Letter from Andrew Halliday, London, to George Sala, 1874 December 8 : autograph manuscript signed.

Apologizing for missing the funeral of Walter Philipps "...but in my present state of health I dared not face the dreadful weather. I am very very sorry I could not be present. Poor Walter. I fear he has made a sad shipwreck of it - gone down and all hands, you may say. I do not see much chance of getting anything substantial from the Savage Club. There are few there now who ever knew Walter, & those few have not a very pleasant recollection of him...For my part I am somewhat paralyzed. I have had so many to bury or help to bury lately, so many to help to keep alive that I am not able to do much. Still I will bear my share;" saying he would like to see him and telling him "Fiske, 'tis said, has gone to observe the Transit of Venus. He took as much money as he could scrape together, all his clothes & a camp-stool. The camp stool has given rise to various suspicions - amongst others, the Transit of Venus. Chesterton tells me you hope for the worst - in which fervent aspiration you will be heartily joined by Clement Scott & [James] Mortimer of the Figaro & John Toole."