Braemar,
September 24th, 1879.
To Mrs. Edmund Maurice.
I think we could get the Archbishop to hold a meeting. In fact I have no fear about getting money, if dear E. can only get it into a working shape where that only is needed. After all, even if Government did give it, that only means all being taxed; and surely, so long as riches exist, there is need to call upon those who have them to give of their abundance freely and heartily to such places as Southwark; even without asking them, to make it possible for those of them who want to give to give helpfully, and, so long as there are even quite poor people with any surplus, it is a pity they should not have the joy of giving freely. Is it to be all compulsory taxes, and no free-will offering?
B. Court Club,
October 18th, 1878 or 1879 (?).
Gertrude to Octavia.
Mr. Blyth asked to come to see me on purpose to know what I thought about things. He is very hopeful, much pleased at the quiet dignified way in which the (Temperance) Lodges men behaved. They asked the old men (who are chiefly boys) what they meant to do about the debt, and their reply was that, if they could not meet it otherwise, they must sell the furniture, billiard tables, etc.! So, finally, the teetotalers have formally taken the debts (now said to be £5) upon themselves, and have also taken the tables, etc., as part of the club belongings.
There were, last week, forty-five new teetotal members, and there are twenty-four non-total abstainers—sixty-nine in all. Seventeen and threepence was paid in entrance fees, the whole room cleaned and put in order; and Grimmins’s first act was to fasten up with his own hands, in the renewed room, the tablet to Mr. Cockerell’s memory. They want it to be just as it all was at first, and to have a penny subscription and no ballot at election.
Eland House,