From Leonard Darwin to H. E. Litchfield 20 October [1874]

Dear Retta

I have had heaps of your letters, but this is going only going a very little answer, and for good solid material you must look to my letter to mother, which I suppose goes the rounds. It seems to me a very little time since I left England and the voyage to look back on seems more like a long dream than three months confinement to such a little space. I suppose it was the utter monotony of the life yet with plenty to do that made it pass so quick. I did a good deal of reading considering that the mornings were all taken up with work, and the evenings with wist but I had not time to manage the Logic. I got all through the Polit. Econ and think it a wonderful book, except where he touches on the subject of marriage when he goes quite mad. I have always been rather a tory on the subject of landed proprietors, but although rather shaken by all his arguments in favour of small tenancies I dont think that he proves that the people are happier in that condition; very often he quotes people who say how hard they work as a proof of their contentedness, but I dont see that it follows. For instance out here it is just the other way and the labourers always take a days holiday when they feel disposed, and the masters have to put up with it. Why the whole of England does not wish to emigrate I cant understand. I think it is the most wonderful thing I know—that it should be worth while for New Zealand to send home and bring out emigrants absolutely free of expense, at the rate of about 40.000 a year. If ever anyone wishes to come out they have only to apply to the colonial agent, and get, I think, a clergyman or magistrate to certify that they are respectable people and will make good colonists, and even the journey down to the port of embarkation is paid I think. Of course the voyage is rather bad, but I dont think it is as bad as sometimes represented. I went to a Christs minstrel performance in the single girls part of the ship, and I was quite surprised how little stuffy it got, although there were twice the number there that would sleep there. But they were said to be the most comfortable of all the emigrants; they were the only emigrants allowed on the poop, in fact they might not go anywhere else, and over the rest of the ship there was a great deal of water at times. Directly the emigrants land they are sent to barracks, where they stay till they get work, which never more than a day or two if they are strong. The men I think go straight to goverment work /at 1/ an hour/ till they get something better.

The other two are up observing and I have got a night with nothing to do and am all alone in in this this great (it seems great now) room, with nothing to distract my attention but the ticking of two clocks and 7 chronometers. One of the clocks is the alarum which you bought  it seems to go pretty well now after a little judicious filing in the inside. It makes the most frightful noise for about 5 minutes and we were most mercifully preserved the other night as our cook in the kindness of her heart wound up the clock, alarum and all, but it kindly stopped before the appointed time. I think I will send this letter by San Francisco which goes 2 days before the P and O but is not quite so safe. Please send the parents a post card to say that the old man is still alive in case this arrives first. I think I should like a long voyage if the people were nice; I believe we were unfortunate in that respect as there were only only about 4 people that I should ever care to see again, and they all sat at the other end of the table. At our end there were a set of vulgar girls, to whom the most familiar chaff was the only style of talk that answered, and that gets so wearysome after a very little.

I must be off bed so good bye Retta

Yours ever | Leonard Darwin

I have changed my mind and enclose this in a letter to the Ast. Roy.