country house will forever remain a chateau en Espagne.

A still more favourite scheme of mine is to save money for a trip to England when the children are old enough to profit by it . . . how great the pleasure of actually seeing the wonderful material progress in the old world we hear so much of. I should not desire to live in the midst of the latter and we get far more real enjoyment of existence in our quiet mode of life here . . . All I want to make life perfect here, is the power of seeing such old friends as yourself and M. Taylor at any rate once a year and of attending James Martineau's services ... I wish it were possible to induce him to publish more of his sermons ... I wonder if he knew the great benefit and delight it would be to his distant disciples to read his thoughts and be encouraged and roused by his spirit whether it might influence him? . . .

I see Richard's name as Minister at Royston and S. Shaen's name on a list of Unitarian Association worthies, so those brothers still are faithful to dissent . . .

I fancy we should be quite agreed on theological points but that I am quite ignorant of Mazzini's writings . . . Rd Hutton's views have been a great pain to me and made me fear more than anything that Christianity could not be perennial. He always seemed to have a clear and logical intellect, but to be driven back on a form of orthodoxy by the warmth of his affection and spiritual feeling. His intellect seemed to tell him that unless the Incarnation was a fact, Christianity could retain no hold on human nature; his heart and spirit clung to Christianity with such power that the Incarnation became therefore a fact to him. Wanting his warmth of nature I used to say to myself, then Christianity must go for me, as nothing can ever make the Incarnation conceivable to my mind. Then I bowed to his dictum that the Incarnation was the keystone of Christianity just as churchmen might bow to J. H. Newman's and accept the Romish Church or none. Now I have quite different views and feelings. Christianity seems to me as a living organism that can have nothing but a divine origin because it lives and grows and becomes more perfect in spite of human mistakes. In Richard's change of view I can rejoice on public grounds for I see it has enabled him to be much more powerful for good in the present state of opinions. No doubt if we had been personally acquainted with Mr Maurice any difficulty in understanding Rd's conversion might have been removed, as Mr Maurice's personal influence had, I believe, something magical in it. From the short account of Mazzini given in the Spectator the same wonderful charm was found in intercourse with him.

Here we labour under the great disadvantage of being beyond the personal influence of highly gifted men . . . We often read our Martineau's Endeavours and his Essays. In one of the old volumes in reading the review of Theodore Parker I

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was struck with Mr M's remarks on the Resurrection and wondered whether opinions since that date had not undergone important modifications.

I cannot honestly believe in miracle, so called, of any kind and have the greatest interest in hearing how minds infinitely more powerful and more fully informed than my own retain their belief in the face of modern science.

On the progress of social questions I hope you will keep me informed. I am a believer in women's rights, but I do wish some of its advocates had more common sense and tact, for they seem to retard the cause ... I have no expectations that conferring the franchise on women will revolutionise society or effect any sudden change, but I do think that a great change is needed. The ordinary life of women is either constant drudgery or complete frivolity out here, tho' happily with some bright exceptions ... I was rather influenced by John Morley's answer to 'Some Ladies', in the direction of proposing that they were meddling in a matter they did not thoroughly understand . . . My dear Mother . . . has read Crabbe Robinson's Life twice! and is just enjoying Charles Young's Memoirs, full of gossip about people she knew in old days. . .

H.R.R.[ichmond] has begun school teaching at Taranaki - partly for his only boy's sake. There is no good school there.

1872/5

C. W. Richmond to F. D. Bell (Wellington) - - - Nelson, 7 Aug 1872

You have more than once referred to your intention of demanding a reference of your claim to arbitration. If unfortunately we should finally differ to such an extent as to make it necessary to litigate the matter I myself have a strong preference for a resort, in the first instance, to the court . . . Any one of us has the power ... in our articles of having our affairs wound up in court.

You say you see no prospect of any renewal of the partnership. I for my part see no prospect of its termination. I wish I did. I w'd take a very moderate fee for my share, having as you are well aware been anxious to sell for many years past.

v 42

C. W. Richmond to George Cook (Dunedin) - - - Nelson, 23 Aug 1872

On the 19th of this month I agreed to dispose of an undivided fourth part of the Ida Valley run to Mr Francis Dillon Bell for £4,500.

The run in question is the property of a copartnership consisting of Mr Stafford, Mr Bell, Captain Frederick Gordon Steward, and myself, using the style of Stafford and Bell. The license is numbered and is in the names (I believe) of Messrs Stafford and Bell.

The terms of purchase are £1,500 cash, which has been paid, and the balance in 3 equal instalments of £1,000 each payable at the end of one, two and three years from date of agreement. The balance for the time being to carry interest at 8 per

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cent... I asked Mr Bell to send you the brand and estimated numbers of the stock . . . the numbers to be expressed as more or less, also the number of the run (no 261 I believe).

I am asking Mr Stafford to be the covenantee in the deed as my trustee of the security, thinking that I shall be thereby in a better position, as the license is in his name jointly with that of Mr Bell.

v 42

H. A. Atkinson to E. W. Stafford - - - New Plymouth, 29 Aug 1872

[Thinks he would be elected if he stood] ... It would be very difficult for me to leave home now any length of time, but I won't see a Foxite get in if I can help it . . . Let me know as soon as possible when Gisborne has actually resigned if he does. 5 I hope you will, or have, succeeded in turning them out with all my heart although if you go in the work will be something frightful . . .

(Stafford Papers 51, Turnbull Library)

H. A. Atkinson to A. S. Atkinson - - - Wellington, 11 Oct 1872

You will no doubt hear by telegram what has been done before you get this . . . Waterhouse 6 is I think a thoroughly unstable man, in fact a poor weak creature and if he remains in the Government will be completely in the hands of Vogel. He is to take the premiership without pay.

Kelly has been sounding me to day (he is on their committee for cabinet making) but of course it would be quite out of the question with such a team and with the opinion I have formed of Waterhouse. I don't want this mentioned to any one except James and Bill as I should not like it to get about. Of course I have mentioned it to Annie but have told her only to mention it to you. Ormond will not give up his superintendency and so only holds office till after - I mean during this session. Their party seem satisfied at present but we can't tell how the disappointed ones will act in a few days. I am inclined to leave them alone if we can do so decently. No good I fear can be done in this House while the money remains unspent. Nothing more to say at present . . .

(v 7, p 16)

H. A. Atkinson to A. S. Atkinson - - - Wellington, 13 Oct 1872

. . . The House is thoroughly tired and has no fight left in it, all members seem now to desire is to get home as soon as possible. As far as I can see a coalition is now impossible, nor do I think the House is inclined to go to the country. Vogel will be left in command of the situation. Waterhouse as far as I can see is no good, he will either have to leave his own Ministry or do what Vogel tells him. Stafford cutting off the contributions to the road boards has without doubt weakened

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his position by making a good many constituencies put pressure on their members. Things are in a horrid state and will I fear remain so till the money is all spent. . . .

Hall wishes to have a good talk with me and would like to have a talk with James. He thinks a great mistake was made last year in not trying a coalition then. . .

v 7, p 16

A. Domett to A. S. Atkinson - - - 25 Upper Phillimore Place, London, 27 Nov 1872

Dear Arcturus,

... I wanted to be able when I should write, to speak with a little amount of certainty as to that 'opusculum,' as you call it and its fate in this hemisphere. Perhaps you will have heard before you get this of my audacious venture and have discovered that your conjecture that I meant to attempt to be the 'Vates sacer' of our many Agamemnons' - was the furthest possible from the real truth . . . You ask for my 'view or review of the old country - its people, institutions and ways - also the climate.' That you must allow, for a question, is what Browning in 'Sordello', calls 'one of God's great ones' - and is scarcely to be answered adequately on note paper or in one letter.

Briefly, for the country - it seems as the Yankee said, as if you were always afraid of stepping over its edge into the sea' - not so striking for superiority or gardenlike cultivation - as I used to think it after visiting even the continent of Europe in old days - rapidly turning into streets and brickfields and rather tame and dull. For the people - the higher classes seem to have less freedom of thought - every way less strength of opinion or conviction of anything political or religious - more regard for conventions of all kinds, and as thickskinned and fashion-driven or nose-led as ever - that they could not increase in or get to a higher degree of. The lower classes seem more inclined to insolence insubordination and discontent - though in most ways much better off. The 'institutions' . . . certainly, I should guess, are very much improved -if in 'institutions' you include 'laws.' But of course 'the hungry people' still is slowly coming nigher and nigher - and 'the fire' still slowly dying - though here I don't think Royalty 'nods and winks' much - but seems tolerably wide awake to the necessity of continually blowing, however 'gently,' at said languishing fire!

For 'the ways of the people', they are as they always were - dull, formal, stereotyped, mechanical or machinelike and infinitely stupid. Lastly for the climate!!! only Hamlet's exclamation will do for that. 'O horrible, horrible, most horrible'. For the last month or six weeks dullness-cloud and fog - perpetual Scotch mist or rain - spitting not pouring. 'Adam loved God - but went apart and dwelt in the shade' - So Jeremy Taylor began one of his sermons once. And precisely that seems the fate of one who comes back to England after long sojourn in New Zealand - One seems always in the dark. I try to give the natives (I mean our native Anglo-Saxons) an idea of our feelings about it by telling them it is just as if they were to go suddenly and live altogether underground - Would any amount of fine furniture or indoor luxuries or profusion of gaslight make up for the loss of the daylight? But the wretches only smile - with a fatuousness of perfect content with their lot which is truly irritating if not disgusting.

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Think of long rows of mean houses of the dirtiest brick with neutral tinted deadlooking skeletons of trees protruding their ugliness here and there - streets always muddy or sloppy in spite of indefatigable scavengers and big carts of mud-soup ladled into overflowing in every quarter - all fading in short vistas into sullen gray or yellow fog - people with an air of stolid endurance hurrying along under umbrellas - their waterproof coats the only shining things in their existence - cabs, omnibuses . . . and all drip, drip, drip - till you think of Sheridan's remark on Coleridge's line in his play of Remorse: 'Why here is nothing but dripping.' But nothing can give you an idea of the desolate deadly liveliness and soul depressing dirty gloom and discomfort of a London winter! I had fully intended and hoped to have got out of it into South Italy or somewhere where they do see the sun, long ere this - but expenses and getting fixed into a house and all the botheration of one's surroundings deprive one of the power of locomotion. Next year please God we shall manage better.

Well, but to ... go to your next queries - 'Have you seen Browning yet?' Yes, I have seen Browning many times. Almost the first week we were in London a sister of mine with whom we were staying happened to be driving us from Regent's Park over to Kensington (we were lodging-hunting) and we had to pass near Warwick crescent, Paddington - where the Directory set down R.B. as resident. So, though I somehow had got in into my head that he lived in Italy - we stopped at the house indicated. I rang and asked if Mr B. used not to live there? Whereupon the liveried youth answered with a look of surprise - 'Yes, he does live here, but is not at home,' but that Miss B. and Mr B. junior were. So I sent up a card and was asked up, and there found the 'Sariana' (Miss B., R.B's sister) I had known in old days - unmarried still - and just as lively and friendly as ever. 'Mr Domett! ! ! ! ! ! her exclamation! declaring how infinitely disappointed 'Robert' wd. be not to have been at home, &c, &c. So next day came note from R.B. urging me to come and see him. Well, I went and found him just as of old - put his arms on my shoulders - expressed greatest delight, &c, &c. Of course we had all kinds of chat on all kinds of things. He looks . . . pale - grey - stouter than of old - but hard and vigorous - never had had, he said, a day's illness in his life. He lives in a modest sized house in a stucco-row, overlooking the Regents Canal - all the furniture brought from their Florentine house - all old -(medieval a good deal) black ebony - old tapestry on the upper walls - marble busts of Mrs B. and self and son, &c, &c. Antique sofa 3 feet about from the ground - 'very comfortable,' said Miss B, 'if you could only get up to it.' There was the little desk at which Mrs B wrote all her poems (you know she has been dead 11 years). He showed me her classical books with her own annotations, in Greek, &c, on their margins - he and 'Sariana' always speaking of her as if she were something almost supernatural in excellence - talent - and modest unconsciousness, &c, &c.

Well, we have often met and talked of all kinds of things. I have told him of you and the Richmonds too, as his staunch admirers, not forgetting your favorite quotation 'Thoughts hardly to be packed into but a narrow act - Fancies, &c' I have told him flatly too of the old sore, 'his obscurity' - but I fear it is of no use - he assumes

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or asserts that he can't help it - that he must write according to his nature, or something to that effect. He seems to think that he was never read (always excepting by a few) till the generation next his own sprung up - and says that he is content with the audience he has now. And indeed he seems so - His books sell pretty well, but nothing like what they ought to, and would do if he would condescend to be a little more clear. I always tell his sister I cannot conceive that he could not write down to ordinary understandings if he were so minded. Have you seen Fifine? I have no doubt you have. Tell me what you think of it. Judge it of course with the light Richard Hutton's excellent critique in Spectator throws upon it, - i.e. if you need or care for any extraneous light. There is no doubt that it has much more of the old fire and picture in it than either of his late works (Balaustion or Hohenstiel Schwangau) which I cannot much admire. But in Fifine - the pictures of herself - the seaswimming and butterfly allegory - Amphion and the dolphin - the 'deliciously scented' flower, the Stonehenge illustration, &c, &c, are all brilliant and surpassing, even almost independently of their subtle philosophical or other meanings and purposes. Had he only put all this (as it certainly might be put) in clear flowing language intelligible to all mortals possessing ordinary intellectual faculties - what a towering poet he would be to all as he is alas! only to some, at present.

Tennyson, shall I tell you or is it news? admires Browning. Of course, you will say. But he does not fear to shew it. B. has a copy of 'Maud' with his name on it written by Tenn 'from his friend and admirer - A. Ten.' Turning over B's Selections, Browning told me Tennyson one day pitched upon 'Apparent Failures' (is it not called? - 'You wanted to be Bonaparte and have the Tuileries for a toy, &c) and said emphatically, with his Lincolnshire twang I laik that' (in a deep voice with a slight drawl).

Richard Hutton, too, you ask about. Well, I went one day and found him out in his den, in Wellington street just by Waterloo Bridge - up 2 or 3 pair of stairs. He is such a nice fellow! so easy and unconceited and natural. You know I had a letter from J.C.R. of introduction to him. Of course he asked about you all. I have been there 3 or four times (on Tuesday afternoons - his only day for being called on there), catching him 1/2 an hour or so before he leaves for the Railway station to wh. I walked with him. As Editor of the Spectr. of course he must have a busy time of it - so I am very chary of my visits - for fear of boring or interrupting him - One day talking with him he said 'He had a profound conviction of the Incarnation! !, which is funny, is it not? However he seems to preserve his liberal toleration for those who haven't. Personally he is very unlike what I anticipated - Lower forehead - bushier, rather coarser, hair, eyebrows, beard, &c, darker and more foreign-looking than I expected. But these bits of physique shew the temperament fitted for the rough and ready work of a London newspaper.

By the bye (what will interest you) talking of the Richmonds, he remarked upon the extreme handsomeness (personally I mean of course) of Miss Richmond in the days when he knew her - 'a magnificent woman'. I am not sure he did not use the epithet Olympian, among others. Yes, he did! So don't be jealous.

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And now at last I seem to have got to the 'opusculum' itself. You perhaps will have seen it before you get this ... I might as well wait for your critique on the production instead of giving you apologies for my own work. I hope however there will be some things you and yours will like. I assure you you were of all people those whose judgments I had most in my eye during the production thereof - so I shall be disappointed if you go through it, . . . and find it all 'barren' - Some of our very enlightened would-be leaders of public opinion here have done-so. - One fellow says, with the very words and the very air and tone, you would fancy, of the blase, listless, pleasure-jaded roue in the farce 'Used-Up' when he looked into the crater of Vesuvius, 'There's positively nothing in it!'. The Athenaeum ('Asineum' I was nearly writing) comfortably pooh-poohs it, but the critic is candid enough to say he could not think of reading it.' If this were not so natural to a pig (not Epicuri de grege but) of the atheistic or untheistic materialist Positive school one would attach greater weight to his condemnation. Unfortunately his glance at the 1st and last passage in the book, wh. he quotes, would have revealed to him some very distasteful theism. John Bull too, while really giving considerable praise to the rest of the book, greatly desiderated the absence of all the metaphysics and reflections. Of course with his orthodox fixities of special opinion, these passages could not recommend themselves to the bovine brain: and for precisely the opposite reasons that apparently actuated the Asineum. But with the opinions of such men as Hutton and Browning ... so decidedly expressed and so diametrically opposite, one can't feel altogether knocked over by the small fry of the Graphic or John Bull, or even the Athenaeum. By the bye I am wrong as to the latter. It was the Examiner pooh-poohed the book, but with that alteration my remarks may stand. The Illustrated News gave a short but very favourable notice. Also of all papers in the world the Literary Churchman] ! was entirely favorable, from whom I should have expected vehement denunciation for neglect (at least) of Xn solutions of the great problem - The Civil Service Gazette was also wholly complimentary. By Browning's advice I sent the book through him to Tennyson. His wife ackd. rect. to Bg in a note which he (B) sent to me asking if 'it was not charming?' And (Tennyson being from home - in London correcting proofs) I got soon after a very kindly note from the great T himself, thanking me for sending the book which had 'gone to his country house at Haslemere' - saying he had only seen in some review an extract against the Ritualists 'which appeared to him an arrow that hit the Bull's-eye,' and hoping soon to make full acquaintance with the book 'and its author if you will allow me' and signing himself 'Yours A. Tennyson.' This sounds friendly, doesn't it? Of course I have not yet got his opinion of the book, which of course cannot be expected to be as favorable as Browg's. His wife said she would endeavour to get, 'his spoken - but that was very usual with him, so she should rather say his written opinion - which was very rare for him to give.

I sent the book (also suggested by Browning) to the 'great Thomas' as Mantell calls Carlyle - with a sort of self-quizzing complimentary apology to him for troubling

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him with a 'Long-Ear of a Fictitious Biography.' This Franklin-wire into the thundercloud has not yet drawn down any lightning-flash. If you care for it you shall know the result - if any - in due course.

I have another long rigmarole to tell you if I am not boring you about all this. Smith and Elder sent me one day a slip cut out of the 'Chicago Times! ! !' being an article headed in large letters 'Waring, Return of an Eccentric Poet. A Literary and Social Wonder.' Then the gobemouche, quoting the New York World and Tribune goes on to say the return of 'Alfred Dommett' (cus him! spelling the name so) after '30 years of royal poetic vagabondizing over half the world' had revived the recollection of certain powerful verses written by him (he being the hero or original of B's Waring) which they had been asked to give in full. The verses he then gives - They are a sort of daredevil drinking song supposed to be sung by one of a roystering set of boon companions some of whom are striken down by the cholera - while the song goes on; - the chorus or refrain being 'Then stand to your glasses steady - There's a health to the dead already - Hurrah for the next who dies!' or to that effect. 'Dommett,' says the article with the quietest assurance of the fact, 'was in India when he wrote this devil's canticle,' which it professes to give from the published narrative of 'a certain French officer in the East India Company's service - a Mons de Warenne, a portion of which narrative containing the song is given in Dr Doran's Table Traits, whatever that may be. Then they praise the canticle for 'a certain indomitable virility of expression' &c, &c,. The article also alludes to 'the poet's authorship of a remarkably beautifuly Xmas hymn,' on which they had published 'a brief literary note a week ago' . . . The article ends 'It's writer, who seems to be an odd compound of Shelley, Trelawney and Oliphant (?) with an artistic method all his own - is one to whom the world may reasonably look for something worthy a Waring.' Well, as I had no right to this extravagent and questionable praise, after the lapse of some weeks I thought it would be a good joke to write to the editor of the C.T. disclaiming the credit he had given to the authorship of the Devil's Canticle' - apologising for destroying his aircastle about 'Waring' and also for my audacity in daring to differ in the United States from an organ of public opinion 'as to a matter of fact - to wit - my having been in India and having written the canticle - which I assured him I had not & also that I had never set foot even in India, &c.

Then, as I had specially asked Browning if he cared about my making his written opinion known and he had answered 'Do absolutely whatever you like with it.' I could not resist the temptation to give the editor an extract from B's letter (as you will see it chimes in so pat with the editor's remark about Waring) making him welcome also to set down as much as he pleased of the praise to the 'partiality of B's generous friendship, &c.' ... I think it will be rare fun - the editor in the middle of that Continent getting a letter from his Waring (dated only London for the greater mystery) with the author of Waring's own opinion (which he won't know whether to believe a hoax or not) about the 'something worthy of a Waring.' I have no doubt it will make the book sell in the States, and as the pirates will not let that be any advantage to me I

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had the less compunction about putting B's opinion into circulation there. Those Yankees are so exceedingly 'cute' and practical, that they can't understand the difference between facts of fiction and facts of real life. Such an amusing instance this of over-sagacity resulting in simplicity . . .

By the bye, as I have now the letter before me ... I will give you what Browg. calls 'charming' in Mr Tennyson's note to him . . . The hand is large and bold, very much more so than her husband's so it will not take very much room. She says

Browning was right, I do think, in calling the note 'charming', after all. Is there a warmth of feeling with an epigrammatic terseness of expression about it that speaks of a lively head as well as a lively heart? . . .

Well, I had a letter from Broughton (now first asst master of the Grammar school at Newcastle on Tyne and candidate for the headmastership) received on the Monday morning after the Saturday on which the Spectator's critique appeared really giving a critique upon that critique, and many remarks of his own as to the New Zeald part of the poem (R & A) - all laudatory. Also a note from Tom Arnold asking me to Oxford to be introduced to his brother Matthew, &c, where, however, I did not go. All this is very egotistical, but I take it you will be interested in it, if not for my sake then for those of the famous persons mixed up with it. I will give you . . . the extract from Browning's letter ... 7

When I asked him if it was to be private he said I swear it is all true (meaning I suppose sincere) and you may do what you like with it.' His sister, too . . . asked me to let her look at it and having read it, said I am sure he thinks what he says because I heard him the other day say nearly the same thing words to Mrs ----'.. . Now I have answered you pretty fully I think as to the 'opusculum' - I have taken it for granted that you are interested in what I am interested in as to these poets, &c. If not, no harm's done.

I hope this will find you all in good health - or at least in the usual health - and that the Judge's asthma is beginning to relax its hold on him as it should do as his years increase. Give my and my wife's kindest remembrances and best wishes to him and Mrs W. and the dear excellent old lady - who always was one of my beaux or

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belles ideals of old ladyhood. Also J.C.R.[ichmond] ... I wish to heaven all of you were in London, where I greatly 'desiderate' someone to talk to - for I know few beyond relatives out of all these millions. We have been living here 8 months and I don't know even the name of the person living next door! This is a fact, odd as it may seem to you out yonder, as Carlyle says in that letter I have of his . . .

You particularly mention T. Arnold as one who must be worth knowing! Certainly he must be, but then he is at Oxford - tied down by pupils ... I hope some day to resume acquaintance with him. How sorry I am poor Clough is dead! whose poem he (A.) got the latter to send me out to NZld himself . . .

9 Dec ... I saw R. Hutton and had a chat with him since I wrote the above . . . He said he would like to hear from C. W. Richd., though he added, with a sort of compunction, 'I have never written to him' - which he laid to the distance, pressing occupations, &c and / suggested the natural antipathy to pen and ink and letters which an editor of a periodical paper must feel . . .

Since I wrote the former part of this letter I got a note from Tennyson ... 8 I said that was damning with faint praise, but Hutton said, No, it did not appear so to him; and Browning says it is a great deal to get out of Tennyson and that when he sent him Fifine all he got was 'Fifine received and welcomed. A.T.' But of course Tenn. knew that Bg. did not stand in need of testimonials . . .

There is a bit more gossip - not worth much, and yet, except intercourse with relatives, this sort of thing is about all that is attractive in London. With these skies and the want of our fine little Library 9 at Wellington, one seems in a cloud of physical and intellectual darkness. One never sees a book hardly ever a periodical even . . .

1872/8

Young Ladies' School
Waimea Road, Nelson

Miss Bell

Begs to announce to the Ladies who may entrust their Children to her care, that she has made arrangements with Madame Desaunais, for instruction in Music, French, and the Classics, in her Establishment, so that pupils under her charge may obtain the advantage of the above accomplishments, combined with a good sound English education.

Terms.

Board and instruction in the usual branches of an English education with plain and fancy Needlework, (per annum)

Fifty Guineas

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Weekly boarders (per annum)	Forty-five Guineas
Seat in Church (per quarter)	Five shillings
Day Scholars ditto	Two Guineas
Music ditto	Two Guineas
French ditto	Two Guineas
Washing ditto	Thirty Shillings
Dancing ditto	One Guinea

Fees to be paid quarterly in advance

1873/1

Maurice W. Richmond to Richard H. Richmond - - - Bleak House, Nelson, 6 Jan 1873

We are going to England in large steamer called the Northumberland, nearly twice as long as the Taranaki. We are going to start for Australia in about a fortnight.

There have been two or three circuses here a little while ago, and nearly every boy in Nelson practises on single trapezes, treble trapezes and horizontal bars. Kit, Willie, Arfie, I, Wilsie, Bob and Ted and some others are a company called the 'High-lawn Circus' . . . But now we are getting tired of gymnastics, and we play hockey at the College now. Hockey is a game with sticks like walking sticks and a ball, and you have to hit the ball through goals. You very often get hurt in hockey and a good many boys have got black eyes and hurts in other places ... It is mushroom season now and there are loads of mushrooms, and we go out and get kits full of them . . .

We have a French master at the College called Mr Montalk, and he is a very nice man . . . Today Kit and some other boys went up the hill and found a stag's antler. They caught a lizard and put it in a bottle of spirits. There is a Museum Company here of which Willie is head man, and there is pretty a large collection of bird's nests and eggs and shells and other curiosities.

1873/2

Patrick Moran, Roman Catholic Bishop of Dunedin Lenten Pastoral [13 Jan 1873] Patrick: by the Grace of God and favour of the Holy See, Bishop of Dunedin, and Administrator of the Diocese of Wellington.

... In our Pastoral addressed to the clergy and laity of the Diocese of Dunedin last year, we called attention to the subject of Education, and warned the faithful to be on their guard against the dangers of the Government schools in Otago. These dangers continue; no improvement has taken place; the same system prevails, and the same objectionable books are still in use. As to Otago, therefore, our warning of last year is still applicable . . .

As you are all aware, there is no general system of education in this Colony . . . A few of the Provinces in these Dioceses have endeavoured to do justice to Catholics, in these peace and harmony prevail . . . though in no instance are the schools aided or supported by the Governments, such in every respect as we should wish to see them.

1873/2

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But in the most populous and important Provinces, such as Otago, Canterbury, and Wellington, the systems of education are antagonistic to our principles, oppressive to our consciences, and condemned by the Church. Catholics cannot approve of a system of education which is outside the Catholic faith and the authority of the Church, and which aims, or at least chiefly aims, at imparting a knowledge of things merely secular, and of social life on this earth. This is the teaching of Pope Pius IX . . .

Our duty, therefore, is clear. We are bound to exert ourselves to provide Catholic schools for our children, and to warn the faithful, and declare that no one can in conscience frequent schools which are withdrawn from the control of the Church.

In the discharge, therefore, of these duties, we now call on you to exert yourselves to the utmost to establish Catholic schools . . . throughout . . . and we declare that you cannot with safe consciences permit you children to frequent the schools of several Provincial Governments, particularly those in Otago, Canterbury, and Wellington: For these latter are not merely withdrawn from the control of the Church - we mean of course as far as Catholic children are concerned - but they are directly hostile to our religion . . . The reading of the Bible - Protestant - is compulsory. This . . . excludes all Catholic masters and mistresses from the schools as efficaciously as if Catholics were excluded by name, and certainly stamps upon them the distinctive character of Protestantism. In Otago, it is Presbyterian Protestantism; in Canterbury, Anglican Protestantism; and in Wellington, Protestantism of any and every kind.

There is, as we are aware, what is called a conscience clause, but we know that in Otago it is frequently a sham or a snare; and we entertain no doubt whatever, it will be found to be the same in the other two Provinces. Notwithstanding this conscience clause, such unfortunate Catholic children as attend Government schools in Otago are exposed to chastisement for refusing to read, or assist at the reading, of the Protestant Bible, learn Protestant prayers, and read the vilest calumnies against the Church and its Ministers . . .

But even though the conscience clause succeeded in effecting all that it purports to effect, still. . . these schools . . . are in no sense . . . under the control of the Church, and her Pastors cannot exercise the least supervision over the instruction of the Catholic children who may frequent them, or over the books put into their hands.

We abstain from discussing here the injustice and insult to Catholics as citizens which are involved in the systems of these three Provinces. Under these, Catholics are compelled, in common with their fellow citizens, to contribute to the maintenance of schools, from which both they and their children are excluded . . . and are then obliged to provide schools for their own children, without any aid from the public funds to which they contribute their share.

We shall only add that these several Provincial Education Ordinances are so many penal laws, and virtually a repeal pro tanto of the Emancipation Act ... a re-enactment of some of the provisions of the odious, impolitic, and cruel penal code.

Catholics should make known the injustice done to them in petitions, clear,

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strong and respectful, to the several Provincial Councils and the General Legislature, and ask for redress ... At present public opinion is against us, and this is the greatest obstacle in our road. In the public press we have hardly a friend . . . But it is not to be supposed that the writers of these journals are beyond the pale of reason, common-sense and justice. If they oppose us, it may be justly supposed they do so through delusion, blindness, or ignorance . . . The Catholic body in this Colony labors under one great disadvantage - there is not even one Catholic periodical ... In order to wipe away this reproach ... an effort is now being made to establish a Catholic newspaper, and we sincerely hope that the project will not be permitted to become a failure through the apathy of those who ought to aid it.

It is again necessary to remind you that the society of Freemasons has been condemned by the Church. This Society is in conflict with the Church and Christianity, and the most deadly enemy of both. The Church, therefore, has condemned it, and in order to save her children from its contamination, has excommunicated all its members, and all who aid and abet them . . . All who assist at Freemasons' Balls are considered as aiders and abettors of Freemasonry, and are consequently excommunicated.

Our Holy Father is still a prisoner in the Vatican; and surrounded by enemies clamouring for his ruin. The property of the Church has been forcibly alienated, and he is now a dependent on the alms of the faithful . . . For this purpose we ordain that a collection be made for the Holy Father, on next Good Friday, in all the Missions, and the amount forwarded to us as soon as possible for transmission to His Holiness.

There are other subjects of great importance . . . The first is the raising of a fund to enable the Bishop to help in educating candidates for the priesthood; and the second is the establishment of an ecclesiastical seminary in this colony ... It is not to be expected that the old country can supply us forever with priests. Besides an opportunity should be afforded for such amongst ourselves as may have a vocation to the priesthood, to prosecute the necessary studies without being obliged to go to Europe...

We may also mention that the time is not far distant when an effort must be made to build a Cathedral in Dunedin, that will be worthy of the chief city of the Province, and fit to be the Mother Church of the Diocese . . .

Given at Dunedin,
Feast of St. Hilary, 1873.

1873/6

E. C. J. Stevens to J. C. Richmond - - - Christchurch, 16 Jan 1873

If you have reason to lament the loss of your Mother at a ripe age, you may judge of our sorrow at the loss of our poor little child who died ... at the age of six months. He was our only one. The complaint was this cursed fever in the intestines

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caused by the fearful heat and I suppose pestilential atmosphere of this place. I believe it has killed more than 100 children in the last 2 months . . .

The Lady Jocelyn - a fine ship - leaves about the middle of March . . . The theory of the rates of passage seems to be that each chief cabin shall represent £100. Thus an adult (say a man by himself) takes 1/2 a cabin, he pays £50. I found that if the ships were not very full you could probably get yourself and 3 children ... in two cabins taken for £175 ... This only gives you a bare cabin - all fittings, bedding, linen, etc. you have to find ... In Wigram's ships they find everything save wine, etc. and they have, of course, thoroughly good stewards and surgeon. The last consideration appears to me to outweigh almost any other, for . . . the medical aid on board most of these wool ships is of the worst possible description. Personally nothing would induce me to take my family round Cape Horn in a New Zealand wool ship. I should be surprised if any of us reached England . . .

Your view of public matters agrees with mine. I am quite shocked at the condition of the Legislature. New Zealand is a political Sodom. I can scarcely understand any fairly respectable man going in to the H. of R. If the Legislature and Government were able and corrupt it might be endured, but it [is] corrupt and imbecile. The people are wholly unrepresented and don't desire to be represented. They neither know nor care anything about their public affairs and not 10 per cent of the population even know who is in the House. Hence Vogel has every opportunity for continuing his quackery. In my opinion Hall and Waterhouse are worse evils than Vogel. They are the Stigginses of New Zealand whilst Vogel is the Jingle. I know Waterhouse fairly well. He has got some application and has a turn for hunting up precedents and finding out whether a pawnbrokers bill, or anything of that sort is strictly in order, but as for the real business of the country, he can only shake his head and look wise, and besides this his vanity is of the most loathsome possible kind, and on top of all he is a snob of the very first magnitude. I never had the least confidence in J. Hall, but as he is now I would infinitely prefer J. Iscariot as a colleague or political ally . . .

I think Stafford's Government meant well but the fact is there were not materials for a really strong ministry and they bent to the storm . . . How wrong they were not to take a resolute and clear line of their own . . . Bowen could not have refused a dissolution on the ground - his only plausible ground - that no large question was before the country ... I refer it to Stafford's chronic dislike to run the slightest risk.

1873/3

C. W. Richmond, journal - - - [Napier], 24 Jan 1873

Heretaunga is a grand plain like Canterbury but smaller & excellent land . . .

25 Jan. This afternoon I took a ride with Capt. William Russell on to a hill about 3 miles from the house, where I had a good view of the whole plain & of the native cultivations at Omahu . . . which are very extensive. This is Renata's place. There is a native school there with an English schoolmaster. On the opening . . . Renata

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entertained a large assembly of people (European & Natives) with champagne for whoever would drink it. There is an artesian boring in the garden which reminded me of Merton.

Su 26 Jan. Miss Russell read prayers . . .

27 Jan. Rode over to the Chambers's . . . The house stands finely on the slope under a craggy mountain just where the Tuki tuki emerges onto the plain. Long lines of blue gums are planted about the house. Very kind, homely, hospitable people. Mr Chambers with a rage for agricultural machinery - says the thistles have been worth £10,000 to him in improving his run. They destroy the fern & open & mellow the ground. Clouds of winged grass-hoppers. In places the roads quite brown with them.

v 9, p 11

J. C. Richmond to C. W. Richmond - - - Nelson, 26 Jan 1873

... It is a proper step to take the same leave of absence that Arney and Chapman had. If the requisite stimulus could be got short of going to Europe I should not urge that . . . But a man has only one life on earth and it is his business to prolong it as far as possible in ordinary circumstances . . . [Sir David] Monro who was on board the Alhambra . . . said you ought to take decisive steps to recover your strength . . . He is afraid of attacks of bronchitis when you are in so low a key ... If you made up your mind to join I should go with a comparatively tranquil mind ... If you see your way to going I shall wait your convenience, but ... it should be done quickly. All the risks and anxieties grow daily ... Do not dismiss the thing lightly. It is not so entirely a novelty as to deserve that ... I suppose that it would cost £600 or £700 beyond your sacrifice of salary. It would be a wonderful treasure of ideas and memories for the young ones . . .

I have got through the third volume of the Paysan. It is a charming book. I began to think it was flagging towards the middle of the third volume, but the Chouan war is admirable and the fight and massacre at le Mans are beyond praise. These books must live. There is a wonderful daylight tone about them, no sensational glare and no pre Rafaellite effort about them.

1873/4

A. Fletcher to J. C. Richmond - - - 116 Elizabeth St., Melbourne, 6 Feb 1873

Although I have sold 3 of your pictures and have been paid for two I will not send the proceeds this mail as I may pay exchange to no purpose if you are coming here.

1873/5

C. W. Richmond, journal Napier, 16 Feb 1873

The interpreter White having arrived ... I write this at the conclusion of the second week's work. We have made good progress . . . but the mass of cases poured

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and pouring in is so great that there is no chance of getting through the work in 6 weeks. 10 . . .

On Wednesday evening (12th) after we retired Maning said Hikairo had something to say to me. We went (all 4) into our room & after a little palaver about my ability & experience in conducting such investigations etc. etc. & the impossibility of their comparing themselves with me said, that they could not follow the cases in my way of calling them on & ended by saying they all thought it would be simpler & clearer & shorter to take them what he called one by one. I had endured the complimenting with difficulty but when he came to the end I said very coolly that he began with telling me that he recognized my immense superiority but that he ended with avowing that he really knew better how to conduct the business than I did. I again pointed out the impossibility of separating complaints which related wholly or in great part to the same transaction & my belief that there was no clear way of getting through our business than taking each block & hearing the case as to the sale of each share in that block together. Asked them to hear out Petane & Pahou on this principle as we had begun those blocks, but said I was ready to try any other plan - & so we parted.

Next morning, Thursday 13th, Maning told me he had determined to resign. I remonstrated strongly, pointing out that if he did so I should probably resign myself & should be compelled to throw upon him the entire responsibility for the failure of the Commission. I spoke not angrily, but perhaps too decisively for I was disgusted. However, I went on in a more conciliatory tone to represent the impossibility of carrying on properly without him - that the coach could not go upon 3 wheels etc. he was the bi-lingual man etc. etc. ... At last I made it a personal favour that he shd. go on that day with us, assuring him that the case now on hand would work out clear if only they would have patience . . .

On the 14th I wrote Maning a letter of remonstrance. On going down to the office I found only the two natives. I thought Maning's desertion of us was a fait accompli but . . . before my note could be delivered the old gentleman came in appeased - such was our St Valentine . . .

Last Sunday (16th) after writing my dairy in the morning I went to dine with Mr Locke 11 . . . Mary Fearin is staying with the Lockes. Mrs Locke is a fair skinned, rather good looking young woman ... I talked native all the afternoon with Locke ...

We have two fellow boarders in this lodging house. Mr Alexander Smith is an old settler having come out in 1840. He was in the H.E.I.C's service (Marine) & afterwards a skipper of the govt. brig. A very amiable, chatty, elderly gentleman with a weakness for immigration and public works. Has been home lately overland via S. Francisco, & full of tales about California (which he visited years ago before the gold) & the Pacific Railway. Wants a breakwater at Napier Bluff, but Ormond is not encouraging.

v 9, p 12

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C. W. Richmond, journal - - - [Napier], 2 Mar 1873

Last Sunday after making the entry under that date I went to church and heard the Bishop of Waiapu [William Williams] preach. It was a common form sermon with a tincture (slight) of evangelical doctrine. It struck me there is an element of mormonism in the Williams's - I don't mean the polygamous element, but a certain not unhealthy worldiness. I fancy they would have been good leaders of settlement had fate so willed it . . .

It was a tragico-comic spectacle to see old Paora Torotoro under examination by Sheehan (his counsel) in the Moteo case. Sheehan made him tell the story of his extravagances - of his four cupboards. What was in them? Waipiro is generally kept in such places. When the pakehas came into any house and looked into cupboards they could see they were full of spirits. My desire (as he said in another case) at that time was to drink rum. I do not know that the desire is much less than it used to be but the means of indulgence are greatly diminished. Paul also told us of the buying of the buggy - (kiki-gig). On the purchase did he not drive out of town with lamps lighted in broad daylight? That is correct. It was Sutton who lighted the lamps. Then the story of how Sutton told him he must wait for payment of his £1000 for Moteo until the steamer came in. When the steamer came in, Paora drove up from Kohupatiki & asked for the £1000. Sutton replied, 'that the steamer was not the one which had his money.' Then Paora began to take goods & found out that Sutton's steamer was his store.

Sheehan 12 evidently has some sense of humour. His address is very good - his self-confidence perfect (I sh'd say) but without disagreeable assumption. I think he will be a help rather than a hindrance - perhaps a great help to us.

Archdeacon Williams called to ask for the use of the Council Hall for service today - service for the Maoris. We had a little talk about the Natives agreeing that vanity is a great feature in their character - is it not a great feature in human nature? Vanity is, however, the greatest drawback from their natural strength, so great is the jealousy of their leading men of each other. We have seen a good deal of Henare Matua this week. He is a shrewd Maori lawyer, full of self-conceit. Karaitiana seems to me a deeper man - better instructed too in pakeha ways. Karaitiana's carriage and pair were pointed out to me - one of these barouches with hoods. He had brought up to town two of the Mrs Karaitianas - no. 3 was keeping house at Pakowhai.

Su 9 Mar. Heretaunga case began on Wednesday with a quite clever cutting speech from Sheehan. Court full of Maoris and Europeans - Ormond & the 12 apostles 13 in the number. Karaitiana's examination took up the whole of that day & part of Thursday. His cross examtn was not ended till Friday when Henare Tomoana (his half brother) was put in the box . . .

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This morning at 9.30 Locke called for me with his trap & drove me up past Taradale to the summit of the pass over to Moteo (Omarunui) . . . We went up on foot to the summit of the hill & had a fine view over the plain seaward across the flat to the Kidnappers, with the Big bush on the right & landward up the Tutaekuri...

I have been reading one or two of Edmond About's novelettes Marriages de Paris, they are slight productions thoroughly Parisian in tone.

I drafted a letter last night to Fenton for informatn. about the Huramua Blocks. I shd. not wonder if he gets on his hind-legs about it, but don't care if he does . . .

Preaching a good deal to Locke about miracles and Nature. Locke is quite a free-thinker & I rather desired to shew him that a man may be quite a free-thinker without ceasing to think religiously. I like Locke. He seems to me honest & independent. The freedom with which he expresses to me his sentiments about McLean & Ormond pleases me. The information he gives too is most valuable. He seems the only person here able to take a dispassionate view of these land transactions . . .

Tomorrow morning am going to breakfast with William Waiapu. Locke very much disapproves of the silly assaults made upon Sheehan in the H. B. Herald on the ground that Karaitiana's evidence did not bear out Sheehan's opening address. I told Sheehan I thought he had only done his duty. The folly of this attempt to foster a personal quarrel upon counsel is apparent.

Su 16. Mar We have had a short week - making two holidays, Thursday & Friday for the Waipukurau races ... On Monday morning I breakfasted with the Bishop & met in addn. to the family party, Mr Kinross & Mr Burke. The old Bishop is a pleasant old gentleman - looks much older than when I saw him 12 years ago in Auckland - his hair being now quite white. He wears all his beard & moustache. The Archdeacon is grey & elderly looking slighter made than his brother with a tall well shaped head. Their theological views appear to be moderate evangelical 14 . . .

I have had several amusing discussions this week with Maning about the Tangata o waho. He wishes to ignore them completely. His desire to defend the Native Land Court in all its proceedings is funny enough. I went to church this morning; heard the Archdeacon - a level sermon . . .

The govt - that is I suppose the late Procurator Fiscal of Peebles 15 - have dismissed McLean & given the registrarship to Broad in addn. to the res. magistracy & shrievalty. My impression is that the offices are incompatible - i.e. the shrievalty & registrarship.

v 9, p 12

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E. C. J. Stevens 16 to J. C. Richmond - - - Dunedin, 5 Mar 1873

Strictly between ourselves I have some hope of going to England for a visit . . . I am sick of the want of decent education for girls here. I should return via Suez myself after a few months stay in England and eventually if my wife wished not to return to New Zealand any more I should clear out finally and take to improving what 'I am pleased to term my mind' in England and Europe. Please keep all this to yourself. I should propose to go home via Melbourne in a Wigram's Ship . . . Taking a family I think it can be done for about £55 per head including everything. If it could be contrived I need not say how glad we should be if your voyage and ours could be done in company.

About light railways. I am still in the dark as to whether they are really cheaper and as efficient as a 5ft. 3m. where the traffic is large. The only light railway I have seen is this Port Chalmers line and I don't believe it will do the work required of it without having a second rail put down. I have doubt whether enough speed can be got with safety to keep the single rail clear. Such questions ought to have been thoroughly sifted and determined before we entered on our public works ... It appears to me that the Country does not clearly know its objects in railway making . .. I maintain the principle that we are altogether wrong in making our railways precede settlement. . . We do not in N.Z. require to stimulate the settling of land further than by enlarging our population. When the land is really settled I believe that any good railway will be a politic undertaking but not before . . .

Stafford's speech is anything but 'leading business'. It is commentary not exhortation. There is a timidity and want of power in it that pains me. Waterhouse's recent proceedings would be ludicrous if they were not mischievous. However, if they have the effect of clearing a solemn prig out of our public affairs something will be gained. The inherent badness of our Legislature is to my thinking the root of our dangers. There are not materials for a ministry at once honourable and capable ... It seems to me a question not of what comparative efficiency our Ministries possess but of the degree of guilt and incapacity they shall in turn present. From all I can make out there is great universal dissatisfaction and distrust in the Colony but the H. of R. is so corrupt and the Opposition is so timid and void of clear views, resolution and adroitness that no real change for the better is on the cards. There are plenty of rascals in the Opposition and its best men seem to me . . . 'characterised by decent debility'.

1873/7

W. R. Russell 17 to J. C. Richmond - - - Napier, 7 Mar 1873

Here I have been for a month hard at work helping the Natives with this enquiry wh. drags its slow length along. Your brother is, I am afraid, knocking himself up

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with his close attention to the cases. I was with him for an hour last evening. Miss Richmond had just returned from a visit to my people. The great Heretaunga case is now on and I got Sheehan from Auckland to conduct the Native cases as all the local bar have been retained for the land stealers. Your brother expressed himself to me last night as highly pleased with Sheehan's aplomb and able, quiet manner of conducting his cases. Ormond in this morning's Herald has written a savage tirade intended no doubt to go p. Dacotah and to be circulated in Minl, journals. I have sent a paragraph for insertion in the Evening Post p. Dacotah and asked the editor to send you a copy . . . Perhaps you will kindly add a comment. Whitmore will send you materials for an article by night steamer . . . Sheehan's opening speech wh. was able and temperate as your brother remarked . . . You shall have reports sent regularly for the future, as I have now got a good staff to work, consisting of interpreter, reporter and clerk, besides Mr Sheehan. I have an office here and the whole Native population are entirely with me - great change since 1869.

After Heretaunga we shall bring in McLean's cases and two others of Ormond's and one or two representative cases . . . We intend at once bringing two or three into the Supreme Court to decide certain legal points. I think the Judge's eyes are rather opened now to the enormities committed, but he does not know the worst yet.

This political fiasco must lead to a break up of the Vogel-McLean faction. Poor Waterhouse has wrecked what reputation he had, and so I think has Hall.

I am so sorry to hear you are going home: I think of a run home for a year or so within a few months. I am out 20 years.

1873/8

J. C. Richmond to Richard H. Richmond - - - Nelson, 10 Mar 1873

I hope soon to hear that you have begun school for even farmers' cannot do well without some learning... besides I should be very sorry if you grew up without enough knowledge to enjoy the company of friends who take trouble with their school work. If you exert yourself you will find when you come back to college that you know quite as much from Uncle Henry's teaching as Mr Tomlinson's boys will. Maurice is working harder than ever both in and out of school, and at gymnastics as much as at books. Mr Mackay has an extra class before breakfast and sometimes in an evening . . .

1873/9

E. C. J. Stevens to J. C. Richmond - - - Christchurch, 14 Mar 1873

Since my return I find that all things considered it would cause me great inconvenience and probably loss to leave the country even for six or seven months, so that we have pretty well given up the idea for the present . . .

I have seen Stafford since I returned ... It seems to me that he and Monro with others have a sort of idea that all that is necessary for them to do is to show how deficient the present men are, in order to secure for themselves public confidence. My impression is that this will be found quite insufficient.

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The fact is that the public generally troubles itself very little about its public concerns, and if politicians rely on an awakening they will find it uphill work to bring such about - and return themselves. I think Stafford is both too timid and too tortid for leadership in the present state of affairs. I rather urged that he might strike out a distinct line, as for instance confining the railway making to the main lines of communication so as to bring the country together. Well, he replies that he thinks many feeder lines are likely to pay as well or better than main lines - and so forth . . .

1873/10

H. R. Richmond to Jane Maria Atkinson - - - Beach Cottage, 16 Mar 1873

I got a unanimous vote of the Council in favor of an education rate, but nothing is to be done in the matter without giving an opportunity to the public to debate the matter in public meetings. I am doubtful what the popular voice will say, but I do not think it would have been wise for the Council to try its hand at any sort of taxation to which the people here were not accustomed, unless distinctly supported by public opinion . . .

1873/11

C. W. Richmond, journal - - - [Napier], 6 Apr 1873

. . . Last Sunday 30th March I was at church in the morning - walked there with Mrs Burke whom I met at the Bishop's & also used to visit us at Parnell, though I am ashamed to say I forgot all about her. I don't like people to remember me better than I do them, but I am always experiencing this. It shows, I am afraid, I really care very little about my species & am so taken up with things I have no space left for persons. What is this but spiritual deadness?

Colonel Gorton spent the afternoon and evening with us - full of talk about the Department & Burmah - elephant catching & India I think he is a throughly honest fellow - good . . .

We are now in the thick of the cross examinatn. by Sheehan of the chiefest of the apostles - Tizzey the Tanner (Ko Tanera). I must say I like Tanera: He is no doubt a self confident little man - some might say conceited, but I don't give it that name: he is thoroughly self reliant & avows it & I don't say his confidence is misplaced any more than Sheehan's - another little man of marvellous aplomb. We have not yet found anything that can be called a rat; nor even got the scent very strong. But I must not report upon Heret[aunga].

v 9, p 12

Jane Maria Atkinson to Ann Shaen - - - Nelson, 9 Apr 1873

Poor William and Henry were not able to be with her [Maria Richmond] at the last 18 . . . Henry was at Taranaki, his home still, and William was at Blenheim holding a session ... He had . . . left home in November not at all suspecting how near the

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parting from our dear Mother was. The funeral was on the 22nd very early on a most perfectly lovely summer morning. It was quite private, as we purposely kept the day and hour secret, for William and James are so widely known and our Mother so respected half the town would have thought it a duty or a kindness to follow. The grave is in a spot commanding a magnificent view of the Bay and mountains opposite and the town of Nelson on the left about 2 miles off ... I was most thankful that my Aunt Helen (she is 12 years younger than my Mother was) had been with us since March 1872, as the two sisters greatly enjoyed being together and it is now a great consolation to poor Aunt to have spent these last days with her dearest sister and helped to close her eyes . . .

You will perhaps be surprised to hear that James with his three eldest children is starting for England next month, but that in these locomotive days one ceases to be surprised at events of the kind . . . Now, tho' strictly speaking he ought not to afford the trip, he feels, it the right time to go before age creeps on him, and while he has no special work, public or private demanding his presence here . . . James has been hard worked for nothing since he lived in Nelson, at least for nothing that shows. I hope he has earned as much gratitude as he really deserves for the disinterested help he has given all round ... I am quite sure he deserves a complete rest to recruit mind and body . . . Alla (really Anne Elizabeth) will be fifteen when she reaches England - she is warm-hearted and original, somewhat uncouth in manner at first from shyness and ignorance of conventionality but when known is always loved. Maurice 13 this month is small of his age and delicate looking but has plenty of pluck and mental power. The head master of Nelson College (who is very cross with Jas for taking the boy home with him) says he is the cleverest boy he has yet had. At present his talent seems equal for classics and mathematics . . . He has Jas's ready pencil too, and if health is granted ought to be a man of note in the Colony some day. Dorothea (too often corrupted to Dolla) is also delicate, perhaps from rapid growth, as tho' sixteen months younger than Maurice she is much the taller, she is quite indescribable, clever but childish, very affectionate but exclusive, less genial and harder to know than her elder sister, but when she does take to people winning them more completely than any child I know can. At times there is beauty of mind and soul in her face but her figure is awkward and ungainly, her shoulders high and chest narrow, so that one fears there is not full space for the lungs . . .

Young folks and sunshine have become such necessaries of life to me that I could get on badly without them. We have just had a comical description of the delights of the London climate in Nov, Dec, and January from an old New Zealand friend Mr Domett, reviews of whose poem, 'A South sea Day dream' you may have seen in the Spectator and other periodicals; he is a noteworthy man, the original of Browning's 'Waring', and you will find the book worth reading, tho' of less interest to you than to us, who know the man and much he describes.

If there is any spot in England where the sun does shine for a few days consecutively I advise you to settle in it . . . You have no idea what a joy uninterrupted

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sunshine is; for at least six months we have never had a day that was either rainy or cloudy from dawn till sunset . . . The Mediterranean climate may equal but can't surpass ours in Nelson ... Mr Domett says living in England is much the same as going to live underground after the N.Z. climate.

On my Taranaki visit I saw Mrs W. M. Crompton who . . . says Mrs Henry Solly was her great friend in young days . . . She wears wonderfully well in spite of a life of many trials and small means. She teaches a small school 8 or 10 pupils I think, and Mr C. in partnership with a Mr Elliott has had a boy's school many years where the homeopathic system is carefully adhered to . . .

1873/12

Maurice W. Richmond to Richard H. Richmond - - - St Katharine's, 21 Apr 1873

Mr Mackay has given me a large book called Every Boy's Own Book, as a parting present. I went to say goodbye to him this morning at 8 o'clock ... I have to be promoted to trousers and I have got a lot of pairs to wear on the voyage. Father has made three new pictures.

1873/13

Anne Elizabeth Richmond to Anna Richmond - - - Melbourne, 30 Apr 1873

We are at the present moment in Scott's Hotel, Collins Street, Melbourne. We entered the river at about five o'clock. The river seemed very narrow and along the banks we saw men in boxes (which were tied to poles, and which were half full of water) washing wool . . . The whole place is so flat and steam engines rush wildly over the country. As soon as we got to the wharf we were met by about 30 Albert cars with most despicable looking drivers. The first man that got off the steamer was seized upon by all the cab drivers and at last one seized his luggage and he was obliged to follow.

1873/16

J. C. Richmond to Jane Maria Atkinson - - - Melbourne, 8 May 1873

I find my pictures in request here, and shall probably with what I sell and with orders that I can execute on the voyage, pay our passages from Melbourne. A hundred pounds has already come in towards it. What pleases me best is the eagerness of an old picture dealer here - a man who has made much money in this trade and who never buys except to sell at a profit. He bought that white mountain I last drew and wants three more editions of it. I have agreed to make one and am working at it. I am also engaged to make drawings on wood from my sketch book for a paper issued by the proprietors of the Argus. The pay is very good. Two guineas for a little sketch that I can execute in an hour or two.

1873/17

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J. C. Richmond, (circular letter) - - - S.S. Northumberland, in sight of St Michael's, Azores, 27 Jul 1873

. . . Simons Town [Cape of Good Hope] is near the inner angle of the bay on the western side. The town is insignificant. It is 'portus tantum Et statio malefides carinis'.

. . . The place is, however, safer in winter than Table Bay and is preferred for Queen's ships . . . We wandered on shore, bought oranges and other little luxuries and picked up shells on the beach . . .

After taking the children back to the ship, I returned to the shore and took my sketch book up the hills expecting to make a budget of drawing. For the first time in my life the beauty at my feet and close to my nose almost prevented me looking at the landscape . . . The . . . luxury of flowers is beyond all I ever saw . . . ixias, proteas, fuchias, oxalis, heaths, oleanders, euphorbias, mesembyanthema in great variety - large blooms and bright colors ... I was so excited with the beauty of the vegetation that I felt no fatigue ... I made one rough sketch of Table Mountain and on returning to the ship I got some scraps around the bay which will illustrate this letter.

The captain would not give 85/- per ton for the coal. . . decided to call in at the coaling station at St Vincent, one of the C. Verde Islands . . . The engineer put the stokers on short allowance of coal to eke out the stock . . . Punctual to the time named by the Captain we entered Portogrande, St Vincent . . . The port is something like Pigeon Bay, Banks P. The prudent authorities of the place put us in quarantine and I lay for the first time under the yellow flag ... I have a pretty complete panorama of the Bay which I will send. Coal was 55/- and we took in 220 tons before sundown ...

The ship is not remarkable in appearance . . . she is unusually large for a barque rigged vessel . . . The . . . engine is made by Edward Humphreys, whom C.W.R. will remember as foreman at Rennie's in my days at Southwark . . . The consumption of Welsh coal at 8 knots an hour is about 12 tons per diem ... In ordinary fresh breezes the waves perpetually come up the scuppers in the waist of the ship ... I fancy the Gt Britain remains the pattern ship for a voyage of 12 to 15000 miles, a large part under steam . . . We have had no bad weather, and with more power and a rigging adapted by some bold innovation to be struck in head winds the voyage may easily be brought within 60 days. Powerful engines do not necessitate constant large expenditure of fuel. Only at times, say for about half our course from Melbourne to the Cape, would it be necessary to go full power . . .

Blackheath. Aug 7 . . . We traced the coast line the whole way . . . Brighton looks a wilderness of great houses . . . Every town we saw seems doubled, trebled or quadrupled in size . . . The steam boat traffic on the Thames has grown immensely spite of railways. The Dover, Ramsgate Margate boats are approaching to the American pattern and rush along at 18 miles an hour with decks, bridges, paddle boxes, deck houses covered with men and women as thick as swarms of bees. A great ironclad the Black Prince was the Nore guard ship, and this with a low turret battery

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at Sheerness seems the only defence of London. The smoke met us at Nore, but we got glimpses of the fields on the Essex shore that pleased the Victorians. We reached Gravesend ... 77 days 3 hours from leaving Pt. Philip.

1873/18

J. C. Richmond to Miss Ann E. Shaen - - - Blackheath, 22 Aug 1873

I am about to ask you and your brother to write me . . . about teaching for my girls ... I have thought of foreign schools and more particularly of Dresden, but except the general idea that they are less slipshod than English ladies' schools, and therefore less likely to breed up little butterflies, and also of the advantage of learning living languages in their native home I have no knowledge of their merits. My girl. . . would be capable of profiting by college lectures, for though not very much advanced in any study as compared with girls who attend ladies' colleges and Cambridge classes, she has vigor enough with a little coaching to take her place very shortly . . . I also want her to have some art or profession by which if necessary she may earn a living and at all times feel as much independence as mortals have a right to feel.

1873/19

J. C. Richmond to [New Zealand] - - - Chidcock, 3 Sep 1873

The Dometts are placed in the main street of the old Kensington village, which is now densely attached to London by the new streets of S. Kensington. Domett I found in a placid state nevertheless. He was reading his newspaper in the front room of his harpsicord house . . . We talked over his poem. It does not appear to have brought him much money. Advertising, he is told, is necessary to sell books by unknown authors and he is not willing to risk the great expense of this. Mrs Domett looks very well. They have chosen Kensington as a place accessible from Piccadilly where Alf is now studying at the R. Academy and from the Art Schools where he had been previously at work . . .

Domett seems to lead a very quiet life, and spends a good deal of time in the Kensington Gardens in fine afternoons. Their house is close to the underground railway station and not far from the Gardens. W. Shaen, and the Watsons live very near. . .

We stopped some time opposite the new Albert monument, which is the most sumptuous thing yet built in or near London . . . On the four corners are four fine groups of sculpture by Thornecroft and others representing, in some way and for some reason, Europe, Asia, Africa and America. Gorgeous chocolate and gold rails and lamps surround the whole - which is a sort of crucial proof of the attainments of Great Britian in architecture and sculpture - and in taste generally. Luxury, elaboration, cultivated art but nothing broad or noble in the work as a whole. One of Michael Angelo's great sepulchral statues is worth ten such things - or rather is incommensurably more precious.

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Domett and I walked round the National Portrait gellary which is . . . one of the best novelties I have seen. Almost every portrait is of considerable historical interest and a fair proportion of them are admirable as pictures. I was never so fully impressed with the great power of Sir J. Reynolds, who is facile princeps of all our portrait painters, and ranks with Vandyck, Rembrandt and Velasquez . . .

I had no desire to look into the S.K. Museum. Everything around on the outside seems confusion and bad taste ... To look at it with moderate candor, I must go straight to it from the railway station, keeping my eyes shut till I am inside the building . . .

[St Paul's and Westiminster] still look like stone masons' yards. Westminster is especially in confusion and they keep stuffing in busts and statues in all sorts of odd corners ... A gigantic Jas Watt and a small bust of F. D. Maurice are crammed into a chapel with courtiers of Elizabeth's reign and still more ancient and discordant characters. Wordsworth and Keble are in a sort of cage which seems to have no door and only allows you to look from one side through some stone tracery. Lord Lytton has been gloriously buried among a number of 'crowned eds' . . .

The most successful architecture in London is the spontaneous fruit of competition in trade. Several of the old streets are wonderfully beautiful now from the richness of the new fronts in Venetian or Palladio or plusquam Venetian or Palladio style. A taste for the picturesque and money without stint have done wonders ... I don't think the Italian cities can . . . surpass the richness and boldness of relief that can be seen for very large extents of surface in many streets in London now. I am especially charmed with old Cornhill, looking from the front of the Mansion House on a fine evening . . .

We left town on Saturday staying at Haywards Heath . . . where J. H. H[utton] and his eight young ones are spending their summer holiday. Joseph . . . along with his old mixture of good sense and dreaminess . . . read me two sermons out of a volume by Stopford Brooke, the biographer of Robertson, whilst I was trying to sketch his prospect for him ... Mr Brooke is what I should call Unitarian, although a clergyman of the Est. Church and one of Her Majesty's chaplains. My impression is that the seething within the Church will bring about the disestablishment much more rapidly than attacks from without . . . How R.H.H. can think that there is any logical difference between the position in Ireland and in England I could never understand. At present I think that fear of positivism and Darwinism, and socialism and radicalism is the hoop that keeps the discordant elements of the Church for a time in some sort of shape . . .

We take it easy and play bagatelle or walk after dinner and have a game at whist or bezique after tea . . . My eyes continue in an unsatisfactory state, and reading by candlelight distresses them. Aunt Catherine was so good as to write to Evans, their surgeon, asking whom I had best consult, and he recommended three, of whom he gave the second rank to Dr Hulke, brother of our W.K.H. . . .

1873/20

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H. A. Atkinson to A. S. Atkinson - - - Wellington, 6 Sep 1873

It is almost impossible to write anything upon political matters. The fact being that the House has quite make up its mind that the country desires Vogel to hold office until it can see his scheme bearing fruit either in taxation or income.

There is therefore no heart in anything which is done. A measure is brought in by Government which Stafford and Co. think very bad which is not to be allowed to pass upon any condition. In a few days you learn, oh! it is quite useless to oppose it, but we will at any rate record our votes against it, and then when the time comes out they go or do not call for a division. I never saw such a disgusting reform. But I think the right thing is to give the Government what they ask as necessary to their policy . . .

v 7, p 20

Ann Elizabeth Richmond to Jane Maria Atkinson - - - 23 Sep 1873

Monnie goes to school at Mr Joseph Hutton's in Brighton. He . . . likes the idea of going to the same school as father did when he was a boy . . .

Annie, Mary, Jenny, Alice and Maggie go to school in Blackheath, which is taught by a Miss Cranch. Dolla and I go too, now, and like having the work to do. Miss Cranch is strict but I like her. There is another Miss Cranch who we call Miss Mary, and who teaches some of the smaller ones ... a drawing master, which Dolla and I have nothing to do with, a deportment and dancing mistress - we both learn deportment and I learn dancing, I am thankful to announce to the public. Miss Cranch teaches music, and very well too I think, though of course nothing to compare with sweet Mr Knyvett. Dolla is in the third class in English . . . Miss Cranch says she does not know what to do with me but I am now learning the lessons with the first class, though others I say by myself because I am far enough advanced for it. In French I am in the second class.

1873/21

C. W. Richmond to J. C. Richmond - - - Wellington, 29 Sep 1873

Almost immediately after you left Nelson I had to return to Wellington to the Court of Appeal - then to Picton (which furnished a delightful matrimonial case between Eyes and his wife), then a good deal of law work at Nelson, and at last I was able to take up the thread of my Napier Commission. Owing to the voluminous evidence, and under the utter failure of the Secretary of the Commission I had a very laborious job in getting ready our Blue book . . . The general result of my Reports was that the charges of fraud were not substantiated, but that the Natives had abundant cause of complaint in the state of the law as administered by the Native Lands Court. It was demonstrated that in many cases nothing was further from the minds of the Native owners, or even of the judges of the Court, than the complete extinction of the Native right by the issue of a crown grant to ten, or sometimes to two, or even one individual. Section 23 of the Act of 1865 is now entirely discredited;

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and also I believe I may say the foolish procedure of Fenton's courts which pretended to ignore the most notorious facts unless they were formally in evidence, and to give a title good against all the world on such evidence as the parties before the Court chose to furnish . . .

McLean - no Maclean (the ex-Reverend) having been dismissed from the Registrarship by Bathgate 'on account of the little business of the S[upreme] C[ourt] at Nelson, has triumphantly passed his examinatn. before Johnston as a barrister -Arthur and Fell diligently coaching him . . .

The session is drawing to a close. There has been a complete fiasco. Vogel was pressed on all sides by the Supers to give them money for local works . . . The Colony not to be liable! etc. etc. The Leg Council threw out the bill by a large majority. The old sow being slaughtered, it was determined to send up 'the little pigs' to try their separate fate. Macandrew's little pig was £300,000, Wellington was to have I think £180,000, and so on. But the Council was ruthless and cut all their throats. ... They are getting frightened of taxation. Vogel, it seems, is giving up the contest. The session is to be brought to an end and a bill framed in the recess to alter the constitution of the Council. Fitzherbert and Bunny are raging. Harry says he thinks he never saw Fitz so angry as he was today . . . Fitz has been bringing out all the old Provincial fallacies again as solemnly as if he had never renounced them. This scheme of Provincial borrowing had his entire approbation.

One point of the utmost importance which the superintendents choose to ignore is that the labour market is already so scantily supplied that it is scarcely possible to get men to carry on the colonial works in hand. There is small chance of any great increase unless under the attraction of some enormous rise in wages. Merely to increase the wages-fund without increasing the number of labourers is simply to arrange to pay more for the same aggregate quantity of work. The immigration part of the scheme it is acknowledged has broken down miserably - not one third of the proposed number of immigrants has been introduced.

I am over here on a special business - Johnston having telegraphed for assistance in an extradition case. The mate and crew of an American ship, which had loaded with guano at an island near the Navigators, bound for Queenstown, Ireland, rose on the master and took possession of the vessel, ultimately forced by stress of weather into Wellington. Being charged by the American consular authority with revolt on shipboard (a quasi piratical offence) the new Governor, 19 acting as a police magistrate committed them and they were brought before us on habeas corpus. We have remanded them to their former custody - much to the disgust of the Wellington editors, especially the Post editor (Gillon) who seems to have betted on a contrary event.

I have seen the new Governor twice. I like him. He is quite unaffected and a thorough working official.

Mrs Sewell has had another attack of a paralytic nature, but has recovered and seems to me as well as before . . . Her speech is slightly affected.

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Kit is pretty hearty and not so much bothered with his work as he used to be. They have been reading Horace . . . Germania of Tacitus, Heroditus (the 2nd book). They are scrambling along more than I like, with a view no doubt, to their university examinations. I wish they had never been invented for they disturb the proper course of school work - making the masters anxious to get a number of their boys placed in these two-year-old races . . .

Bell has been immensely civil to me as speaker about the Hawkes Bay business, giving me every facility about the printing ... I saw old Richardson 20 this morning looking radiant in much astonishment and delight at the doings of his crew in popping overboard, one after the other, the pets of the supers. 'Luckily they are quite right', he said 'you see its partly because they are afraid of being taxed'.

1873/22

J. C. Richmond to [New Zealand] - - - Ludlow, 30 Sep 1873

I had also resolved to leave Dorothy with her grandmother at Blackheath, going to school with Tom's girls. But I hoped to get Anneliz into one of the large girls schools ... I made several visits to the Camden Rd. establishment . . . but I found there was no chance for the current term as mine was the 77th application for entry, the vacancies being 14. On this I resolved to place her provisionally at the Blackheath school which seems a fairly active place. By the by, the English schools have very many of them adopted a system of dividing the year into three terms and three vacations. The terms are 12 weeks, 12 weeks and 13, the vacations are 3 at Easter, 7 midsummer 5 Christmas . . .

The only other visit of interest. . . was to R. H. Hutton . . . went down with him to Englefield Green, ... on the Windsor line near Egham. Richard lives in an old fashioned low wooden house surrounded with trees and flowers and abounding in dogs, cats, pigeons and parrots . . . Richard is greatly improved in vigor of body since I saw him in 1855-6. He is stouter and wears a large beard, and as this and his hair are black 'without a single speck or hair of white' etc he has a formidable appearance and if he carried a revolver might pass for a first class editor in the U.S. The Spectator must be nourishing pretty well for he surrounds himself with pictures and things for which he pays money and lives comfortably, having a horse to ride and another to draw a little chaise ... He had just returned from a Swiss tour on which he had conducted a party of six . . .

I went down to Brighton with Maurice and found the old school house almost unaltered . . . They call the place Cliftonville as Hove was too primitive a name. Joseph ... is much depressed about his prospects ... He has only 15 boys including Monnie or adding his own three 18. This barely pays expenses. He attributes the decline to want of confidence in an establishment without a mistress but also to his avowed change toward orthodoxy, which repels the old Unitarian connection ... He is not

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what I should call frankly orthodox. He may swallow the liturgy, creeds and articles . . . People here are to be seen every day who being even remoter from orthodoxy say: We want a national church, we pay for a national church and if we can get inside that which calls itself national we have a right to do it and to help to open the door wider ... I almost agree to it for laymen . . . but there is some delusion in applying it to the ministry of the church ... I have discouraged the idea of a cure in New Zealand, and rather encouraged that of teaching ... as a professor or visiting teacher . . .

During my next stay at Blackheath ... I took Anneliz once to see the Dometts and I called on Featherston who looks worn with a recent operation for fistula but in better, clearer health than I remember seeing him before. At the [New Zealand] Agency I met Jno. Hall, who was very cordial and we dined together and had a long talk. He is restless to be back in New Zealand. He wants to be managing a department again. He had seen [James] Farmer who has bought a house at Albert Gate or somewhere thereabouts for £10,000! I brought away a lot of Featherston's papers about assisted passages in case I felt disposed to tout a little in Devonshire. When one sees the crowd in England one has less hesitation in advising men to emigrate, but I am not quite satisfied to stir with no provision about land.

1873/23

Mary [Mrs Thomas] King to Jane Maria Atkinson - - - Taranaki, 12 Oct 1873

Annie took tea here yesterday evening ... She will tell you of C. Brown's electioneering trick. It is fairly amazing how Major Atkinson believes in him, but it looks as if he were about to shew the cloven foot too clearly to hide it again. I don't speak of C. Brown from any especial dislike to him but from long experience of his character which began with our earliest knowledge of him ... He came to Taranaki for the second time very soon after we set up our tents here . . . Though Major Atkinson is not in the least doubtful of his own success, to allow Whitcombe full license of speech as editor of his paper does not look very well, and C. Brown himself, began as soon as Major A. went to the session to throw cowardly little flints and pebbles . . .

I was not as much struck by the Fortnightly article on the abortiveness of French revolutions as you were ... The writer .. . chooses out of a mass of men just those fit to prove his dictum that French statesmen can't act in concert from the overweening vanity and intolerance of each man. I am persuaded that he might be answered with a list of Frenchmen, and even French statesmen, who, under favourable circumstances would shew themselves up to the mark of the best men in the English governing class, as regards willingness to act in concert and to obey a chief ... It seems to me that though each of the many French revolutions may be said to have been abortive in the sense that it only led to a new despotism, yet all those revolutions have advanced France, as anyone must admit who regards her abject state under Louis XIV. I am reading now, with the deepest interest, Quinet's French Revolution (Histoire Critique) . . . He gives as one cause of the failure of the first and greatest Revolution

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that its leaders did not break completely with the Church of Rome. One member only of the Convention ventured to recommend the measure and to declare that it was necessary to 'faire table rase du passe religieux de la France' and to utterly destroy the power of the clergy. Another reason ... is the beheading of Louis 16 who would have been as harmless in exile as James 2nd of England; he advocates retrospectively, the opinion that the French ought to have imitated the English revolution that brought in William and Mary and changed the dynasty ... If Dumouriez . . . had placed Philippe Egalites son (our old Louis Philippe) on the throne that a strong government could have been formed and all the horrors of the Revolution, the terrors, red and white, wd. have been spared and perhaps a constitutional monarchy permanently established ... He warms into enthusiasm when his theme is Charlotte Corday, or the 'Code Civile', submitted to the Convention in the very height of the terror, but which was afterwards, says Quinet, appropriated without acknowledgements by Napoleon 1st and named after him! . . .

Apropos to Germans. Do you remember my telling you of one of my nieces being married to a German? Until a few months ago I was quite uncomfortable about this marriage . . . My sister Frid seems also scandalized and wrote of our new relation 'they call him an artist' I sincerely hoped it was not an 'artiste en cheveux' but I heard at last . . . the real truth which is delightful. Oscar Beringer is in reality an admirable musician, composer and performer of the new German School, and the marriage is the happiest imaginable though a great disappointment to the Daniells, who are all millingtary and look on musicians as inferior beings. The young people, Amy and Oscar, met when she was 16 and he 20; after three months acquaintance he offered himself as a suitor; Miss Amy was willing but he got a prompt and reasonable enough dismissal from Capt Daniell. However, the young people remained of the same mind in spite of separation and disapproval. At last, after four years, the parents wisely gave in and they are now much attached to their son-in-law. The Beringers live now in London and are 'au beau milieu' of the Wagner music set when those luminaries are in town. They know Madn. Schumann von Bulow, Reinecke, etc and they knew Liszt ... at Weimar. Oscar is setting about establishing himself regularly in London; he will do well but he is also of a well-to-do family and has money of his own; his two brothers are merchants in London . . . There is a very big baby Oscar Guido . . . likely to be big in a Daniell way too - all the men are over six feet high, Amy's father 6 feet 3 inches, a long gaunt giant with the most charming gentle voice and manners.

1873/24

Maurice W. Richmond to J. C. Richmond - - - Old Hove House, Brighton, 12 Oct 1873

We have begun to play football, I am very glad to say, as there is always something to do . . . They play very nearly exactly the same football rules here as they did at the college ... I like it very much going down to Brighton to the baths to be

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taught swimming but I don't care much for the going to gymnasium. We walk two and two to each of them. Most of the boys go to church but the Huttons, Alfred Colfox and I go to chapel. At the chapel we go to there are two ex Lord Mayors of London ...

1873/25

H. A. Atkinson to A. S. Atkinson - - - New Plymouth, 20 Oct 1873

What with meetings and canvassing I am nearly worked off my legs . . . We went very carefully through the roll on Saturday and find we are now certain of 312 and feel sure we shall poll at least 350. Of course we shall be still surer in another week. Brown we consider will be last, although he does not think so himself. The possible number of voters is only 870 and of these I expect at [least] 100 will not vote, so that if Brown can poll only 200 and that is about his number - perhaps a few more, I am quite safe giving all the remainder to Carrington, which he certainly won't get. On the northern side of the town there are two polling places, Waitara and Bell Block. I shall poll at these two places ... As far as we can see I am gaining everywhere. 21

1873/26

Jane Maria Atkinson to Anneliz Richmond - - - Nelson, 22 Oct 1873

There will be busy and exciting work next week in Taranaki with the elections and a Governor's visit. Annie likes the new Governor very much, 22 he seems straightforward and manly, such a contrast to Sir G. Bowen. His wife is pretty and nice, but so young and shy she cannot be very happy as a public character, until more used to the position. She has just had a little daughter which died the same day it was born. Mrs Sewell is as well as ever now, going to church and walking out a good deal.

1873/27

J. C. Richmond (circular letter) - - - Chidcock, nr Bridport, 28 Oct 1873

... I willingly started off to the . . . Lydney station of the S. Wales railway and thence I walked 4 miles to Park End, forest of Dean to call on Sir J. Campbell. I found him a very pleasant man, quite knowable from likeness to his brother, but with marks of greater prosperity and consideration among his neighbours. We talked over New Zealand and his relations there ... Sir J. C's office is I think, ranger of the forest . . .

At 11 o'clock I left my card at W. Smith's office and went up to Clifton to find Mr Parris ... Mr P. had gone to bid farewell to his son, the ex-Unitarian minister, who was leaving Bristol that hour ... Mr P. is like his brother R. but much less hardy

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and of a nervous tremulous nature, full of good sense and good feeling. He made me feel as if I were a very old friend . . .

W. Smith ... was indignant that I had not come straight to his house the previous night ... I find him a far more agreeable and more human man than I had figured him. He thinks on all the great subjects that occupy thinking men just now, and has a great deal of the Smith tenderness, much sense of duty to his family and neighbours, and wide tastes and sympathies. He seems to me the pattern man of commerce, fit to conduct the largest affairs . . . There is in a small way a touch of Goethe about him. He keeps on his business not from an overweening desire of gain or luxury but as a sort of framework about which his life is built. It would not suit him to be a mere connoisseur or amateur in art or science ... I fancy he is contented with his acquisitions, which include 300 to 400 acres of farm land close to Clifton . . . They live in very great ease and comfort, keep two carriages and five horses, three men and I don't know what women servants . . .

I had a little talk there with a Canon Norris in which I tried to insinuate ideas a little more just respecting New Zealanders, white and brown ... He was rather scornful of our poor Bishop Suter, who had been indiscreetly criticising the system of baptismal sponsors - which certainly might be left to die of itself for any harm it does. The offensive speech was made at a Church Congress held at Bath ... a sort of volunteer discussion council that seems to me a germ or indication of the free church that is to be . . .

I attended a prize giving to the Evening Schools, a fine voluntary institution. I heard a speech from old Canon Girdlestone, the 'laborers' friend'. He is an expert popular orator, but had nothing to say. I went mainly to measure the dimensions of English Cabinet Ministers as speakers Lord Aberdare . . . is . . . extremely feeble as a speaker. Half the N.Z. parliament of former days would have produced a better impression . . . There was an hon member from Bath quite down to the level of N.Z. members in brain and oratory but I understand a good amiable man and liberal in church restorations . . .

Even now as I write the revived memories of the old place [Totnes] make a goose of me . . . All the times and people associated with those days come before me, and not the least vividly my good friend Basil Holmes, to whom I owe a life long debt . . .

I went to Ashburton to see Nicholas French, brother of the Frenches of Taranaki... He is doing better than any West Country laborer could do when they left, earning 15/- a week at woodcutting. He pays 4/3 per month for his two rooms. His wife has died since he last wrote to N,Z. ... He finds his [sister] lodging and food and she earns half a crown or 3/- a week by sewing and washing. They have nothing to fall back on but the workhouse in case of protracted illness or when old age lays them by . . .

I slept at an old inn at Ashburton whose landlord enquired in a most business like way into the character of N.Z. public securities. He has some of our bonds. I told

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him if he held for an investment he would be reasonably safe but I warned him there might be a panic in them some day within three or four years and he had better not keep money in them that he wanted to have at call . . .

I was startled to find over the mantlepiece in the coffee room at the Stanhope Arms, Holsworthy, a long coast view of the N. Plymouth Settlement with Egmont larger and snowier than life. The landlord told me that it had hung there ever since his predecessor, one of the Medlands, had put it up. He asked after Capt King but did not recollect any other notabilities of the settlement . . .

1873/28

J. C. Richmond (circular letter) - - - London, Nov 1873

After several unsuccessful calls I found R. Pitcairn at his office and arranged to go and dine at his lodging . . . R.P. holds the place of chief clerk to an old city house, whose office is close to the Monument, Nesbitt and Co. He looks thin and worn, but is cheerful. His wife is a plump, good natured little woman who has lived in great ease and comfort but seems to accomodate herself to present circumstances well . . .

On Saturday, 8 Nov. I ran down to Brighton . . . The lads at Hove were too much occupied at football to care for weather and sky, which probably affect spectators more than the actors in this scrambling drama ... I am often thinking of J.H. H.[utton]'s affairs and wishing I could see my way cordially to second Maria's advice to him to emigrate . . . Private schools are falling out of fashion and all the Brighton masters are suffering to some extent with Joseph ... If he could be assured teaching work, either as a private professor or teacher in some large school or schools without the burden and anxiety of the speculation of schoolkeeping I should say let him come to the Colony. But if it were my place to advise I should strongly dissuade him from taking orders as he rather wished to do . . . Joseph's emigration will not take place during his mother's life but that may last only a few month's longer . . .

My first visit was to Stratford on Avon. When I reached Mr Flower's house he and his wife 23 were away ... I spent the interval ... in visiting Shakespere's house and tomb . . . The church is interesting . . . The bust and tombs are close to the altar, and therefore surrounded by ritualistic glories. It appears to be some grief to the priests of the place that visitors should come so close to the holy of holies, to visit the remains of a mortal man, so they have covered the tombstone with matting and laid rubbings of the inscriptions on the top . . . Even an unemotional creature like me is a good deal stirred at visiting such a place, and I could not help thinking if these little physical surroundings of a great man of three hundred years ago warm us so and seem so precious how it is that God hides himself? Is not the discipline too hard for us and fit only for the very few great souls?

The house of Mr C. Flower is elegant and full of comforts . . . We had plenty of talk about N.Z. and about Marion, Frank and Eliza and their belongings, and when Mrs Flower retired early I opened my career as a billiard player by disgracefully

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losing a game to Mr Flower, who is an atrocious player . .. The Friday I went carefully over the Brewery which is a noble establishment. Order and cleanliness on a magnificent scale, and all the newest devices ... I amused myself by attending the corn-market, where the Flowers were buying barley . . . After market I went home with a brother of Mr C. Flower who is a clever amateur artist and besides making many sketches, has decorated some of his rooms by bold cartoons in charcoal, some of them capitally executed. On Saturday I went out with C.F. to the Cotswold hills to a meet of the N.C. hounds but was not inclined to risk my neck or the honor of the Colony in my then state on one of his splendid hunters.

1873/29

H. R. Richmond to Jane Maria Atkinson - - - Beach Cottage, 19 Nov [1873]

My time now is pretty fully occupied as I have two private pupils besides my evening class . . .

There was a report yesterday that Tawhiao was in the district, and after such enquiries as he could make, Mr Parris believed it and telegraphed it as a fact to Wellington. A mysterious party of 59 Waikatos passed Pukearuhe without communicating ... They were next heard of at Oneiro, and this morning went through the town without stopping to speak to anybody, on their way to Pariaka. Major Tuke rode after them to Bob Erangi's place where they halted for food . . . The King is not there, but the whole affair . . . seems to have some special meaning. You will have heard that Tawhiao paid a visit by night to Alexandra and stated his intention of going there by day and of selling land. He is also reported to have said that he should come to Waitara . . .

I was not in town yesterday but hear that there was much excitement about the elections, and A. Standish and Capt Handley got to blows over it, the latter coming off the worst. Handley is a strong Atkinsonian. Harry's committee are quite confident . . .

The 'Good Templars' are having great success here, and enrolled forty two new members or brothers and sisters at their last lodge. Mr Kenny has joined . . . and many others have enrolled themselves for the sake of example, amongst them Hulke and Wm Burton. Hulke has been trying to persuade me into it, but although it is evident that the good done is very great, they are like other teetotallers foolishly dogmatic about the poisonous effects of alcohol, and are strong supporters of prohibitory legislation. There are however many good points about their notions, and ... I should be inclined to join if I could do so without pledging myself to any theory or course of action as to which I am doubtful or more than doubtful.

1873/30

C. W. Richmond to Emily E. Richmond - - - Blenheim, 11 Dec 1873

I am writing from Mr Goulter's house about a mile out of Blenheim. ... I took a ride yesterday up the nearest spur of the hills and got a fine view of the valley. I

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have walked into town this morning and bought a pugre and a pair of saddle straps. The last I got at the shop of Professor Augustus - the haircutter of the place, better known to us as 'Neptune' on board the Sir Ed. Paget!

We are going to start in an hour or two in a family buggy for the Awatere. There is a dance at the Mowatt's, and as it is only 30 miles from Blenheim a great many people are going. I shall not go so far tonight.. . stopping at the Macraes about 5 miles on this side of the Mowatt's, unless I cross to Hugh Stafford's . . .

The Goulters are Catholics. Mrs G. was a Miss Redwood . . . Goulter is a very good simple minded man I should say. He now holds the office which Eyes had and lives in the house that same personage occupied. Captain Bailey [Baillie] was here last night and we had a long talk.

This house is on higher and dryer ground than Blenheim. I should think the town must move in this direction for the Wairau is now sending the mass of its waters down the Opawa branch and the lower parts of Blenheim are becoming increasingly subject to floods.

1873/31

Jane Maria Atkinson to J. C. Richmond - - - Nelson, 25 Dec 1873

. . . How that Canterbury Province seems rolling in wealth, having this year 1,004,500 to spend! They are giving something to education (not a word or shilling that I know of for the girls of the upper class) and there are to be three more professors at £600 per annum appointed. If you mentioned J.H.H. to Rolleston or J. Hall it might be well? Do you know Prof Sale or any Dunedin magnates? There are many families leaving Nelson just now besides the Staffords, Aitkens, Garrards, Lees etc. Mrs Gully feels her daughter's removal a trial. Mr G. counts on art information to be had from you when you come and any scraps you can write will be welcome.

Wilsie has gone to spend a few days at Bleak House. He . . . and Arfie with a select party of friends have carried on incessant sports and picnics since the break up. Kit collects and awards the prizes and has himself gained the champion cup, which is a breakable china flower vase.

1873/32

J. C. Richmond to James Wilson Richmond - - - London, 26 Dec 1873

Alla, Dolla and Monnie are not quite pleased that we have reached Christmas without any snow ... To make up for it we had three or four days of fog so thick you could not see across the road even at Blackheath ... In London it was worse still; there the fog was black smoke color and some of the poor fat cattle at the cattle show died of suffocation . . . yet there were no clouds up above and if one could have gone up in a balloon one would have seen blue sky very soon, for every now and then in the middle of the day you caught a glimpse of a very dull red wafer which was the sun . . .

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Maurice has been drawing a good deal with pen and ink and has done some very pretty things. His friends were much delighted with the race horses and jockeys riding a hurdle race which he has mounted on card and ornamented with a border of holly leaves for a Christmas gift to his cousin Henry. The boys at Mr Hutton's school do a good deal of this sort of drawing. Do you ever try to draw? . . .

1873/34

J. C. Richmond to Richard H. Richmond - - - London, 26 Dec 1873

Maurice has come to Blackheath for his Christmas holidays. He has not fallen in love with Brighton . . . They called him 'little Maori' which is pretty near his real name. He seems to have come to your opinion that he does not want to learn much more but I hope you will both of you work away at books for some years to come for a man can be of little use in the world who does not exert his brains . . .

Maurice considers English boys not lively enough at football and complains that they were lazy at Brighton. However, they had a match or two in which they won and the young Huttons won many prizes at the athletic sports - they are very quick runners . . .

I am writing this letter ... at Kensington where I have taken a lodging to paint more quietly than I could at Granny's house and also because I can get easily from here to several large collections of pictures to learn from.

1873/33

Maurice Richmond to Anne Elizabeth Richmond - - - Hofwyl, Bern, 24 Jan 1874

I also have nothing much to say, Our lake is unfrozen again so we have no more skating, and also there is no snow on the ground so we can't sledge. And all our court is frozen quite hard so that we can't play football, because it hurts so dreadfully when you tumble down and spoils the ball, and we can't play cricket because it is too cold, so we don't do anything.

1874/1

Maurice W. Richmond to Christopher F. Richmond - - - 45 Abingdon Villas, Kensington, 6 Feb 1874

I am going to a boarding school in Switzerland. There won't be any English spoken there hardly, and I shall have to pick up what I can of German there. Father took me to see Mr Hall who used to be Postmaster General in New Zealand. He said when he was a little boy he went to a school in Switzerland and he did not know a word of German and no one could speak any English there except one master, so that he could speak German very well in about a fortnight. . .

February 11 . . . From September to December, in 1873 I went to Mr Joseph Hutton's school at Brighton ... It is the same school house as my father and your father went to at Brighton, and the same one as Dunstan went to when he was here.

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I saw Dunstan's name written on my desk. He had written on my desk, 'This desk was occupied from Christmas to Midsummer 1870 by H. D. Atkinson'. (I don't know whether that was the exact time or not), so that I had the same desk in the same school as Dunstan did.

Sir Edwin Landseer has died since we were in England. I have been to see his pictures in Royal Academy twice. Father has put his picture of Milford Sound into a picture gallery in London . . .

P.S. Give Mr Simmons my compliments and I hope he has got over his rage with the idiotical university people.

1874/3

J. C. Richmond to C. W. Richmond - - - Abingdon Villas, Kensington, 11 Feb 1874

My design when I took the children north was to perform a number of visits and pick them up on my return, but before half the visits were over I learned that the Dudley water color exhibition would be made up in a day or two and I returned at once to London to get in some drawings. I succeeded in getting in Milford Sound. It is not hung very well and does not at all satisfy me now I see it among other drawings, but it has answered the purpose of teaching me several things I did not know before. I do not despair if my eyes and health stand of producing some work yet that will excuse the expenditure of time on the delightful art. The great sin of the Milford drawing is want of force and decision in the foreground - forewater especially, and the cause of the defect is that I really had not the requisite knowledge of nature. My memory is very feeble and I had never looked at this particular sort of thing with a view to representing it . . .

I am working at a few New Zealand scenes under the stimulus of what I have seen, and by the help of occasional visits to the pictures at S. Kensington museum -in particular the water colors and oil pictures of old De Wint, an admirable painter. It is a very different thing from having nature and a N.Z. atmosphere, but yet I think I shall show an advance. I have on hand a large drawing of Egmont in which I am trying to give the impression of the vast sweep of forest. It is to be all forest - foreground of rimu trees and rata, and only a scrap of bare clearing to give the living interest, and I shall not forget smoke. I have begun the exact opposite way to my previous custom, putting in a large rimu tree and painting it up with all my force, and then bringing up the distances one by one each as strong as it will bear. It looks hopeful and by help of my collection of photographs I may perhaps succeed in giving the requisite finish. But how can I describe to you London atmosphere? It is despair . . .

Since my return I have spent two days with R. H. Hutton. He is very cheery notwithstanding the exigencies of type. He has found his calling and is as strong an influence for good as any one man can hope to be in these rushing times. He is crowded with books and has abundance of literary and political society at the

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Athenaeum Club of which he is a member. I find myself in accord with him on every point of importance except his theological specialties. He is surrounded at his little Englefield Cottage with dogs, cats, pigeons and parrots and he keeps two ponies and a pony chaise . . . The wealthy class, and especially the great manufacturing men and merchants, are uneasy about labor and capital questions and think Gladstone too much disposed to yield to the demands of the have-nots ... It is on the whole better for the Tories to have an innings. My fear is lest any attempt should be made to deal with a high hand about labor questions . . . But I think it will be very odd if the country gets a long repose under Dizzy, don't you? He must do something to keep up public interest - as much as if he were licensee and lessee of an opera house.

That brings me to say that I took the children to hear Mendelssohn's Elijah at the Albert Hall close by here . . . We went to an upper part of the place from which spite of all the bad taste the effect of the magnitude is splendid . . . The lighting is all by chandeliers close to the roof. There was a slight fog the night we were there and we seemed to look down on the arena as from a high cliff ... In a utilitarian sense the building seems admirably laid out. Only it is too large for anything but itself. Mendelssohn, at all events, is not big enough for it. I must see if Handel is equal to it. As soon as the chorus began I recollected that Mendelssohn said he could not write a chorus. I asked W. Smith, who is an original observer and sagacious man in all things, what Mendelssohn could mean by this and referred to the Elijah choruses. If I had heard them in this building I might have understood. Here a confused crash and reverberations are impossible and Barnby's well trained chorus sound like four strong voices, so that one can analyze what you hear fully. A certain fragmentary character to which W.S. had referred was quite apparent . . . The great unison choruses, 'Baal, we cry to thee', sounded even bald ... I shall hope to hear Israel in Egypt in this hall . . .

I have also been twice to the play with the young ones . . . The first piece we saw at a Chelsea theatre . . . The play called Alone, was by Herman Merivale of the Colonial Office (just dead). It is pretty and well contrived, but chiefly interesting for the careful realistic way in which the conversations are worked out and the acting done. It is a drawing room subject so that realism in acting implies an immense advance in refinment on the old style of acting . . . But the greatest treat was at the old Haymarket, of which the original old Buckstone is lessee . . . We had a curious contrast in an absurd operetta lasting half an hour and an even absurder old melodrama, Raymond and Agnes, revived after above sixty years slumber - goodness knows why unless to contrast the styles of 1800 and 1870. Between these absurdities came the piece of the period - and of the evening, 'Charity', by W. Gilbert, 24 author of Pygmalion and Galatea and other pieces, and plaintiff in an action against the Sat. Review which you will surely have noticed. Gilbert is as careful a realist as H. Merivale, and he is for ever harping on deep and mysterious problems. The piece ...

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has so much beauty in it one longs to have it perfected, but as it stands it is a better Christian sermon than 999 out of every 1000 preached weekly in England . . .

Domett creaks a little but keeps up his good looks. Alf does not make adequate progress in art. Hall has been alarmingly ill, but recovering again.

1874/4

J. C. Richmond to Jane Maria Atkinson - - - 45 Abington Villas, Kensington, 9 Mar 1874

During the past month I have been at work pretty hard at drawing, but only with moderate success owing to the desperately bad state of the atmosphere. Here almost at the westernmost and windward extremity of London it has been dull with fog and smoke three days out of four. I have finished one large drawing from N.Z. sketches which Holmes thinks well of and greatly prefers to Milford Sound. If I can manage to get it properly into its frame before starting I think I shall send it to the International Exhibition, which is a sort of smouldering remains of the 1862 affair - subsidised by the profits of that Exhibition. I fear I shall have little chance of finishing anything fit for the R. Academy before the middle of April, as travelling will take up a very large part of the interval . . .

T. Cobb sketches well, and used to join poor Edwin Field 25 in sketching excursions. The rooms are well clothed with water colors by Varley-Cox, A. Hunt and other more recent artists, some of Field's and T.C's own ... I very much enjoy Clem . . . He continues a steady non-trinitarian - in which I more and more resolutely agree with him as I see more and more of the sloppy Jesus worship and heathenism that has displaced the belief in the Father of our spirits . . .

One Sunday lately ... I made for St George's Hall, Langham Place where Mr Voysey conducts a service a la Fox and Geo. Dawson. The hall is a theatre with stage and curtain and the proper amount of escaping gas. The curtain was slightly looped back so as to enable an organist and choir to see and hear the necessary cues: and the stalls were devoted to subscribers, the pit to chance comers who are invited to put their gifts in the plates on leaving . . . The service was a modification of the psalms and parts of the liturgy, cautiously avoiding anything like a recognition of anything except a moral law. In deference to the weakness of humanity in these days a great deal of the service was sung - very badly by fifth rate theatrical singers - to melodies impartially chosen from Mendelssohn's St Paul and Auber's Masaniello . . . The demand for bad music in the shape of choral services has invaded all churches, and the Evangelicals and even the Calvinists have to supply naughty boys in dirty white surplices or to see the congregations lapse away to papistical teachers. Voysey ... he wants a wrinkle from old Fitzherbert to make him an impressive and good preacher ... It was a fine subject sketched out in that slipshod way that used

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to vex old Fitz in my orations. I went the following Sunday with Margt. to hear Stopford Brooke 26 . . . He is a man of more vigor than Voysey. Feeling no doubt the trammels of the Church he has not sought for a cure but has tried the 'neat Greek or Roman' chapel once occupied by the Rev E. Fagart in York St. Piccadilly. He performs the Church service, omitting the Athanasian creed and the litany ... It is distressing to hear and see him reciting the Lord's prayer and other fine parts of the service from the stairs of Mr Fagart's pulpit whilst his choir follow singing them in a slipshod way to indifferent modern chants.

Mar 10 . . . You will easily suppose that such steady people as the Martineaus are not radically altered. They were very friendly. They live in great comfort in a square detached house at Bayswater built in the days of Fagart at Porchester Terrace . . . She is a sensible, useful woman. We might outstrip the evils that threaten society in England and elsewhere if there were more such. They all take a lively interest in politics and education and church business . . .

In addition to the reasons which had made me plan from the first to take the young ones abroad . . . Dorothy is so unmanageable by her grandmother . . . who yet finds it impossible to avoid letting them see and feel every time they annoy her. Anneliz is generally good and dutiful and only now and then has a burst of impatience ending usually in tears. But Dorothy is dogged and to the last degree provoking . . .

The reputation of the Zurich schools is of the highest, but Swiss manners are not agreeable and Swiss girls in particular are thought undesirable company. I want to find quarters with some lady in Zurich where all three may be looked after and where perhaps I may live a part of my time. The public schools are day schools and these I hear are the best. Besides the excellence of the schools the proximity to Syrgenstein is a great attraction ... I should keep near endeavouring to eke out my income by painting - studying elaborately on the ground and painting within reach of my subjects . . .

1874/5

H. A. Atkinson to A. S. Atkinson - - - New Plymouth, 12 Mar 1874

I telegraphed . . . that we had arranged with [C.D.] Whitcombe; the arrangement has however, I am sorry to say, fallen through.

What I thought we had settled was this - Whitcombe was to sign the apology as you wrote it, substituting . . . the words 'election squib' ... we giving him a discharge in full upon the payment of £20 . . . The next day they agreed to our proposal.

I went in yesterday to complete the matter when Standish . . . produced the apology with nothing in it about costs, saying . . . that he did not understand that anything was to be said in writing about costs. Whitcombe was to sign the apology and pay the £20 or give an I.O.U. for it but nothing else. Standish informed us he . . .

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was tired of so much 'quibbling' on our part. We were quite 'parliamentary' but said a thing or two which he did not like, so the negociations were broken off . . .

The truth is that Whitcombe, although very anxious to escape consequences and evidently now greatly frightened, still hopes to escape and is representing that it is we who want the matter settled, not he. I have gone as far as I can to get the thing arranged; the Baylys of course feel the libel much more than I do, especially as Whitcombe has talked so much of proving cattle stealing against them ... I shall still do my best to get the matter settled but the Bayly's are very angry now . . .

Whitcombe is not, I believe, the least sorry for what he has done, and this it is that makes me inclined to go on. In arguing with old Mr Bayly that as Christians we ought to forgive, he said, 'Yes, we have a Bible to tell us that if a man repents we must forgive him, but he does not repent and therefore stern justice must be done' I had a little difficulty to answer that. 27

v 7, p 21

J. C. Richmond, (circular letter) - - - Zuricherhof, Zurich, 31 Mar 1874

... We left Norwich on Friday afternoon ... and crossed to Antwerp in 12 hours... hours. We met Philip Wilkins who recognised us by our general cut, as we did him from a photograph Marcella had sent us. He is a tall, slim gentlemanly young fellow, like his father in features and his mother in hair and complexion . . . The east front of the cathedral is extremely fine ... If British bad taste is shown in its utmost absurdity in the masons yard incrustations that have accumulated in Westmr., Catholicism, in condescending to ignorance and childish superstition, has done as much to deface Antwerp. There are many fine pictures - the two Rubens especially .. . It is treason to say so but a series of modern preraffaelite paintings representing the life of Christ by a living Belgium painter are intrinsically more interesting to me . . . Holman Hunt's new picture though it is far below this great Rubens in power and mere aesthetic merit, is above it as a religious picture by mere force of the aspiration or high ambition of the man. The Hunt picture shows how much may be done without any genius by dint of perseverance in a definite line and using capacities of mind and hand far from extraordinary ... It is curious in busy commercial Antwerp to see a painter raised to the highest rank as a national benefactor. The statue of Rubens in the place to the south of the cathedral is fine and conspicuous and the inscription a heavy tribute to the man's services and merits . . .

We reached Brussels about 4 o'clock and were warmly welcomed first by the tall and elegant Fanny and then by poor old Marcella, who though much delapidated is not materially altered. She still continues very sensational and a great mistress of bathos . . . They have some small property left I suppose by old Mrs Nugent, and Philip is secretary to the Warings who were contractors on the G. Western lines and have done much work in Belgium ...

[Inserted unpaginated illustration]

[Inserted unpaginated illustration]

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[St Gudule] now shows out as a very fine cathedral. We went to hear the Prophete and Marcella very properly went to sleep over the black men - the Anabaptists. There had been a good deal of quizzing . . . about ambassadors balls. She was so anxious as to write twice to Mrs Smith about seeing my tail coat packed. Happily she had not succeeded in getting a command to attend a ball, but a note came requesting me to take the N.Z. sketches to the Embassy, which I did. I found Mr ----- a gentlemanly and sensible man, fairly well informed about N.Z. and interested in our politics. He is a clever painter himself and has a host of copies of Velasquez collected whilst he was charge d'affairs there. He was very complimentary on my drawings and asked if I had shown them to any artists . . .

We reached Zurich about 2 o'clock on the 18th . . . Zurich is a most utilitarian place . . . but its crowning glory consists in its schools. There never was a population of the size which did so much for education. A university, a polytechnic school, a gymnasium or general high school, and industriesschule or high school for useful art and practical science and a vast number of ordinary public schools... The book shops which are numerous and good . . . represent a better average intelligence than English shops. Novels are comparatively scarce. First come industrial arts and science applied to them. Tell Jacob Frank, (who never sent me the Maynz introductions) that I shall come back well informed on vine culture and wine making . . . Novels are abundant enough, but it is remarkable that English novels in the Tauchnitz editions are more numerous than either German or French.

Lausanne Apl 2 ... I made many enquires throught the help of my excellent little friend Fraulein Graeffe as to schools suitable to my case. The public schools are no doubt the best . . . but to obtain admission a preliminary examination must be passed and German is an essential ... So I turned to private schools. The most promising girls school I heard of was that of a Frau Professor Schulz-Bodmer and I repaired there with Fraulein Graeffe. The lady was not at home but we were ushered in a hasty way into a room full of young ladies ... in the middle of a bread and butter feast. This I thought augured well as did the conversation which was quietly carried on in excellent French ... In the evening I had a long talk with Frau Bodmer which pleased me greatly. I had been attracted by a requisition in her prospectus for six large white aprons, and I found that she proposes teaching all the girls household work. She is good looking and ladylike and speaks good French ... I can understand a little of spoken German, but not a word of the alt deutsch which is the Swiss patois . . . The excellent little Fraulein took me next day to a very pretty young Fraulein Hein . . . She speaks English capitally - so does Frn. Graeffe ... I determined to deposit Maurice at Syrgenstein before travelling south to see the Plym Bro school at Vevey and a highly praised boys school near Bern . . .

On Friday the 27 Mar we started for Syrgenstein going round by the head of the Lake by the Wallensee and the upper Rheinthal . . . The road to Syrgenstein runs in Bavaria and is pushed out into Wurtemberg where it continues by the precipitous

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bank of the Argen (the boundary stream) upon which Syrgenstein stands ... Margaret saw us as we came up the steep road to the house and met us and Mr Whittle was at the gate way . . . You can hardly overstate the relief it is to escape from that hideous atmosphere [of London] although the social riddles can't be left behind. I enjoyed my two days at Syrgenstein vastly . . . The roof is immense and a perfect maze of timbers . . . The rock the place is built on is a conglomerate of water-worn stones and has been undercut by the stream in former days . . . The place has been a fortress and the yard in front was walled and defended by two round towers ... I would gladly have it for a dwelling house . . . The staircase is big enough to take in many a London house and the halls on the first and second floor reach quite across the building and must be at least 60 feet long . . . The old family portraits which Mr Whittle has piously preserved and restored, and a quantity of old arms and armour make very appropriate decoration. It is a costly house to warm ... I have made several sketches of it which I propose to etch on copper for Mrs Whittle . . .

Started on Wednesday for Bern in order to visit Hofwyl school kept by a Dr Muller and his English wife . . . The situation is admirable, in a fine open undulating country with a view of the Oberland, a small lake for boating and skating, a very fine bath house. The main house is a vast place bigger than Nelson College . . . There are two fine supplementary mansions used as gymnasium and carpenters shops etc. Dr Muller . . . loves simplicity of life as thoroughly as any of us and seems to have a most righteous repugnance to gold worship . . . There are 8 masters beside himself and I really believe the man carries on the thing as a duty and a pleasure but lives in fact on inherited property . . .

Blackheath 7 Apr . . . Vevey is at the mouth of a river and surrounded by hills now getting to a considerable height ... St Maurice is just above the little gorge backed by a quadrant of splendid cliffs and above them a beautiful snowy peak singularly like a peak over Lake Wharau sketched by Gully, only five times as high ...

The Rhone is an insignificant river here about the size of the [Nelson] Wairoa in winter. It does not seem ever to approach the dignity of Grey-Buller, much less of the great Canterbury streams . . .

I may not be reasonable but the busy vigorous self reliant Zurich has vastly more attraction for me than the soft Vevey or even Lausanne with tourist palaces and invalid residents . . . There is a large day school at Frau Bodmers at Z. and therefore more competition. There is a great deal of educated society there too and this cannot but effect the efficiency of the schools and the crowning glory of Z . . . Lastly Z. is only 5 or 6 hours from Syrgenstein ... I have this knotty matter to settle at once and cannot do it either way without giving and suffering some pain.

1874/6

H. A. Atkinson to A. S. Atkinson - - - New Plymouth, 7 Apr 1874

The special jury has been struck, and very special it is. I have unfortunately left the list in the bush but give the names as near as I can remember them. We are

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anxious to hear who is likely to be the judge. Carrington has recommended Whitcombe for the appointment of Crown Lands Commissioner. I hope Fell will be able to come. Halse would be no use and we would fifty times rather have Fell than any of the others you have named. 28

1 Jackson	Voted for A
2 Elliot Peter	Voted for B inclined to W.
3 Dingle James (old)	A
4 White Theo.	Did not vote
5 Rowe R	Carrington
6 Rowe N. W	A
7 Tate G	A, dislikes Bayleys
8 Dorset	A
9 Smith Thos.	C
10 Veal John	B
11 Connet	B, inclines to Wh.
12 Davis W. B.	no vote
13 Norris L	no vote
14 Burgess	C

v 7, p 22

M. W. Richmond to A. R. Atkinson - - - Syrgenstein, Bavaria, 8 Apr 1874

Schloss Syrgenstein is a very old castle with some parts built in the time of the Tudors, but it has been burnt down so often that most of it is not so old as that . . . Syrgenstein is on the northern boundary of Bavaria. The stream which makes the boundary runs just at the foot of the castle, and the houses on the other side of it are in the Kingdom of Wurtemburg. There are a great many dates carved about in different places. The oldest is A.D. 1538, which is the date of an old large open fire place . . .

(Original in Alfred and Isabel Reed Collection, Dunedin Public Library)

C. W. Richmond to Emily E. Richmond - - - New Plymouth, 17 Apr 1874

The place is much improved in its buildings since we lived here, and the streets are laid out, with kerb stones to mark the footways. I must say I love the old place and like it better to live in than any place in N.Z.

1874/7

J. C. Richmond, circular letter - - - Zurich, 2 May 1874

... I also saw James Farmer and his wife, who were very cordial. J.F. is exactly the same in his great house at Porchester gate, looking out on Hyde Park, as in N.Z. There is solid ground in him if rather stubborn . . .

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The box was at last despatched. It contains ... a silk gown for C.W.R. I don't know whether the robe maker and I have promoted him, but he must wear it, as the robe maker says the county court judges all do so in England whatever their rank at the bar . . .

Dear little Maurice met us, rosy with health and satisfaction, at the railway station Zurich ... On Sunday the 26th Ap I took him to Hofwyl, and dined with the school. I think I have been happily guided here . . . Dr Muller is an old politician, twice wounded in the Sonderbund struggle, a thoughtful plainspeaking republican. His wife quite an elegant lady. The place looked exquisite on the lovely day we reached it. A little coppice of large trees behind the house all breaking into leaf, finches, cuckoos, butterflies, flowers - plenty of seats for boys and family who intermix freely . . . When we arrived the family and school were 'zum predigt' but . . . after eleven o'clock Sunday is a holiday . . . Fraulein Graeffe had taken charge of the girls and shown them Zurich Sunday manners, at the Tonhalle a music hall where men and women resort to sit, drink beer, and hear Rossini's overture to Guillaume Tell and selections from Wagner. They were shocked, which is natural after the very different ideas they have been living amidst. On Monday I took them to school . . . There are sixty day scholars besides 17 boarders, themselves included . . . Work begins at 7 a.m., at 11 it is intermitted and begins again at 2 ending at 4 ... I left them a day and then called to say good bye. Alla was a little oppressed with heimwek. Dorothy seemed reconciled.

I started off on a short excursion to Rupperswyl and Glarus ... I began to draw a little, just to get my hand in, but had not facilities for any great enterprise ... Everything is too big for picture. The town has been burned of late years and rebuilt square and straight. It has many factories in it . . . Why people have chosen such places one is puzzled to imagine. At all events there is abundance of ground in N.Z. with similar privileges of rock, wood and water but perhaps only Milford Sound is quite as grossartig. Vogel ought to be informed . . .

1874/8

M. W. Richmond to Richard Hutton Richmond - - - Hofwyl bei Berne, Switzerland, 5 May 1874

... I am at school at a large house called Hofwyl, a little to the north of Berne, the capital of Switzerland . . . There is a little lake near the school, where we bathe in the summer and skate in the winter ... But it is summer now and I only came about a week ago, so I have not skated yet. I have never skated in England either, because the winter was so mild that there was no thick enough ice. At this school there are English, Swiss or German, French, Italian and Spanish boys. There are about 40 boys all together and nineteen of them are English. Most of the boys can speak some English . . . When a new boy comes they don't tease him at all, but they bring him books to read and lots of things to amuse him with, and ask him to play with them.

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Nearly all the boys here collect postage stamps, old ones I mean, and a great many of them have asked me to get them New Zealand stamps . . . There are two very large rooms for the boys to sleep in, one for the big boys and one for the smaller ... I am in the little saal . . . There is a uniform that all the boys have to wear here . . . The one for winter is made out of blue cloth with red stripes down the sides of the trousers. And the summer one is made out of a thin sort of grey cloth. They have a uniform because then Mrs Muller (the master Dr Muller's wife) has always got the right stuff to mend the clothes with.

1874/9

Ann Elizabeth Richmond to Jane Maria Atkinson - - - Zurich, 9 May 1874

On Saturday evening Miss Graeffe, a lady to whom Father had had an introduction from Miss Maclean in England, came to see us and . . . the next day she invited Dolla and me to dinner with her and her brother and Aunt... We had dinner and after that we went with Miss Graeffe for a walk in the Botanical Gardens. We then went to the Tonhalle which I dislike doing on a Sunday, particularly when all the people drink gallons of beer and smoke and are horrid. All kinds of music was played and I was very glad when we went back to the hotel. Miss Graeffe just waited with us till Father came back and then left us. I disclosed my views on the Tonhalle to Father and he says that is not nearly so bad as the custom in England of forbidding the people to indulge in comparatively harmless pleasures, so that the poorer ones take to the worse pleasure of drinking themselves drunk. I know its true but still I don't see that I need go or that it is right for me to go for I should not take to drinking or anything of that kind if the Tonhalle was closed. Amen . . . Father was charmed with Monnie's school house and grounds ... I hope Monnie won't get his fever for all the boys wear no hats; but Father is I think going to speak about it to Mrs Muller the master's wife.

1874/10

Ann Elizabeth Richmond to Edith Emily Atkinson - - - Zurich, 10 May 1874

Do write me a very long letter soon to cheer my drooping heart... I will tell you how we generally pass the day. We get up at half past five make our own beds and breakfast between half past six and seven ... as Dolla and I and an Italian girl know so little German we have an extra lesson from eleven until twelve. At nine in the morning we have a spell for quarter of an hour and a piece of bread . . . From eleven to half past twelve we are supposed to do nothing. We have dinner at half past twelve and it is set by two of the girls. At two we have a sewing class till four, when we have our tea . . . After tea we go for a long walk and after the first few days we had all to walk more orderly as the town people did not like the school to walk as they liked. After our walk we have the supper set by another two girls, which this last week have been Marie S. and me. When supper is over we go down into one of

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the school rooms and do what lessons we have to. When any of us get tired the bell is rung, Madame reads a chapter of the Bible in German and whoever likes to, goes to bed. There is no particular bedtime though about half past ten is the latest . . .

On Sunday we get up for breakfast at eight and if we go to the French church we have to be there at nine . . . When we come back we write letters or read books and that is all we do on Sunday. We may only write on Sunday and on Saturday afternoon if we have no clothes to mend . . .

1874/11

J. C. Richmond to C. W. Richmond - - - Syrgenstein, 15 May 1874

Maurice's place near Bern is nearly a perfect place for a school . . . Dr Muller, the head, is a grave thoughtful man - if anything too meditative for a school master - but as he has spent a part of his life in active politics and been magistrate and even a military leader, I hope he has energy enough. He is exceedingly pleasant company ...

I am not so contented with the girls school. It is in the town of Zurich, a haupt-punkt of education, and the mistress is a woman of sense and energy Frau Schulz Bodmer. The point in which this school has the advantage of Dr Muller's is that there are sixty day scholars as well as 17 boarders. This is good in itself and speaks much for Frau Schultz - for the public schools in Zurich are frequented by the children of the wealthy - girls schools as well as boys . . .

The cordiality of all here is great . . . There is a Mrs Hutton, widow of the Dr's youngest brother, a creature as eager and guileless as the Dr and Mrs H and M.E.H. and of a great deal of independent thought. We read, write, draw, sing, in the rough old schloss and there is so much room that everyone has liberty enough . . .

I have made up my mind to extend my visit to Europe ... so as to give my young ones a full year to acquire the modern language they are now at work on . . .

I seem to see in her [Margaret Richmond] my own character with far more of force, and this alone would enable me to enter into her mind and help her. She may either be placed at one of the Colleges for girls in England or at some place in Germany ... or if it were thought best she might spend a great part of the time here with Margt Taylor whose measured, industrious, sternly methodical way with herself would be splendid example and who manages nevertheless to attach young young people to her. M.T's own studies have gone far beyond the average and I think that the air, physical and moral, of Syrgenstein is not unfavorable for study and work ... As to cost I think £150 p. ann in addition to the passage money would be ample . . . and would in that case admit of travelling expenses to visit friends during the vacation.

As soon as the rain ceases I propose starting for the nearer part of the Tyrol. . . If I see any spiriting landscape I shall plant at once and lose no more time . . .

I am reading Mattw Arnold's book Literature and Dogma ... a book of great courage and power. If he is right in his distillation of Israel and Christ I fear he is

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wrong in his hope of arresting the decay of religion among the masses . . . But a new light, a real revival of faith, is wanted and honest plain speaking is a help on the road.

1874/12

J. C. Richmond, Circular letter - - - Brand near Bludenz, Vorarlberg, Austria, 28 May 1874

Took a farewell look at my girls on the Sunday - May 3d . . . We went to French church together and I found Anneliz understood what was going on very well. If the preacher is, as they tell me a modern Calvinist poor Calvin would be disgusted at the debasement of his creed. Servetus might almost have preached it. Any Unitarian minister might, or Ld Jno Russell might have spoken it in Parliament ... He had a fling at English better observance of the Sabbath, and objected to being judged for the easier manners of his country. Certainly they are easier. Church begins at 9 and we were done by 1/4 past 10 and then begins the holiday. Everybody is out if the weather is fine. Steamboats, railroads, walks and lounges, open air concerts all are thronged . . .

There is plenty of rocks, rugged stream bed, wetter tannen, such as Calame used to draw, splendid geological examples on the grandest scale. In fact, too much and I would exchange it all as food for art for a few fine groups of trees and humble objects. I understand why Switzerland has been so little done. Not that, as Constable dogmatised, great mountains are unfit for art, but that from immense scenes it is difficult to 'aphorise' portions simple and one enough for pictures ... I have made a bad start. Impatient of any longer loss of time I dashed headlong at the first fine view of Scesaplana, and although I had discovered that it would not do as a picture, the lines being too stiff and harsh . . . yet having begun I have endeavoured to finish the thing in a fashion. But I do not grudge the experience and do not despair of making a picture or two in the Alps, notwithstanding Jno. Constable. My intention is to take selected peeps of fine mountain crests etc. through gaps in forest or as secondary objects to fine foregrounds of rock and cottages and cattle, but atmosphere is the thing to aim at wherever you be - atmosphere and sunlight.

If I have not found pictures ready cut out, I have found one delight beyond all my anticipations - the flowers. Henry's gentian and gentianella are delicious. I never see them without thinking of him . . . There that's a good long list for a mere ignorant lover of beauty ... To crown all there is below the waterfall that stopped me today a sort of plateau covered with heath, as purple as a bit of Scotland ... I am quite vexed at having no proper means of pressing the things . . . My day's collection are now being sat upon inside a manual of German and French conversation, which will bear the memento of it to its death ... No place W of the Adriatic can be less sophisticated than Braudnerthal. The practicable valley is a patch of cleared ground perhaps two miles square that a N.Z. squatter would turn up his nose at. It contains on my estimate 150 houses besides 200 cattle houses . . . They are good Catholics indeed . . . Between Bludenz and here are three or four little roadside chapels with an altar behind a grating and an open covered space for worshippers. I can't tell how many

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roods and simple crosses there are on the same road. I passed one immense wooden cross ... on a wild knoll 20 ft high painted red. The crucifixes are artistic and carefully painted. It seems to me quite a right and natural thing on the orthodox views of Christianity. If salvation depends on historic creeds by all means keep the main facts vividly before every mind. There is a fine 3 foot crucifix on my wash stand which when the candles are on it looks like a small altar. It is mere scolding and slander to call this idolatry.

1874/13

H. A. Atkinson to A. S. Atkinson - - - New Plymouth, 31 May 1874

. . . And now for the account 'of how I became Provincial Secretary'

On Friday the 15th I went into Town to attend a meeting of the Harbour Committee. After the meeting Carrington asked me if I had received a letter from him, I said no. 'Well' he said I want to know if you will join my Government'. We had some talk and I said I would let him know tomorrow. So I wrote out the conditions upon which I would join. I to be the head of the Government and leader in Council, nothing to be done without my being first consulted. Standish to be a member of the executive, and the salary to be divided between us. This was agreed to at once. Standish thought it quite reasonable and Carrington signed what I wrote. The Council took to 'responsible' Government most kindly and everything seems inclined to go most smoothly. Carrington is delighted to get any one to lean upon so as to escape responsibility. He rushed off to Parris as soon as we had come to terms and said 'I am all right now, I shall have some rest.'

At first some people could not understand my joining Carrington as P.S. But now that they understand that I am responsible for all that is done and that I shall resign at once if my advice is not attended to every body is pleased, although some few think we ought to have let Carrington break down - which he could not possibly do more than he has done - as he will now get the credit of what I do. I hate such nonsense as this. There is most important work to be done which I should never have forgiven myself for not doing when I got the chance because some one else might get the credit.

So I joined on Saturday in the middle of the day and had to meet the Council on Monday at 10 a.m. with nothing prepared by the then Government. I could not put off the Council as the Patea members were on the road up. However, we set to work, prepared estimate ... in great detail. Our fellows - MPC's - are great at detail, as you know: got Kelly to help us with the land regulations and have carried everything right without an alteration, including the Education Bill which I had fortunately drawn as a member of the Committee. We have voted £1400 in aid of education which with the rate (Pproposed) and £700 out of Confiscated lands will make up about £3,300 for the year. I had a great fight for the £1400 (in Cabinet) - but would have it.

As matters stood before I joined I really had to do all the work as leading the

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opposition. When the first Estimates came down I proposed they should be sent back for amending to the Super, but the Council would not agree to this but allowed me to appoint a Committee to remodel them, this was considered government . . .

v 7, p 22

H. A. Atkinson to A. S. Atkinson - - - Hurworth, 7 Jun 1874

When you were up here you kindly asked me if I should not do better with a little more capital. I should be glad if I could get £100 for a year certain at 10 per cent. I can do without it, but Brown's mill being burnt has thrown me out as I was reckoning upon carting as a certain income and have been putting all I got into fencing and stock and also in breaking up the Maori whare field, which is now all ploughed. I do not want to have to sell my timber waggon or extra cart nor any of my bullocks (I have eight pairs) in a hurry, and not at all if I can get more carting ... so it will be much more profitable to keep them. I should be quite willing to give them as security . . .

I am getting more convinced every day that all this land up here should be broken up as soon as possible, or we shall have it overrun with fern . . . Are you inclined to have yours done? If so I could do it upon these terms: I would stump the land, that is take out all the stumps and take away all the logs and plough and get it ready for crops and find all labour and seed. I should put in wheat, maize and potatoes. You paying £2-10 an acre and receiving half the crops delivered free in town, or you should have a lien upon the crops for the £2-10 an acre with interest at 10 per cent. By this means you would have your land got in first rate order at no cost to yourself. The land would then readily let for 10/- or more an acre and could always be kept clean . . . I think it is very important to do something to stop the fern at once, if it once gets a fair hold it will take years to eradicate . . .

I shall bring with me over 100 lbs bacon - pigs are very scarce.

1874/14

J. C. Richmond, circular letter - - - Feldkirch, 24 Jun i8y4

I left Brandner Thal yesterday morning after staying a full month ... I worked very hard there and did my best to overcome the inherent objection to the site. I made a great many small pencil sketches, two or three large water color drawings and one small oil painting - none finished in any sense. Finding that my oil painting, which promised best, was not improving under my hands I reluctantly concluded that the only way to break the spell was to knuckle under . . . My own fancy taking me to the Ober-Engadin, I moved in that direction ... I have to occupy three weeks till the children's holidays as profitably as I can . . .

The time spent at Brand was anything but regrettable, nor do I know how one could learn so much in so little time of what goes on in this curious world. Certainly not in the rush of a great city which affects me like the tuning of instruments in a large orchestra ... In a Vorarlberg valley you have elementary civilised life, perhaps as

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much of the good and as little of the evil of civilisation as has yet reached the masses of the inhabitants of the world. It is so isolated yet so close to the buzz. It reminds me of Taranaki life before the discovery of the railway policy minus the grumbling and plus an hour or two in the early morning and a great deal of religion such as it is . . .

At present Catholicism has a strong hold on these mountaineers . . . yet it is easy to see Catholicism will not have a very long day - and what next? Certainly not Calvinism or any harsh form of Christianity ... I had much talk after a fashion with my landlord, Samuel Tegeli of the Gemse on politics, argiculture, art and religion . . . He asked me many questions about Protestantism and said he did not believe the great God raged against his creatures for mistakes in believing. He did not send all or most people to Hell for such things. The Hell of Protestants was wrong. There was certainly a purifying place where spirits stayed whilst their friends prayed for them on earth. But all faiths were good, only men should abide by what they had been brought up in . . .

The pines are very intractable for an artist's purposes, often handsome but as it were clannish - social among themselves and fine in masses on the mountains but unwilling to mix, in pictures, with other trees and objects. I have drawn a good many and got their character but cannot use them. I must try a picture of pines. Generally they are terribly regular and conical but there is a sportiveness about them at times, and especially on high ground, that would surprise you . . .

1874/15

J. C. Richmond, circular letter - - - Syrgenstein, 23 Jul 1874

Sunday 12 Jul. I kept C.W.R.'s birthday and thought of dear young Blanche on the way to Zurich. I found that place crammed with tourists and visitors . . . come to a musical festival . . . Madame Schultz and her resident girls had already gone off, there remained only Anneliz, Dorothy and 'Gertie the English girl' as they call her, a bright sensible young thing of Anneliz's age . . .

Frau von Breithaupt and her daughter are visiting here, and we have daily pianoforte seances. Mad. B is a splendid and delicate player. We hear Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Weber, Mendelssohn, Schumann and Wagner, and I put in a plea for a little Italian. We also have small and vehement changes of opinion about 'the music of the future' which I venture to think a good deal below that of the present and past in genius, whether as to power, invention, beauty . . . However, pianoforte solo playing corrupts musical taste and judgment. I don't mean true chamber playing, but those frantic efforts which are made to fill concert rooms ... I can reach to nearly all Beethoven, but even in this the solo piano style - the give and take - in the best hands plagues me greatly, to use mild terms. Mrs Whittle gets red hot and Margt. white hot over my heresies . . .

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Frau von B. remembers Maria well and will be glad if she will seek out Pfarrer Lohr, who has reached Nelson ... his wife is granddaughter of an old friend and physician of the family at Cassel. Ella von B. is a very charming girl of perhaps 18 - with a strong look of the Gullys, full of spirit, sense and sweetness ... I don't think I should see much of Margt. if I went to Dresden as she is a very popular person and my German goes on only at snail's pace . . .

I am reading Italian in the Promessi Sposi with great ease, I am also working German in Richter and Schiller and modern thought in the Rev Mr Haweis and in W.R. Greg's Enigmas ... It produces a sad impression but not sadder than Browning when he attempts orthodoxy of a vapoury kind.

1874/16

H. A. Atkinson to A. S. Atkinson - - - Wellington, 18 Aug 1874

... I am afraid to leave as the Lords seem very much inclined to throw out several of our bills and if I leave I fear there would be but small chance of getting them through. 29 They, the 'Lords', are most unreasonable. R Wood has informed the House that he shall move some resolutions to take the place of Vogel's propositions to assist some of the Provinces. This will take us a few days more if he really brings them in. We have been sitting re [C.D.R.] Ward and Chapman 30 about three hours a day besides our work since I came and are likely to have to do so for some week or so longer . . .

v 7, p 22

C. W. Richmond to Colonial Secretary - - - Nelson, 31 Aug 1874

(Draft)

The severe and, as I fear, mortal, sickness of Mr William S. Atkinson incapacitating him to act, I have appointed Mr William Hunt Pitcairn to act temporarily as my clerk and secretary . . .

v 7, p 24

H. A. Atkinson to H. Dunstan Atkinson (Telegram) - - - Nelson, 4 Sep 1874

Perhaps the carrots had better be put into the potatoe paddock use bonedust on them and also for half the potatoes. Uncle 31 left us last night very peacefully at seven minutes past eight.

1874/17

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Ann Elizabeth Richmond to Edith Atkinson - - - Zurich, 6 Sep 1874

Dolla and I have received a present of a swimming belt each from Aunt Margie and now we can both swim a little and I without my belt. We have got over all our fright about being drowned. Did I tell you that the drinking water in Zurich gives people Derbyshire throats because the water contains such a quantity of chalk. I have a little one already, but it is getting better because I put iodine on it . . . Almost all the inhabitants of Zurich have thick throats and some of them most dreadful ones as big as their heads . . . there is no dancing class here at this school. It is quite different here to what you read in books of boarding school stories. It is more like a large family and Madame the mother. Of course there is not the same openess, I mean we don't tell Madame things we would tell our relations, but it is very nice, and we do not often feel homesick. There is not so much constraint as in English boarding schools and it is not nearly so proper. For instance at Miss Cranch's at meals no one speaks a word and they eat as if they thought the Queen was looking at them, while here everybody talks to whoever they like to - we certainly don't eat too elegantly. Madame calls out to the little ones if they don't eat properly but not much . . .

This quarter it is rather different. I was in the fourth class and Dolla in the third class you know. But Dolla never agreed with the mistress of the class and it was so horrid when I could not make things right as she was in another room so I asked Madame to let her come into our class as she knows as much German almost as I do. Madame agreed and it is much pleasanter now ... I always talk French with Madame but Dolla not yet. I cannot talk anything but English to the English girl: we always when we are together want to talk so much and cannot speak fast enough in German yet . . . Aunt Margie is such a delightful creature . . . She reminds me very much of Aunt Maria and she is so unselfish and good . . .

I still take lessons with Mr Steinmitz. He plays so beautifully and it is delightful playing duets with him. I am now playing Mozart's concertos. They are perfectly beautiful. . . I . . . shall bring them to N.Z. with me and you or Margie will play them with me, won't you? . . . My great desire is to be a good housekeeper and learn to cook well. I wish they taught that sort of thing at schools. The girls are all taught cutting out here . . . The boarders are making dresses this winter for the two youngest boarders . . . two little Russians of 7 and 10 years old . . .

There is an English school here ... a boarding school for young English ladies . . . They seem to talk English always so I do not think they can get on very fast with German or French. They go to all the balls almost in Zurich and most of them are very pretty. We admire them from afar but do not envy them . . .

1874/18

C. W. Richmond to Emily E. Richmond - - - Hokitika, 6 Sep 1874

Captn. Underwood basely landed us at the Grey, and we had a long and cold drive over in the dark from Greymouth ... We had two rivers to cross in the dark - the punt

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being washed away at the Teremakau, and the bridge under repair at the Arahura. We were 10 1/2 hours on the road - 40 miles or so; and got in at half past one in the morning. Luckily Tabart (Depy Superintendent) sent out a mounted constable 12 or 13 miles to meet us, or we never should have been able to cross the Arahura . . .

1874/19

C. W. Richmond to Emily E. Richmond - - - Hokitika, 10 Sep 1874

I have had long interviews this morning with several interesting people. Black Vincent, who stabbed the house maid, Douglas who murdered his mate, Messrs Chamberlain and Levy, and another man, a very friendly sort of fellow, who declared he was unjustly convicted before me, but bears no malice . . .

Alf would have enjoyed being with us on our ride from Greymouth . . . We had much difficulty in keeping our lamps alight, and had to knock up some people from their beds to get candle-ends.

1874/20

Ann Elizabeth Richmond to Jane Maria Atkinson - - - Zurich, 15 Sep 1874

. . . Monnie is growing tall, thin and brown ... He is much nicer than used to be, not nearly so scornful of our society. Dolla is enormously tall. She is already as tall as I am and will be taller I think . . .

1874/21

J. C. Richmond, circular letter - - - Einsiedeln, Schwyz, 16 Sep 1874

We went to Syrgenstein and spent a quiet but pleasant holiday ... I set up my easel and set to work endeavouring to make something of my sketches, but I have been all along most unhappy in my attempts. My eyesight is decidedly better. Nothing but long night reading distresses them, and no annoyance remains except the inevitable one of change of focus. My health is good and every now and then I do a sketch in pencil that shows that old age has not yet diminished my capacity. Yet nothing has succeeded with me in the way of painting, much as I have desired to turn it to some profit and frequent as Mr Fletcher's appeals for drawings have been. I have rather better hopes from my newer collection of sketches, which includes several stimulating and pictorial subjects . . .

Maurice brought with him a great deal of liveliness and the art of catching and collecting butterflies . . .

The tour that Maurice and I took included some of the greatest things in Switzerland. We sent our portmanteaux from Zurich . . . Our packs including greatcoats weighed 15 lbs and 20 lbs respectively. We crossed the Zuger see by steamboat . . . Where it surpasses any N.Z. lake is in its cultivation and woods . . . The last arm - below Brunnen and the Schwyz valley is a narrow lake almost independent - they call it Unter See . . . Here are the old traditional spots of the Tell stories and of the three

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heroes . . . who swore to free the land. One feels uneasy at perceiving that it would not do now a days and that there is really no nest for freedom if the Bismarck of the day should consider it to be necessary for the safety of Germany or the best organised large state of the time to suppress Switzerland or any other nation. The peaceful Germans, as Simmons I believe truly calls them, are for the present so docile to the great leaders that they would enter on any crusade against liberty outside their own borders if the leaders said it must be. That is the impression I get from talking to the men themselves ... I fancy the Swiss are not at ease in their minds, though they don't say anything about it. The high handed way of the German Govt, may be felt here in the matter of Communism or a boisterous ultra-montane press -or any other peccant humor of freedom. At all events military organisation is surprisingly in vogue here, and you hear as much drumming, trumpeting, marching, countermarching, sham fighting and musketry practice as in France - and there is no topic more constant in the papers as 'our army and its organisation'. All sympathy here is for France - though it is not openly expressed in the prints . . .

I can easily believe what I think Fox said that the head of L. Wakatipu is grander than any similar scene in Switzerland . . .

(Sep 17 Brunner am Vierwaldstatter See) . . . There is one beautiful fall but the points of view are fenced in by a lot of lying vagabonds, one of whom induces you to pay for his view by telling you it will free you of the other and then the other says there is 'no connection'. These little things and the Cockney style of the thing put one out of tune. We paid for one view and bounced off from the other in a rage. As you approached the crack places this sort of thing becomes a nuisance. Alpine horns and little guns to make echoes, children with edelweiss flowers, others at gates shutting them to open for you, others simply begging, fruit dealers, booths with refreshments and touters besides them, fuhrers, tragers etc. beset you at every turn and try your philosophy . . . We slept at Meiringen on the flat at the head of the Brienger See and next morning began the walk of walks despite petty nuisances ... I could not help making one more to the 1000 sketches. It is very slight but contains on a small scale something of the spirit of the thing . . . Next day we went to Hofwyl. Including the loss of an umbrella 8 f - washing 4 f - loss of a hat 3 f our tour cost us on an average 14 f per diem. 210 f for 15 days. This is an interesting experience in the very dearest part of Switzerland . . .

After leaving Maurice ... I spent a week on the Vierwaldstatter See, having got an idea that I am equal to a series of etchings of its scenery. The weather was changeable yet I made some progress ... I went to the Upper Zurichersee, to draw lake boats, and on Maria's birthday I spent 16s in a trip to the Wallensee, and sketched the Glarnisch and the Murtschenstock. This little lake I mentioned in my first letter to Switzd. has a look of a N.Z. lake . . .

The place from which I am now writing [Einsiedeln] is one of the finest on this lake . . . Behind the town is a beautiful ampitheatre of green backed by strange

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limestone peaks. One called the Grosse Mythen is from some points like Paritutu, only it is Paritutu 1000 times enlarged ... I have made sketches of this hill for the sake of old P. of Taranaki . . .

I want to call Hal's attention to the bullock harness here - particularly the yoke. Each animal has a separate wooden bar on its neck, quite light and elegant, from the sides having two cords or thongs with wooden cheek pieces by which the cords may be adjusted in length, and at the bottom hangs a small curved bar uniting the two cords. . . .

They draw through traces and splinter bars arranged like those for a leader in a four in hand. There is a band round the body to keep the traces in place. I never see bullocks with sore necks. They are very kind and patient with their cattle and keep them in capital condition. Bullocks here are not such wayward things as ours. They are handled and coaxed with salt from calf hood up. All the creatures, goats, sheep, cows, bullocks, even horses will follow you.

1874/22

C. W. Richmond to Emily E. Richmond - - - Hokitika, 20 Sep 1874

You will think we are never coming home . . . The weather being rainy and unsettled I detd. to wait for the big ship Tararua, due here on Tuesday 22nd, rather than have 5 days on board the Chas. Edward . . .

Since getting rid of my Appeal cases I have been occupying myself chiefly with the Milky Way ... I am afraid you will say it is a pity that I cannot find something better to occupy myself with - and no doubt, this is one view of the subject.

I had a long call from the Archdeacon [H. W. Harper] on Friday morning - discoursing amongst other things on the personality of the Evil principle. Of course the Archdeacon is in favour (if one may say so) of a Personal Devil. I contented myself with shadowing out the modern objection to such a view . . .

The 22nd. is James's birthday. Just fancy the poor old thing is 52! I have felt rather anxious about his health in those cold Alpine valleys, with no one to look after him.

1874/23

J. C. Richmond, circular letter - - - Blackheath, 19 Oct 1874

The Urner See - the upper limit of the V. W. Staffer See is a grave and often solemn lake more nearly approaching the Milford Sd. of N.Z. than anything I have seen . ..

This place in . . . Maurice's tour . . . was distinguished by the capture of the 'purple Emperor' on that occasion. I think a fine picture is to be made of the Urner

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See but I have not yet attempted anything more ambitious than pencil sketches -and those within the ground already frequented by photographers and scene painters ... I had got so much out of conceit with my larger attempts at sketching that I never brought out my big books once on the Urner See, and Brunnen being a tourists corner I did not linger long but went up the valley that debouches there for three miles to Schwyz - the little town that boasts to be the first germ or cell or ovule of independent Schweiz which takes name from it . . .

In comming from Einsiedeln to Brunnen I dined there and was charmed by the Dorf and the inn ... I was drawn to it by this and by one particular old house . . . I got out a big sheet and set to on the house . . . The next morning early I mounted my wall and was hard at work, the sun at 8 o'clock 23rd Sept frying my back as I sat. In a few minutes came out a gentleman from a neighbouring house and begged me to go into his garden where I could have almost the same point of view with a chair. I was very glad to accept the civility and after the work was done I paid my friend a visit. I found he was a Mr Carl von Hettlingen of a very old family well known in one branch of art as much as in the affairs of Switzerland ... I found the house next day swarming with Capucins and lawyers, one of the brothers being a 'jurist' and a meeting of the confraternity in Switzerland being on foot. The newspapers of the R. Catholic cantons and the inhabitants of Schweiz, all of them R. Caths, were at the time in great tribulation about the Bismarckian policy that the dominant party in Bern and Solothurn are pursuing towards the R. Caths there ... I can't discover any shadow of menace to Swiss policy or nationality that has come in recent days from the Catholics, but the dominant Protestants are closing the one or two monastries and the other R.C. institutions . . . Upon my arguing that not Catholicism but Ultramontanism was attacked the answer was, 'you mean utramontanism and patriotism are inconsistent - but Schwyz has always been Catholic and when was it not patriotic?' . . . Schwyz had never changed either in faith or love of independence. I don't quite like the temper of things. If Ultramontanism is to be crushed at all it must be with no more of remorse or hesitation than Bismarck uses. All Switzerland must join and must expel the priesthood on a sign of recalcitrancy ... I fancy the dirty little local governments will pocket something by suppressing Catholic institutions . . .

I got a fair sketch of the Reding house, date 1650, and several other sketches . . . I set out next day for Bern and Hofwyl, where I saw Maurice flourishing and full of plans for a large boat he is to construct under the eye of the Hofwyl professor of carpentry ... I set out through the Val de Travers for Dijon ... As on my former going across France I was struck with the change from great comfort in the look of all the dwellings to comparative niedrigkeit (I can't find the exact word in English). It is . . . quite unmistakable. The why I don't pretend to say. It may be that the money found for the French loans would on Swiss habits be locked up in land and buildings, but there the fact is, and if my guess is partly true the Swiss on Fitzgerald's

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consoling principle are bound to rejoice that 'the capital will be there - you can't pay and they can't get it out of the country'. They have chosen the better part and cannot pay an indemnity to a conquering enemy . . .

France is swarming with soldiers. They are livelier, cleverer looking men than the German and Swiss soldiers or than the English. I think a little quieter than my old impression of them, only now and then sparkling out into excitement. I should fancy that the superiority of the German army would go at once if you took the educated class out of the ranks; without them the average of the French would be better, but then they carry the atmosphere of a more cultivated intelligence and better morale with them and for the time elevate the peasantry, who don't strike me as particularly high in any sense in Germany . . . Next day I tracked out Johnson 32 at his friend's, Mr. Harding . . . He has grown immensely fat, and like old Mr Levien falls asleep in company and would do in his seat at a cafe if you would allow him . . . Johnson's ingenuity has made him some money and a considerable reputation in the photographic world. I had enjoyed for a long time what are called autotypic prints of old masters without knowing that we owe the valuable process to him ... He is busy on other machines for facilitating reproduction and multiplication of engravings etc. He also is adviser to Harding on scientific matters and has been lately to Algeria on some errand of this kind . . . Harding from a simple accountant by energy and ability has risen to be a magnate of the Bourse ... He is a most agreeable, sensible man with no airs or mysteries of any kind . . . He has a concession - without asking it - of an Algerian Railway line, and intends to carry it out himself. He speaks in high terms of the capabilities and openings of Algeria and a little passed about some work he wants doing by an English engineer on his Algerian line. Johnson greatly wants me to offer to undertake this . . .

The French school in the Louvre is a terrible expanse of wasted canvas - and life. But the glory of the Louvre is the Venus de Milo. She looks such a queen and goddess among a dozen other Venuses and Dianas, some of them justly famous. If you have your hat on as you approach her it is quite as natural to take it off as if you were entering a church . . . The marble original has a delicate peculiar grace that I have not the least power to analyse but feel at once. I don't find that any of these treasures suffered from the roughs of the commune. The Tuileries are slowly rising again . . . Johnson fancies the Government are designedly slow in the work of restoring that the remembrance of the rule of the roughs may be kept lively . . . Three-fourths the damage is attributed to the French troops themselves; in mere wanton wildness . . .

20th . . . My eyes keep as well as can be expected, but I am unable to write, read or draw without glasses.

1874/24

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Maurice W. Richmond to Ann Elizabeth Richmond - - - Hofwyl, 25 Oct 1874

The soldiers broke up on Thursday and went to their homes. We do nothing now but play at sham fights because we went and saw them the last day having a sham fight. We were right between the two opposite sides and they were firing blank cartridges at us the whole time. Some of us pretend to be robbers and some are soldiers and the soldiers have to catch. We play it all over the place and in among the vaults and cellars . . .

The latin master speaks latin to us in our class now and he says we must answer him in latin, but we only laugh at him. We talk german words with latin endings to them.

1874/25

J. C. Richmond to Ann Elizabeth and Dorothy Richmond - - - Mount Heaton, Heaton Mersey, near Manchester, 13 Nov 1874

I went to Cheltenham where I spent a day with Mrs Stevens and saw an old fellow passenger who went to N Zealand in the Kenilworth in 1856-7. Major Barnard a very cordial, cheerful man who married the daughter of Professor Henslow, the botanist, whose little book we used to consult when attending Dr Boor.

1874/26

J. C. Richmond to Jane Maria Atkinson - - - Ludlow, 17 Nov 1874

I heard from Featherston of Harry's accession to the Government. England greatly admires the impudence of her youngest child and its great statesman [Vogel]. The South Sea scheme is often talked of with amusement not unmixed with admiration. I fancy the money lenders are a little grave over its romance and novelty.

1874/27

H. A. Atkinson to A. S. Atkinson - - - Wellington, 17 Nov 1874

I quite agree with what you say re surveys and Waikatoes. No such delay will be allowed and had Parris only sent me a telegram that would have been all put right at once.

It seems [C.C.] Bowen has been wanting to join us all along. So he had a definite offer yesterday and has accepted. 33 McLean is not yet back. Pollen left yesterday for Auckland with the Governor. I shall be going up about Xmas. . . .

What do you think should be done about William going home. I think he should go at once with one or two children at the outside . . .

P.S. There is no fear of confining the selection of judges to N.Z lawyers - or Attorney Generals.

v 7,p 25

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Jane Maria Atkinson to Ann Elizabeth Richmond - - - Nelson, 19 Nov 1874

Such a musical treat as we all had at the beginning of the month is rare in Nelson, the great pianist Mde A. Goddard came here straight from Melbourne and gave two concerts which were crowded. She was nearly buried in splendid bouquets and at the end of the second concert everyone stood up and gave three cheers, a very unusual thing for even great musical favourites I am told. Beethoven's Sonata with the Variations and Funeral March and one of Mozart's in A were the greatest treat to me. One didn't know which most to admire, her amazing power and vigour or her exquisite brilliance and delicacy of touch - it was magical . . .

Since the piece of letter to Father was begun we hear from Wellington that the judges are to be placed as follows; Sir G. Arney at Wellington (he will not resign at present) Judge Johnston at Christchurch, Judge Chapman at Auckland and Judge Richmond at Dunedin. Judge Gresson resigns rather than leave Xchurch, but the government mean to make 4 judges do. Anyway Nelson would have had to put up with a district judge only, for if J. Gresson had not resigned Uncle Judge was to have been placed at Wellington as well as the Chief Justice. We are very vexed as there seems little chance of Dunedin suiting uncle's asthma.

1874/28