Reference
X955/1/117
Title
To Mrs Sarah Colenutt
Date free text
8 March 1900
Production date
From: 1900 To: 1900
Scope and Content
5 High Wickham, Hastings
My dear friend,
The negotiations for the house at Charmouth had a curious ending. It was old, and I insisted on an examination of the floors. The surveyor found that there was no ventilation under them and that the oak joists were bedded in the earth. Some part of the flooring, of course, was rotten. I declined to take the house unless the owner would amend this defect, whereupon he wrote to me that he would do nothing of the kind; that it was evident I was a sinner and afraid to die; that he could show me how my fear of death could be removed, and he enclosed a parcel of tracts! It is an odd use, is it not, of the scheme of salvation to make it supersede sanitation? I did not either see quite why, even if I had no fear of death, I should be tormented with rheumatism.
We have now taken a house at Crowborough and move in May. It is small but has an unmade garden of an acre and a half. It is not what we wanted- the garden or rather the field is too big, and I don’t know what to do with it. Crowborough, however, on account of its altitude is so much in request that we could find nothing else within our means. You know, I suppose, where it is – about six miles west of Tunbridge Wells.
The war disturbs me worse than ever. I can think of little else. Worse than the war is what it has disclosed You see it now turns out that the proprietors of the Daily Mail, the paper which has done more that any other to inflame the people are shareholders in the South African Company. Our forefathers groaned under the tyranny of kings and nobles, but it was tyranny over bodies. The modern millionaire sets a newspaper going, and acquires absolute tyranny over souls as well as bodies. We have started a Conciliation Committee here, and have had Schreiner(1) to lecture. The mob would have been unruly if they dared, but the police were faithful. We are going to distribute the Morning Leader (2) leaflets all over town.
Love to yourself & your dear 'man'
Ever affectionately
W. Hale White
(1) Schreiner, William Philip (1857–1919), politician in Cape Colony
(2) Could have been The Case of the Natives. Reprinted from the "Morning Leader" of 6 Jan. 1900. London. 4p. (Morning Leader Leaflets no. 2) or The Chamberlain road. Reprinted from the Morning Leader 0f 23 Jan. 1900. London. 4p. (Morning Leader Leaflets no. 6) 8 March 1900
Level of description
item