Oakes & Griffith
Eastgate St.
Chester, England
Dear Uncle, Aunty & Marian,
Sometime in November, 1876 I wrote you a letter and for a long time I
could not make out what had become of either the letter or you, but my mind was
set at rest on account of the letter by its being returned to me, & on the
front of the envelop was printed these words, “Unclaimed”. How could I not see the reason which the post
office people had for putting “Unclaimed” on a letter which it was nobody’s
business to claim but rather was the business of the post office people to find
out somebody whose name was on the envelope and give the letter to this person;
if they could not find the person whose name was on the envelope, I think they could
find a word more suitable to explain how it was that the letter did not find
its way to the right person. By putting
Unclaimed on the letter they put the fault on the person to whom it is addressed
& not on themselves or on the one that misdirected the letter. But perhaps in America they may have a different
way of distributing letters to what they have in England.
I don’t know whether you were told that M. A. had a brother in America,
but I do not suppose that you could very easily go to see him although he is in
the same country as you are. He is in
California and when I was at home last they had just had a letter from him
after he had not written for a very long time.
I see by the papers that you have changed your king (or what is
something like one). We have still got
the same old Lady to rule & govern us & and she has not as yet exposed her
desire to go & leave her kingdom, & even if she did go there would be
no “lark” in electing one to fill her place like there is in America, as I saw
by the paper that cousin sent over where it said that one man shot another dead
& the other man was shot dead by some other patriotic citizen. They would not allow such fun to go on here,
for some poor man tried to take his wife’s head off with a hatchet & the
police caught him after he had done the deed & this poor man is going through
a performance next Monday (Easter Monday).
The first part of his trick is to be tied both hands & feet, he is
then put in a scaffold with a movable plank under his feet. A rope is then put up around his neck &
he is allowed to see if he can keep himself up without touching anywhere. I am afraid that if he will not come back the
same man as he went, he will be quite a changed man & he will take no more
wife’s heads off.
The Oxford & Cambridge Boat Race came off last Saturday & it
was “dead heat”. The bow oar of the
Oxford boat broke as they were taking the lead so that it could not be decided
who was the winner.
Business has been rather slack lately but Saturday & today we have
been a little more busy than usual. I
hope that you are pretty brisk in America.
Have you an Indians about your place & does that double barreled gun
that made short work of our cat down the Crown Yard come in to give them the
taste of the lead? But I suppose a ball
& not shot would send them to their “happy hunting grounds”. You have no game laws, gun license & all
that bother in America as we have here so you shoot what you like when you get
the chance.
Next Friday is Good Friday & then we will get a holiday. We will also get one on the Monday following
& as the Saturday comes between them I am going to ask it also so as to
have four days of peace next to each other.
I don’t trust that American comes under the Bank Holiday Act does
it? But I suppose that you get the
holiday all the same. We are in that
time of year called “Spring” now & we get to see the sun for a few minutes every
other week or so. We have had a winter
& it was nothing like ought to be.
It rained almost every day & there was only one chance for me to put
my skates on, that was the day after Christmas. I am afraid that those people that want to
skate will have to go to the North Pole or very near it before they can have a
try of their skates.
I have been a very long time in writing to you but I hope you will
forgive after this long letter. I must
thank cousin for his kindness in sending the papers but as I cannot come to do the
same myself as it is rather too far, will you please thank him for me, with
kind love to yourselves, Aunt Elizabeth, Uncle, & cousins. I remain your affectionate nephew,
Walter Garner [Joseph’s son, b. 1846]
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