Letter from Charles Dickens, London, to Angela Burdett-Coutts, 1850 April 12 : autograph manuscript signed.

Discussing an inmate at the Home who was tried and found guilty and sentenced to twelve months; commenting on a new plan to find inmates; saying "I cannot think of any better plan for finding inmates for the Home, than getting a room near the Magdalen on their Receiving-Days, and seeing the girls whom they cannot take in. Will you think of this? In the course of my nightly wanderings into strange places, I have spoken to several women and girls, who are very thankful, but make a fatal and decisive confusion between emigration and transportation. In this, as in everything else, this country suffers frightfully, and will suffer more, from ignorance. It is astonishing and horrible to find how little education (worthy of the name in any respect) there has been among the common people;" commenting on the success of Household Words; saying "The Household Words I hope (and have every reason to hope) will become a good property. It is exceedingly well liked, and 'goes', in the trade phrase, admirably. I dare say I shall be able to tell you, by the end of the month, what the steady sale is. It is quite as high now, as I ever anticipated; and although the expences of such a venture are necessarily very great, the circulation much more than pays them, so far. The labor, in conjunction with Copperfield, is something rather ponderous; but to establish it firmly would be to gain such an immense point for the future (I mean my future) that I think nothing of that. It is playing havoc with the villainous literature;" explaining that the Mr. Forster on the Morning Post is not his friend Forster who wrote for the Edinburgh Review.