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Wallace (née Greenell), Mary Ann & Alfred & Fanny & Thomas in addressee 
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Text Online
From:
John Wallace
To:
Wallace (née Greenell), Mary Ann & Alfred & Fanny & Thomas
Date:
10 January 1853
Source of text:
  • Natural History Museum, London: NHM WP1/3/105
  • Natural History Museum, London: NHM WP1/3/96/8
  • Wallace Family Collection (private collection)
Summary:

“Grieved to hear of the great loss my brother has suffered.” Unfortunately, fires at sea and shipwreck have become common. He will survive “and the name of Sir Alfred Wallace may [yet] shine forth.” Columbia is a gold mining community of fifteen thousand inhabitants, and is growing rapidly based on the achievements of our Company in providing water for the mines. Miners mostly get their own way. Foreigners are supposed to have a right to employment if they pay a state tax, but “Chinese and Mexicans are not allowed by the miners to work at all...and they carry out their ideas of liberty and equality by driving them out.” But our Company would not be pushed around when some miners protested that our rates are too high. I told them we must maintain current prices, and cut off the most prominent activists from buying water at any price, which deterred other “insolent” complainers.

Contributor:
Alfred Russel Wallace Correspondence Project