Ɛpsilon

To John Higgins   14 May 1866

Down Bromley Kent

May 14 1866

My dear Sir

I beg leave to acknowledge & thank you for the sum of £262–8s–8d for rent placed to my account at the Union Bank.1

I had not heard that you had suffered so much from the cattle plague in Lincolnshire & am very much obliged to you for giving me information on the subject.2

I am extremely sorry to hear of the great loss which my sister’s tenant & your son have suffered.3

My dear Sir | Yours sincerely | Ch. R. Darwin

To | J. Higgins Esqre—

LS(A)

1
The payment was for six months rent on CD’s farm at Beesby, Lincolnshire (CD’s Investment book (Down House MS), p. 20). Higgins was CD’s land agent.
2
Higgins’s letter has not been found. Lincolnshire had seen a sharp increase in cattle infected with cattle plague or rinderpest, a cattle disease with very high mortality rates, since the beginning of 1866 (see Stamford Mercury, 2 March 1866, p. 6).
3
Susan Elizabeth Darwin’s tenant at Claythorpe in Lincolnshire was Joseph Gilbert. John Higgins’s son was John Higgins (1826–1902).

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

4.1 Ch. … Esqre— 5.1] in CD’s hand

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-5090G,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-5090G