December 27th, 1885.

To Mrs. Edmund Maurice.

I have been thinking over your plans.... The city (Siena) is quite the loveliest and most interesting I ever saw. As to Assisi, it is just a vision of angels; it is like having looked thro’ the gates of heaven for a season. If there’s any chance of your going to Assisi, be sure you read, before you go, the little popular Italian book called “Fiorettini di San Francesco” used by the peasants. You can buy it for a few centesimi, Flo says. I should be glad if you’d buy it, and bring it back to me. I’m so fond of it, and it would be good Italian reading for you, it’s so easy. Don’t be cavilling, but read it and love it as I do....

My love to the MacDonalds;[[95]] tell them how entirely happy and refreshed I was by my visit to them, and how glad I am to have seen them in their new home....

I got thro’ the bulk of the accounts on Thursday. I had a fine staff, and they are getting capable. Mr. Shaen hasn’t finished the deeds, and we can’t take over Zoar Street to-morrow!... I have an offer of £2,000 for houses. As a gift or investment, I think I shall risk it, and the Bishop of Rochester’s £1,000 to buy houses in Southwark to keep our workers together. I had a comfortable journey, changed carriages at Marseilles, couldn’t lie down till Dijon; but had a reassuring crowded company of 6 ladies!

January, 1886.

To Mrs. Edmund Maurice.

I knew you would hear some report of the riots, and would be anxious for news.... You need not be anxious about Deptford. Of course, after such a breakdown of police administration, one feels as if one might meet violence any where; but I think of all places I should feel, if it came, safest in Deptford. That this is so marks progress that I had hardly realised till your postcard recalled the old state of things. The people are gentle, responsive, and tractable there, if sometimes a little ill-tempered—that is the worst. At least I know they would stand by us. No one thinks the outbreak came from workmen; no one thinks it was excited by Socialists. It was just thieves and vagabonds; and the amount of excitement from the Socialists is also clear. I was interested to hear from Sir U. Shuttleworth that it has been the custom of late years to enter into communication with the promoters of working men’s gatherings; and, if they themselves considered they could keep order, to leave it to them; and you would notice the workmen mentioned having told off 500 marshals, as if they felt themselves in charge; and from the very first they warned Hyndman and Co. off the ground. Of course Sir U. is retained for the Government; and I hear from others that a force of police is always ready, or I conclude ought to be; but it is nice to feel in what way the working men themselves are trusted. I wonder what Edmund would say as to prosecuting Hyndman. My impulse would be for doing so. All seems very quiet now, and people say it is as safe as it is after a railway accident. It has seemed a very strange week in London. We had a very successful Berthon St. party. Ld. and Lady Wolmer came, and he was such a help at the door. I rarely saw such courtesy, firmness, tact, sympathy, and care shown among strangers.... We had a C.O.S. meeting at the Davenport Hills’ yesterday. Mr. Pell was in the chair, and I spoke; it seemed so strange, being there without Edmund and you. One felt as if it were unnatural and almost wrong. Dear Mrs. Godwin was there.... The meeting was very full.... You will have seen about the huge relief fund formed at the Mansion House; it has reached £20,000. No one seems to me really to believe in the exceptional distress. It is a dreadful calamity, this fund being formed....

CHARITY ORGANISATION MEETING

I dined at the John Hollands’ on Wednesday, and met Sir U. Shuttleworth, Bryce, and Mr. O’Connor Power. The former told me the impression was that Gladstone would prepare his scheme, bring it in, be beaten, and then go to the country.