BIB_ID
421336
Accession number
MA 1352.296
Creator
Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870.
Display Date
London, England, 1852 November 2.
Credit line
Purchased with the assistance of the Fellows, 1951.
Description
1 item (2 pages) ; 18.0 x 11.3 cm
Notes
Signed with initials.
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 "Tavistock House / Tuesday Second November 1852."
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 "Tavistock House / Tuesday Second November 1852."
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
Concerning an accident on the Brighton Railway; thanking her for her note letting him know she was safe; saying "Is it not an extraordinary instance of Railway negligence, that Mr. Peto the Railway Contractor wrote a letter to the Times (as long ago as last spring, if I remember right), wherein he said that unless the People in this company's employment changed their system this identical accident MUST happen at this very place. I recollect his letter the more perfectly, because I myself standing at the Canterbury Station one day, saw a similar accident saved by a hair's breadth; two trains being endangered by the very same proceeding. I believe there are no people on the face of the earth but the English, who would have walked up the platform with their carpet bags and parcels as you describe. It is most extraordinary. Our soldiers or sailors would walk up to a battery in exactly the same way."
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