BIB_ID
421114
Accession number
MA 1352.241
Creator
Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870.
Display Date
London, England, 1851 November 17.
Credit line
Purchased with the assistance of the Fellows, 1951.
Description
1 item (10 pages) ; 17.8 x 11.1 cm
Notes
The letter is part of a collection, MA 1352, which consists of letters from Charles Dickens to the Baroness, to her companion Hannah (Meredith) Brown, or the latter's husband, William Brown; with 70 letters written by others to Miss Coutts or to Dickens in his capacity as her unofficial almoner; and a few others. See the collection-level record for more information.
Written from "London, Tavistock House Tavistock Square / Seventeenth November 1851."
Written from "London, Tavistock House Tavistock Square / Seventeenth November 1851."
Provenance
The letters formed part of the Burdett-Coutts sale (Sotheby, 17 May 1922); they were purchased for Oliver W. Barrett in whose collection they remained until it was sold by his son (Parke-Bernet, 31 October 1951).
Summary
Reporting the details of a theft of clothing by an inmate at Shepherd's Bush, his interview of her and his decision to discharge her, her subsequent appearance before the Magistrate and her conviction; reporting his acceptance of a "little country girl of 17" about whom a Magistrate before whom she appeared had written him and who he thought would be an excellent addition to Shepherd's Bush; recommending two sisters who came before the same Magistrate on the same day, "...daughters of a deceased harbor master at Ramsgate - one 30, and the other 40 - both young for their years, strong, stout-hearted, full of courage though unable to live by slop needle-work, and horribly reduced - of great natural cheerfulness in the midst of their misery - of excellent manners and unblemished character. All they desired was to be got abroad, and to live by their own hard work. I was so very much impressed by these women, and so deeply sensible of the pathetic contrast between their ardent desire to have such charitable aid as the other pestilent wretch had thanklessly flung away, that I was strongly impelled to take them into the Home, and try the influence of two such inmates on the rest;" adding that he wrote to the Committee for permission to accept them but asking her permission if they should not agree; saying Charley is doing very well and looking forward to coming home for the holidays, and they are "beginning to be settled in our new house [...] and I am beginning to find my papers, and to know where the pen and ink are. For the last month, I have been drearily watching Cubitt's workmen, in strong draughts, all day. They have fled at last (thank God) from the miserable expression of my face, and Order is re-established. I will not inflict a longer letter upon you; being already very doubtful whether you will ever get to this point. For of course you carry that Secretarial table covered all over with correspondence and other documents, wherever you go. I always picture you as having it set up, the instant you arrive in a town, and falling to work on the spot."
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