Lacock
Jany 19
My dear Constance
Mr Roach <1> says he knew young Mr Stainforth <2> and liked him – Yesterday he heard from his daughter in the W. Indies, she is doing well but unluckily her uncle has been in ever since he landed.
I am so glad you were able to take some fresh air during the mild weather, which seems likely to continue –
Ela <3> has become a famous traveller & quite superior to fatigue. I am glad however she has come home.
Bagster <4> has just published the 3 volume [sic] of Records of the Past to which I have contributed some articles. I will bring the book with me when next I come. Pray thank Rosamond <5> for the pencils – I have cut one of them but it proves too hard and only makes ghost-like strokes which are nearly invisible by candlelight. I hope Charles’s <6> grate will do it looks all right.
The Times fills it [sic] columns with the “Rubery trial” <7> The reason is because it is in fact an action against the Times itself – Mr R. has got £500 damages, but the Times was right in exposing such swindling transactions. People bought diamonds in London and then scattered them on rocks 100 miles beyond the frontier of California, then pretended to discover these rocks and sold them for a vast sum – Independent persons visited the rocks, and finding real diamonds thought it was all true
Your affte
Henry
Notes:
1. Edwin Osmond Roach (1828-1876), Irish-born Vicar of St Cyriac's, Lacock, 1870-1876; Asst Provincial Grand Chaplain, Freemason.
2. Rev Frederick Baring Stainforth (1845–1875), who had recently fallen overboard the s.s. Oceana returning from the Azores. [See Doc. No: 04031].
3. Ela Theresa Talbot (1835–1893), WHFT’s 1st daughter.
4. Samuel Bagster & Sons, publishers of Records of the Past being English Translations of the Assyrian and Egyptian Monuments (London: Samuel Bagster & Sons).
5. Rosamond Constance ‘Monie’ Talbot (1837–1906), artist & WHFT’s 2nd daughter.
6. Charles Henry Talbot (1842–1916), antiquary & WHFT’s only son.
7. A controversial case concerning the discovery of diamond fields in Colorado, which published in The Times ) but was later disclosed as a fraud. According to the Times’s article ‘Mr Rubery had been ‘salting’ the fields’. See The Times (London), Tuesday, 19 January, 1875, p. 9.