To Joseph Hooker1    6 November 1870

Bot. Garden,

6/11/70.

 

Let me tell you, dear Dr Hooker, that I got the 3 cases pr Alnwick Castle and 1 case pr Jerusalem all right.2 The contents were in no way injured. I hope Mr Bentham will be able to proceed. I will this summer try to get preparatory through all Glumaceae.

This month the budget for 1871 will come before Parliament. I hope my half ruined position and work will then be set deservedly right again. The individual,3 who encroached on my horticultural administration as an invader, was before the police court fined last month for drunken-ness and noise in the streets of Melbourne4 (He evinced since many years a deep disregard of anything like Total abstinence movements) So you may imagine what my feelings are to have a sort of colleague like that; yet a person of this sort has still powerful friends in our Parliament.5

We have a general Commission sitting to enquire into the public service.6 I was also examined. This was one of many interesting questions (I speak privately) "Have you produced by cultivation any new species of plants from the native flowers?"7 I dare say such questions put verbally in rapid successions would have puzzled you also.

Is it too much to ask you to send me a copy of the last Estimate of the House of Commons, containing votes for Kew, London Parks &c.8

Always your friend

Ferd. von Mueller.

1
Annotation: [with] New Caled Nepenthes.
2
See M to J. Hooker, 11 October 1870.
3
William Ferguson.
4
No reference to a case involving WIlliam Ferguson has been found in the reports of the Police courts in the Argus for September or October 1870. The reporting of these courts was selective, with occasional notes such as ‘The only case of any interest was …’ (Argus, 13 October 1870, p. 6). See also M to J. Hooker, 1 January and 31 January 1872.
5
See Cohn & Maroske (1996); Fox (2004), pp. 196–205; M to W. Odgers, 26 October 1870.
6
The Royal Commission appointed to enquire into the state of the Public Service and working of the Civil Service Act was established on 8 August 1870 and reported on 18 April 1873.
7
The question (Q. 1206) and M’s reply during his examination on 14 September 1870 are recorded in ‘Report of the Royal Commission appointed to inquire into the state of the public service’, in Victoria. Parliamentary Papers. Votes and Proceedings of the Legislative Assembly, 1873, vol. 2 (No. 10), p.41.
8
No evidence of M receiving such a report has been found.

Please cite as “FVM-70-11-06a,” in Correspondence of Ferdinand von Mueller, edited by R.W. Home, Thomas A. Darragh, A.M. Lucas, Sara Maroske, D.M. Sinkora†, J.H. Voigt† and Monika Wells accessed on 27 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/70-11-06a