Part 5

October 22nd, '84.

Dear Mother,

As I am also writing to Daddy by this post, I am afraid you will not get a very long letter. There's a confisticated great buzz-fly knocking about, and I can't kill him. I told you in my last letter I would give you some idea of what Ottawa was like, but now the time has arrove for the ordeal, I don't like it; descriptions of scenery are not my forte, and they're always uninteresting both to write and to read. By-the-bye, before I begin, how's old Frank's ear, poor old chap, I suppose he growled away by himself, till it was found out by accident by some of you. I hope it will soon be all right again, and that he will be able to let me know how he is getting on at the Works, though three words will probably describe the state of affairs to perfection, "same as usual." Still, I should like to know what Major says to him, and if he or any other members of that fossilized firm are beginning to wake up to a consciousness of his merits. You know, it's always been my idea, that they will find out that they have let the two best men they ever had slip through their fingers, namely, the two senior engineering members of this remarkable family, and that it will eventually occur to them that they had perhaps better hold on to the third. The fact of their giving him 22/- a week while they are sacking other men looks promising for my theory, and if only he can establish a claim to any particular qualification, he may yet succeed in drawing some sort of a prize, where I, and even Pot, have only succeeded in drawing blanks. I believe Frank does possess a special qualification, and that is a power of managing and organizing work. Drawing or designing, etc., is not his strong point, though he would often succeed in that, as the tortoise, where many a hare would fail; but give him an erecting job or anything of that sort, and he would so arrange that the work first wanted should be first ready. This does not sound very much to boast of, but it is a very useful knack to have. I certainly do not possess anything of it, and many a scrape I get into at the Works through forgetting to order certain things at the proper time. For instance, when I had a dredger to get ready for action, it was found, when it came to the scratch, that there was no scum cock for the boiler, no posts for the handrails, etc.. etc. I was more sinned against than sinning that time however, as the job was suddenly thrown on my hands, when Pot left the Works in a state of semi-completion, and I did not know, and in the hap-hazard way things were done there, I could not find out whether certain details had been ordered or not. I believe, had Frank been given that job and told the dredger was to be chiefly the same as number so-and-so, that every drawing would have been sent out in proper order, and every question as to alteration, etc., broached in proper time, so that, when the bosses came to see it tried, it would have worked well without delay.

That's a very long eulogium on the poor dear "smiler;" let's hope it will also turn out to be true of him. Do you ever hear from the old Coke? I suppose you do too, though it seems as if from London to Dawlish was so short a distance it was scarcely worth writing. How's he getting on, and which is he? A manager or a millionaire, or, peradventure, a clerk? Tell Pot to let me know as soon as he makes his first tanner from his invention, and I will stand myself a cigar in honour of the occasion. I ought to write him a jaw too, but in case I shouldn't be able to at present, just tell him, please, that even supposing he fails in getting the advantages of his machine recognised in England, he would stand quite as good, if not a better chance, of doing so here. This country, or better still as I believe, the States, is far more ready and willing to accept and make use of improvements than the old one, and he may possibly not know that an English patent does not hold good here, and vice-versa, though both countries are under English rule. Just to give you an instance of the go-ahead nature of the Works here, I can tell you that Hartley, my employer, has had sixteen patents to procure from one Works alone, in the space of six months. I believe it is a large saw mill, or any way there's a large saw mill connected with them, for the machine I am engaged upon now is for sharpening saws, and they light their Works by gas. "made from sawdust," which is another of their patents.

Well, I've got off the scenery so far, and there's the weather to come yet, lots of it too. We've been having no end of weather lately. Sunday was cold and dull, nearly freezing the whole day. Monday ditto, with the addition of a breeze. Tuesday, no breeze, and as warm as toast, simply a beautiful summer's day. Wednesday just as hot, but blowing hard, and to-day. Thursday, cold as ever, and still blowing. I suppose at this time of year it's bound to change any five minutes. Friday.--I must mail this in about an hour, but half that time would suffice to run me dry. By-the-bye, I may as well tell you that my watch goes beautifully. It needed a good deal of regulating, and that took a long time, but at length I have got it quite near enough to perfection for all practical purposes. It gains steadily now at the rate of about a minute and a half a week. I have timed it by a gun that is fired every day at noon from the grounds of the Houses of Parliament. It goes off by electricity, I believe, or the time is given by electricity from Montreal. Doesn't it sound rather funny, to hear of the grounds of the Houses of Parliament? It would to a Londoner, I know, but such is the case. There is such heaps of room everywhere in this great draughty country, that they may just as well take twenty acres for their buildings as two, that's just about it, I should think; it must be quite twenty, and not a single flower or, even as far as I know, a flowering shrub in the place; nothing but level lawns and walks or roads, beautifully kept, I admit. Anyone of the lawns would make half-a-dozen first-rate tennis courts, but the whole affair, seen from a little distance, looks like a painted scene. It's just a mass of even green relieved or embarrassed, as the case may be, by the straight up and down yellow houses, which houses also, in my opinion, have precious little architectural beauty to boast of, bar the centre one, perhaps, which is the house of Parl., par excellence, the others being only departmental ones. There is a very jolly walk, though round at the back of them, where I went last Sunday, you see the houses with their grounds occupy a sort of promontory, which juts out into the river, or rather into a little lake formed by it at its bend. The lawns must be from eighty to one hundred feet above the level of the water, and it is about half way down the banks, which are more than steep, that the walk in question runs. Fifty years ago this must have been one of the prettiest spots in Canada, and now anyone standing there has only the great wooden-looking houses at his back, and a colony of saw mills in front. The saw mills are out-and-out the most interesting of the two. The amount of wood cut up there every day is enormous. I believe Ottawa is the lumbering centre of Canada; any way, there are acres and acres of wood all cut up into planks or battens, and stacked thirty feet high and as close as possible, yet it all looks new, which shows that it must be shipped away at an enormous rate. Going to shut up now suddenly. Give my love to Miss Harley, or something a little milder if you would rather, and believe me, with love also to the rest of the family circle, which will now, I suppose, include a Mrs. Daddy Cockburn,

Your loving Son, J. SETON COCKBURN.

202, Bank Street, Ottawa.

November 7th, '84.

Dear Mother,

This is Friday night again, and I have not begun a letter till now, but the pure fact of the matter is, that I can say all I have got to say in about ten minutes. I have been making enquiries in accessible quarters about rents and taxes, etc., and it seems to me that in the towns at any rate they are just as high as they are in England. Most of the houses in the quiet, respectable sort of streets average about twenty to twenty-five dollars per month, including everything but water-rate, which is three dollars per month. The cost of living I should say, is decidedly less, or else how can lodging-house keepers board and lodge people for from three-and-a-half to five dollars per week in the towns, and from as low as two-and-a-half in the country. Of course, I can't tell you anything about the actual cost of the different articles of food. I would as soon go and bargain with a linen draper about a fathom of calico as go and enquire the price of vegetables while standing between two fat old market women. You see I know precious little about the country, bar half-a-day or so spent at Hardy's farm, I have never been out of the towns. Every time I sit down to write to you I spend half my time thinking who I can tackle on the subjects of your enquiries, and every time all that comes of it is, ask Barnet. Barnet and Hartley are the only two people I know here as yet; the former, you know, is the man that got me my job. He put my name down yesterday for a member of "The St. Andrew's Society;" the subscription is one dollar per annum, and the avowed objects of the Society are the finding out and assisting of needy or unfortunate Scotchmen. I did not join on account of any charitable feelings toward my countrymen, but simply for the purpose of making acquaintances. It will all help in making general enquiries about the country. Besides, who knows if I may not be in want of a kilt myself some day. (When I send you a photo' of myself in full war paint you'll know I am hard up again). Talking about clothing matters, I do not think they are much, if at all, more expensive than in England. You can get a very good great-coat or a suit of clothes for ten dollars, though of course that is mostly in the ready-made department. I asked to-day what a coat like my ulster would cost, and they said from 20 to 24 dollars, equal from £4 3s. 4d. to £5. The price in Gateshead was £4 10s. So it seems that clothes made to order are very much the same, and ready made are perhaps rather dearer. I got a fur collar put on my monkey-jacket, which cost 7 dollars; it's a good deal, but I may be able to do without a fur cap, as the collar when turned up comes nearly up to the top of my head; it's just about six inches deep of beaver skin, which, being a light brown, looks simply swagger on my dark brown coat. We have had a taste of winter here lately, and though the thermometer did not go much below 10 or 15 degrees under freezing temperature, the wind, which blew hard, cut so sharply that I felt certain that when it got 40 or 50 degrees colder I should feel very glad I had got a warm animal on my throat. There was about two or three inches of snow which nearly all thawed before it froze. The snow fell on Tuesday, then it turned to rain, which continued in a regular down-pour till Wednesday morning, by which time the streets were a sight to behold. Spark Street, the principal mud path in Ottawa, looked like a canal of pea soup. It was covered from one end to the other with about three inches of liquid mud. One enterprising shop rigged up a canoe and moored it to the side walk, all decorated with flags, and with "boats or yachts on hire" painted in large letters. That night I went to an oyster feed at Hartley's. I had made up my mind to be bored, but was most agreeably disappointed. Hartley met me at the door, and immediately began offering me all that his house contained in the way of dry socks, slippers, etc. From the moment he appeared in a smoking-cap and dressing-gown, with a tremendous pipe, leading the way, I knew I had not come out for nothing. We went slick up to his den, where he put a box of famous cigars by my side, and a box of chessmen and a board in front. I played away perfectly happy as you may imagine, and with the assistance of three smokes succeeded in vanquishing all comers, including my "boss" himself. He evidently thought he had got me easily, for he had taken two or three of my pieces, but I had laid a foul plot, and at last "The Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold" and I nobbled his king without a struggle. We then adjourned to visit the oysters; there were two great washing-basins chock full, and we all squatted round in the kitchen and set to work to get rid of them as fast as we could open them. I lasted them all out, and finished both dishes. I guess I did about four or five dozen. Misfortunes never come singly, no more do the opposite, and next day I had some more in the regular fare of my diggings. What do you think of that for a boarding-house? And last night I had some more again in an eating-house. They are only 20 cents a dozen, and very good.

This is a fearful scrawl, but it's being done at a tremendous rate to see if I can't fill up this sheet before mail time. By jove! no, it's a quarter to eight. Love to everybody.

J. SETON COCKBURN.

202, Bank Street, Ottawa,

November 12th, '84.

My Dear Mother,

This letter is as usual addressed to you and meant for a good many other people besides. Firstly, I think I shall have to start some sort of arrangement by which I shall be able to find out, on reference to it, what the subject-matter of such-and-such a letter was.--In fact, what I really want is a copying-press, for I can't remember what I have told you in answer to your letters and what I have not, and I notice the same questions occur in a good many of them. Well, I sha'nt get a copying-press anyhow, I'll practice self-denial, and get a five-cent. diary instead. Talking about cents. reminds me of an item of news concerning money. Money will undoubtedly go further here than in the old country, but it needs a more determined economy to make it do so, and the reason is that it's all in such small pieces. The only coins are half-dollars, quarters, ten and five cent, pieces, and the copper cents.--of these the cents. and half-dollars are comparatively rare. As a rule, the lowest price charged for anything is five cents. It is such an insignificant little piece of tin, and there are such a tremendous lot of them knocking about. I don't think I have had a quarter of a dollar's worth of copper through my fingers since I've been in the country. There is scarcely any use for them except for stamp-money and to give to beggars, which happily are also rare. In England the small silver coins are almost useless, and the prices of different things vary by pence or half-pence. One goes into an hotel, for instance, for a glass of beer and forks out twopence, or a packet of cigarette papers, one penny. There it goes up from the pence to the shillings, and from the shillings to the pound, and the shillings form a sort of barrier between the small every-day expenses (that might be avoided) and the pounds which are the real wealth. Here the practical scale of money is 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, etc., cents. I got in a rage and smashed my pen because the brute would'nt write, which has blown all my sophistries, as Daddy would call them, to the winds, so I'll shut up for to-night. Now here's a new pen and a new night, Friday night too, so I must look sharp. I don't think my sophistries need much addition, being quite as clear as mud as they are. In England there are a hundred half-pence to four and twopence, and as many different prices for different things according to their value. Here there are also a hundred cents. to the dollar, but practically only twenty different prices. Therefore, one very soon looks upon a five-cent piece in about the same light as one would look at an English penny. This is a horrible pen; it's like writing with the dirty point of a pin. Now to answer father's postscript which I had overlooked till last night. As yet the weather is too mild to need more than a thin overcoat, though it is prophesied that we are going to have an exceptionally severe winter. Be that as it may, I shall wait until it comes before spending any more money. I have blued ten dols. already in winter preparations--seven in a collar for my monkey-jacket, with a view to protecting my gullet against the old attacks; and three in having my ulster lined round the back and chest with chamois leather, for I found in the late spell of cold weather, which however was a mere nothing, that it let the wind through pretty quick. I have asked the price of furs generally, and the different sorts in particular. I have some recollection of being told by one house, I think in Montreal, that furs were dearer here than they were in England, because they had to be sent over there to be worked up, and then brought back here again. I should not believe too much of that, however, as it is quite as likely as not that it was the preface to an extra five dollars on the price, in view of my being an evident stranger to the country. A tailor here, the man that has done my coats for me, says he will line my ulster with minx or racoon, or the something ratskin, for 18 dollars, and, as I told mother in my last letter, he would make just such an ulster for 20 to 25 dols., so that you could get a very good fur-lined coat for 40 dollars, or about eight guineas. Of course the furs I have mentioned are not beautiful soft affairs like beaver or sealskin, but I imagine they are almost if not quite as warm. I tried on a coat to-day, while pricing different things, of Australian grey bear. The fur was very thick and fairly soft, and I felt about 10 degrees warmer the moment I got inside it. It was made entirely out of the fur (hair outside), and lined with some sort of black soft canvas stuff. The price was 25 dols., but it was too thick and cumbersome to be useful for anything but driving or travelling. I have not got to the end of my researches upon this subject, so I will write more when I learn more. I don't know yet what the cost of lining a long coat with one of the better furs would be. Father asked if I had got all instruments I wanted, as he said Pot might send them out to me. I think I can manage with what I have got now. I had to buy them, as I could not wait to write to England. They ran away with another ten dols., and have turned out anything but A 1. I cannot answer all your questions yet, Mother, but here is something. There are plenty of small 10 to 18 acre farms about Ottawa, at a rent of from 60 to 100 dols. per annum, though the houses on them are generally pretty bad. This is a very difficult question to get to the bottom of, as there are no estate agents here that I can find, consequently all enquiries have to be made through private friends, which takes time, and also a certain amount of caution, in this inquisitive community. But I am learning more every day, and you shall have it all as fast as I get it.

In haste,

Your loving Son, J. SETON COCKBURN.

Love to everybody, as usual.