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- 1879 Cambrian Hill Sept 2nd
Dear Brother and Sister
I received yours and was glad to hear from you after the many years but I was glad to hear you was still alive. You have had your trials and so have we. To get on through this life it is not all gold that glitters here, but it is far better country than England. There is brother Joe now traveling about the country hawking. He might been well off he had a mind. Now he has no home of his own and 3 children left on my hands. He has not been to see them but once this 2/2 years. He owe me a good bit of money and he is likely to to owe. He will never pay me.. I would not care for the money if he would come and take the children away for my wife is not able to do for them. She is never well done together and she want to be quiet in our old years. We have strove hard to provide ourselves for old age and sickness. I have had the heart decease [sic] for many years. I was for 7 or 8 years not able to everything but just walk about. It cost me a deal for doctor. I cannot stand but little exertion or excitement. But thank the Lord I am sound in my lungs and enjoy my food and sleep. My wife is very much troubled with asthmatics. We are getting old. I was born in 1812, so I shall be 67 by the time you get this in November. Times is very bad in this country. I have letters from my sons in Gippsland. My son Charles went there about 3/2 years ago with 480 pound in his pocket to take up land. He has been fencing land and clearing and putting [sic] up a house and buying cattle. The season has been so bad the grass all dried up and butter so cheap only 4 or 5 pence per pound and send a 150 miles to market, so out of 70 head of cattle he has not got one milking or has not had anything to sell this 4 months and cattle starving for want of grass.
George and Jessie they have been clearing land and putting up their houses. Their money is gone and can not get a days work anywhere. They are working themselves back here again, if they can sell out they will be back. Bit there is a great many out of work in Ballarat district, it is a mining district, but I am out in the country 6 miles from Ballarat. About your son in Newcastle I don’t know what he has been used to do if he can get any hiring to do. He had better stay there has been hundreds of men left here to go there. A gentleman last week from New South Wales for 150 men, miners, got them all in one day. He could have got as manny [sic] more if he wanted them. The miners is on strike there. They are putting up houses there for the fresh men. I read the whole world is in a bad state at present. There is hundreds selectors here that has been working and saving their money for years gone in the interior of the Colony to take up land is completely ruined through 3 bad seasons. My crops last season was not worth gathering and I hear the crops in England is ruined with wet, but it is for the want of it here. The cattle is dying by hundreds from harvesting no grass. I don’t know how many of mine is dead. We know of one cow. I don’t keep dry cows and young cattle at home, we turn them in the bush. We don’t see them sometimes for 6 months or 12 months. There is a herdsman to look after them for 5 shillings a head a year. But all my neighbours [sic] as lost a good many ….
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AIGS/FHC Member's - Family Trees
1846 - 1921 (74 years)