| Title: | McMahon Glynn, Patrick to Glynn, James P., 1882 |
|---|---|
| ID | 4370 |
| Collection | Patrick McMahon Glynn: Letters to his family (1874-1927) [Gerald Glynn O'Collins] |
| File | glynn/20 |
| Year | 1882 |
| Sender | McMahon Glynn, Patrick |
| Sender Gender | male |
| Sender Occupation | travel agent |
| Sender Religion | unknown |
| Origin | Ballarat, Victoria, Australia |
| Destination | Gort, Co. Galway, Ireland |
| Recipient | Glynn, James P. |
| Recipient Gender | male |
| Relationship | siblings |
| Source | |
| Archive | |
| Doc. No. | |
| Date | |
| Partial Date | |
| Doc. Type | |
| Log | unknown |
| Word Count | 1444 |
| Genre | new job, account of Ballarat, travelling |
| Note | |
| Transcript | Ballarat 19th March Victoria 1882 My dear James I have come into Ballarat for the Sunday, and can't find a sheet of note paper anywhere; neither have any of the fellows in the room got one. As I will be off again by dawn in the morning, I think it better to write on this than let another week sup. I am rather tired [of] writing, so you must only expect a hurried letter. A few days after the receipt of your letter I started as Travelling Agent for the Mutual Life Assurance Society of Victoria and the Singer Sewing Machines. We went first—I mean my partner and myself—to a prettily situated township called Egerton, about 65 miles from Melbourne. It is built on the top of a mountain and commands a delightful prospect of the surrounding country, and is exclusively given to mining. Here my friend McLoughlin was pulling along as chemist and boarded at the same Hotel. The landlady and her daughter were most agreeable, and we were prime favourites. Poor McLoughlin I am sorry to say shortly afterwards lost his situation through having gone on the spree on a holiday, and is down again. I have just written to him about our future. Having remained three weeks at Egerton, gone down the mines several times, and canvassed the whole district we started to travel amongst the farmers. My time in Egerton all went for nothing. I did some business in insuring lives but when the time for paying the premiums arrived the miners went on strike so that the proposals fell through. It was a case of extreme bad luck. Amongst the farmers I began to do a little better. In fact since I started I made about £. 10 but had to spend £ 15. Travelling is expensive—every hotel means a few shillings on drink and commission comes in very slowly. If a fellow was on his own hook, had plenty of energy and perseverance and the whole of the Commission—not as in my case one third—he could make £ 7 or £.8 per week out of it. But what a man does one week may not prove remunerative for several weeks, so that one requires to stick to it. We visited Ballarat for a day or so several times, which I found to be a very pretty city of about 35,000 in habitants. It has 2 theatres, and one of those Subscription libraries and reading Rooms which are so creditable to the colonies. The girls look and dress as well as in Melbourne or London, and the Stock Exchange business is as brisk as anywhere. Mines all round. The principal street, Sturt St., is wider than Sackville St., and is ornamented with a double row of trees with seats down the centre and single rows on each side. When in town I generally spend an evening with our Dr.—Bunce by name, an old fellow who keeps a good table, fine liquor, and of polished manners. Nicholls, with whom I travel, is a very curious card. He is a Midland county Englishman of about 45 but looks only 30, a desperate man after women, everyone of whom he fancies falls in love with him. He was originally an iron roller by trade, then a commercial traveller, came out here and had a Hotel for six months in Sydney, sold it to advantage, and took up with this business. He is a fellow of great energy and perseverance, never -takes a rebuff and in money matters I believe perfectly straight. Any education he has got is the result of his own study late in life and he makes the best use of it. To hear him quote poetry from the Insurance agents' hand book you would think he was a scholar prefacing quotations from Young, Shakespeare, Homer etc. with "as Shakespeare says." Some how or another I think he has got an idea that Shakespeare was the only poet ever lived, and that he must have been a nigger. Altogether he is a most amusing card. We travel through the bush in a buggy and have an excellent horse who often covers 40 and 50 miles a day. The roads are in general very rough and exceedingly dangerous on a dark night, as, with the exception of the main or metal roads, as they are called, they consist simply of tracks, heavy with red dust, full of deep ruts, protruding stones; stumps, fallen trees etc. obstructing everywhere. I can imagine now what difficulty the first settlers here had to contend with. On taking possession of their farms they had to begin to clear it of scrub and big trees as dense or rather much denser than Cool[e]wood, an operation which took many of them 15 or twenty years to accomplish. Since I wrote this last sentence I have driven 18 miles and have just had tea at the Hotel at which I put up for the night. My partner is asleep on the sofa, and they are all pretty well drunk at the bar. The inconvenience of this life is that a fellow has to drink whether he likes it or not. On my way here I stopped at a Hotel—the public houses are hotels here—the landlord of which insisted on my having a drink with him, another fellow also, and so on. We generally shake the dice for drinks here. Yankey grab is the game. At those public houses one meets all classes—swagsmen or vagrants who carry their all packed up in what they call their swags, slung over their shoulders. They camp at night on the roadside, and wander from place to place in search of work, always managing to get food on the way. They include broken down docters, fellows like myself and common loafers in their ranks. I shouted for—which means stood a drink to—a swagsman the other day who was on the verge of delerium tremens and was a B. A. of the Dublin University. We have sometimes to drive long distances ourselves to get a bed and once had to sleep under a stack of straw for want of one. The night was lovely, so that I did not mind it, but the climate is very treacherous and it might have been like winter before dawn. We travelled through a very rough country about 10 days ago and succeeded in breaking our buggey on one day and a large machine wagon on another, my companion having been pitched out and the trap rolled over him. Another night last week we missed reaching before bed time a hotel which was burned down before morning. You can have no idea what the bush roads are. You meet nothing but teams of 16 or 18 bullocks or 6 or 8 horses dragging loads of timber, the vehicle being tossed up and down by the ruts just like a vessel at sea. Then you meet a few houses round a sawmill where the women are as buxom and smart as in London. We generally share pot luck when it is on but sometimes have long fasts. Nothing but trees everywhere—the cleared land being covered with stumps of felled timber. When I have time I may write a letter to the Freeman's Journal about Australian Bush life. The business I am engaged on is not one to save money at. In fact I have about £3.10 in my pocket and don't expect to increase it very much. But when I have a little more to spare I will try my profession again in New South Wales. Now as to your kind offer to give Mrs. McDonald a bill for my stay with her I [am] much obliged to you for it, but I would see her hanged first. Any sum I may consider she is entitled to I will pay here myself if my fortune ever brightens—if not she may go to the devil. I could not either think of taking any money from you—with better luck I dare say I will pull through. When writing you can tell me all the news. Direct to 97 St., Melbourne, which will find me. I am writing this at lightening speed and must now go to bed as I am fagged out. Tomorrow early we will leave this place as it seems a miserable sand scrub. The city consists of 3 public houses. But Ballarat where I slept last night is a lovely city. Hoping soon to hear from you I am Your affectionate brother P. McM. Glynn |
