WCP4528

[1]

Parkstone, Dorset.

Nov^r. 8th. 1893

My dear Meldola¹

I have many letters asking many questions on many subjects, but never before was I asked the best way to kill bullocks! It is a question I have never studied. Killing is not a hobby of mine. But, taking your description of the mode of killing adopted by Jewish butchers, it appears to me that it must be at least as humane ^as, and probably more so, than that adopted by our butchers. I have heard of several blows of the pole axe being used to kill an ox. As to the question [2] of the ^comparative wholesomeness of the meat of animals from which most of the blood is extracted, & those from which little is taken, I should be inclined to prefer the latter, but it is question of experiment, as to digestiveness &c. If the more blood the more gravy, then I am all for gravy!

Mr. Knowles² has had the proof of my Sunday article since last May! & I am getting rather disgusted, especially as he tells me he is going to alter my title on which I prided myself. I thought you knew where Will³ was. After he was turned out of Siemens & had been to every one of the London [3] Elect. Engineer’s in vain, I applied to a Newcastle friend & through his personal interest got him taken in as an apprentice for two years at Holmes’ & Sons works. Theyir usual terms are £.300 premium, but they accepted £.200, and as they do a great variety of work & it was absolutely necessary to get him somewhere, I agreed to pay it. He went there in July & seems to like it. He works from 6am. to 5.30 pm. and receives the magnificent apprentice’s wages of 1 3/4 an hour. He speaks very highly of the workmen, who, as compared with London men behave like gentlemen, & he gets on very well with them. He is a good bicyclist, & has been pretty nearly all over Northumberland [4] on Saturdays & Sundays. We had a splendid time at the Lakes though it was a little too late & rather wet. I was delighted with the mountains, & the lakes, & the glacial phenomena. I have written two articles on "The Ice Age & its Work"⁴ in the "Fortnightly Review", this month & next. The Dec^r part is wholly on the Ice origin of Lake Basins,⁵ — which I think I have demonstrated by a completely new argument, which James Geikie⁶ (The Great Ice Age man) says is quite new & conclusive. It has been a favourite subject of mine this 30 years, & Bonney’s⁷ attack on the Theory at the Geographical stirred up my latent enthusiasm, — & though he is a "Professor of Geology" I think I have floored him! There’s vanity!

Yours very faithfully| Alfred R. Wallace [signature]