Ɛpsilon

To John Higgins   2–3 December [1853]

Down Bromley Kent

Dec. 2d—

My dear Sir

I cannot remember whether I acknowledged your last note— — Anyhow I hope to meet you on the 10th,1 as near as I can arrive by 1 o’clock at Woods’ Hotel Furnival Inn.2

Your’s very faithfully | C. Darwin

P.S. | I have just received your note, enclosing your account, & I have received information from the Union Bank, that they have placed to my account from you £225 : 6s : 5d, for which I am much obliged.—3 Dec. 3d.

C. Darwin

P.S. When we meet you must tell me, whether you wd. prefer 12 yearly a receipt on a stamp now that the stamp-laws are altered4

1
There is an entry recording a visit to London on that day in CD’s Account book (Down House MS).
2
Furnival’s Inn, Holborn, London (Post Office London directory 1853).
3
CD recorded the receipt of £225 11s. 5d. on 3 December 1853 in his Classed account book (Down House MS) for the rent from Beesby farm.
4
Among the wide-ranging changes in taxes and duties put forward by William Ewart Gladstone in the budget of 1853, was the introduction of a penny duty to be charged on documents functioning as receipts. After the new measure came into force on 11 October 1853, any receipt for a sum of £2 or more had to carry a one penny stamp if it was to be an admissible record of the transaction (Annual Register (1853): 56; Economist 11 (1853): 1127). CD’s next surviving letter to Higgins acknowledging the receipt of rent, of 25 December 1854, bears the appropriate stamp.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-1541,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-1541