Part 01: G. W. Rusden letters, 1846-1900

days to contribute to the comfort of others. How different a fate might have seemed natural for a boy turned loose in Australia at fourteen years of age!

So Jamie is housebuilding at Menangle! West of the railway from CmPark I suppose. I may have seen the spot without the spirit of prophecy.

Very satisfactory all your reports of the family. The distant one seems to have adhered to his books properly if passing examinations be a proof. Excuse a rather jumbled letter - my doctor came in after I began to write and I fear my scribbling is rather heterogeneous.

He gave me a fair pulse

report and made me promise to walk down to lunch with him today.

His wife is a charming person and very much liked by all who know her.

I hope to hear that Philip King and his wife are with you and receiving and giving pleasure by doing so.

My kindest regards to you all and to them. By the bye I don't think that George ever wrote to me his matured opinion of the problem he undertook to solve about the salt rocks at the Cowpasture River in the time of Govr Grose. As I published in 1897 I am not now vexatiously asking for more information: but I hope he satisfied himself on the point Heaven bless you all Yours sincerely G W Rusden.

29 Novr 1899

Cotmandene, South Barra. Melbourne

My dear Mrs Onslow

Very many thanks for your interesting letter of the 19th telling me of the military aspirations and cogitations of your gallant sons and of the departure of gallant Jack in the Langton Grange. The boor that gets in his way will not forget what the arm of an Australian can do. Of course all could not go, and as for John, the head of the house, it could hardly be thought of; eminently useful as he might have been in the Transvaal he has such claims upon him in his native land that they could not have been otherwise than paramount,

in which prudent idea I have no doubt that many of his friends would agree with me. As I take the Times I pore over its masterly reports with intense interest and my heart has been in my mouth in anxiety lest before Sir R Buller and his men could arrive in force, some horrible disaster should occur. The position of Col. Baden Powell is in every one's thoughts.

The wave of sympathy which has spread through all the Colonies is of good omen, not least in Lower Canada.

Since I received your letter I have seen one of Mrs Arthur King's sons, and heard from him that Mrs Philip King has passed away from earthly trouble.

When such spirits pass to the better land I feel much with General Gordon, who always reflected "There is another soul safe". Please nevertheless give my kindest regards and sympathy to Philip King. I had a long letter 10 pages from my American Friend Phelps - once U S Minister in England - this week. His letters are always weighty, and humorous though grave.

Lecky also is most punctual in writing and his letters also are full of matter. My last from him warned me that he had little or no hope that the S Af imbroglio would terminate without war

Both he and Phelps always