From William Ginty   7th Sep. 1843.

7th Sep. 1843.

I received yours of yesterday¹ – after sending my last letter to you.² I found the verses alluded to which I now enclose. We tried a little petty agitation here today. W. Hunter wrote a note to Hamley for more pay, saying there were recommendations forwarded this month by other officers and calling his ‘especial attention’ to his ‘miserable’ pay. Hamley answered through Scott,³ saying ‘he did not like the tone of the note at all’ that ‘it was more like a demand than anything else’. That he could not recommend him this month and that he was sorry he wrote him such a note for ‘he had his eye upon him’. Willy⁴ in reply ‘considered every word of the note perfectly correct and proper’. And in an hour after this I made another fellow write to him (I wrote it and he copied it) to which the reply was ‘that Lt. H.,⁵ wished it to be understood that he considered himself perfectly competent to judge who deserved increase and who did not’.

I thought to get another to write after this but I have not yet succeeded. He has however forwarded 6 or 7 journals this month! He gave us another hour this evening for the good of our health. See what agitation is doing – [mind] the truckling system the fellow is forced to adopt. This comes of going in squads to the doctor. The Hospital is more than 2 miles from the office – and the usual time lost by this is from 9 until ½ past 11 – he does not check us for this time.

There was a regular hubbub raised about the O’Neill⁶ subscription.⁷ Many when they heard such a thing was to be done said they would not do it unless privately. This put a settler on my intentions and after calm reasoning I thought there would not be a rascal wanting to say it was out of remuneration and not charity that it was done! And do it privately among all was quite impossible and would only go to prove such!!! The safest way being always the best, I wrote to Corpl. Scott desiring him to ask Lt. H., if he had any objection, saying ‘it was not usual to ask leave to do such things’! But ‘the circumstances of the present case seem to warrant it’ and ‘if it seemed odd, why I undertook it’ – it was because I knew O’Neill many years longer than any man in the party and Smith⁸ as long and that I knew them to be in distress!’ Read the answer I got!!!* Read the last few lines again – It seems he is at them again. I went last night to look for him – but I can’t find him. He can’t hinder us from doing it privately. Mind the impertinence of the ruffian ‘the men do what they please with their money’. By the word ‘individuals’ he means himself as for the ‘injury of the whole survey Department’ ‘tis all stuff! ‘leather prunello’!⁹ And this is from the man that said O’Neill was to come to him if he was discharged for ‘sympathy’! Poor spite and he will catch it for it. I will send the fellow one of these days an anonymous scribble in the shape of an advice that will spoil his appetite for a week. I can counterfeit my hand if it was to take 5 minutes to every word! It shall merely bear upon domestic affairs. Some of his petty tyrannies and the like!!! And some of his lies and false, premeditatedly false, promises! to many of us!!!

I this day computed the spoiled work of the Borough of Liverpool. The borough alone, tis upwards of seventeen hundred acres, completely resurveyed and the original books thrown aside – to say nothing of the expense – the alarming expense of corrections of bad work, notwithstanding the severe checking that was practised at the time. (I think it was one third of their pay that was stopped while correcting the [results]). As for the portion resurveyed – some of them could not be checked, for they were discharged, and one of them, the worst, was a sapper¹⁰ (Trimble)¹¹ and he is off the survey! I can’t say whether those of these botches who are still on the survey were all checked. Some of them I believe were checked something! This is the facts of the case. I might add more acres if I was to include that portion of each suburban triangle that was outside the Borough B.V.¹² Mark you – The Borough of Liverpool thickly studded with houses and so much more difficult than work in the country!!! See what an expense!!! Again I can prove that the remeasurement – that is the correction of the bad work that 8¹³ was at in Yorkshire – cost a vast deal more than the original survey. It was not much, of course, it is tho’ nothing less the fact. What was 5 of us and our 5 subs., doing up here for 3 months – Just remeasuring! And it is not all done yet. Yes I could swear that it cost, if I would include the wet days, 4 times, aye 6 times the expense of the original miscalled survey! The worst of it was done by a sapper (Corpl. Bishop¹⁴ since broke) on the cloud-cap’d fells of Yorkshire and Westmoreland! It would be damned folly to let these fellows (the sappers) off clean. It would be inferred that they are were¹⁵ the most proficient and then might it not be said why not get it done by sappers alone!!! Again there is more expense lost by the examiners labours to correct the bad survey of the Town of Prescott than if good surveyors were employed at double the pay in the commencement! And this argument may be carried to an alarming extent thro’ every square inch done by this party!

Again what means that system of trying surveys on common cartridge paper and having the corrections done before plotting it on the diagrams or content plots. It means this! They have no confidence in the surveys. They know them to be bad before they try them (exceptions of course) and they are therefore obliged to do so – knowing that if they subjected the plots to the scoring of the compasses and rubbing of India rubber, they would tell tales and speak volumes to their disgrace! This was done all thro’ L. Pool¹⁶ thro’ all large scale work and many small scale plots!!! in this division.

Facts are stubborn things.

‘Anti-Humbug’¹⁷

The circumstances under which Messrs O’Neill and Smyth¹⁸ were discharged were such that I can do nothing to promote their interest in any way and therefore I shall forbid that any subscription be made during working hours.

The men can do as they please with their own money but I do not think it creditable to any of them to make open expression of sympathy with persons who have endeavoured to make themselves extensively mischievous not only to individuals but to the whole department and one of whom is still understood to be continuing conduct of this kind.

W.G.H.¹⁹

RI MS JT/1/TYP/11/3609

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