WCP623

Letter (WCP623.623)

[1]1

Balham

22 [July 1885]2

Mr. Hampden3 having given Mr. Wallace clearly to understand that he utterly repudiates and ignores [word missing] made by Mr [1 word illeg.] without his, Mr Hampden’s, knowledge or authority, leaves the said Mr Wallace to suffer the consequences [2] of his villainy and obstinacy. Had he been able to show Mr Hampden’s claim to be illegal, unjust, or inequitable, he has had months and years to do so. If such scoundrels could escape with impunity, honor [sic] [3] would soon be a virtue utterly unknown.

When thieves put honest men in prison, they must be mad to dream of escaping the consequences, and this degraded cur shall [1 word illeg. struck through] smart for it, up to the [4] last hour of his life and if he leaves Godalming4 as he shall soon be forced to do his character shall follow him wherever he goes.

John Hampden [signature]

July 22. 1885.

To Mr Wallace’s cook.

[5] Either the Charter House5 will have to change its locality or otherwise to dismiss from its precincts a degraded outlaw whose very presence is enough to ruin any neigborhood [sic] contaminated by his vile presence.6[6] I am now circulating all over the county of Surrey, the second edition of 500 of these exposures of his villainy. The sneaking thief has not been able to find one friend to say a single word on his behalf! [7] He is too conscious of the undeniable truth of my aspertions [sic] to expect any abatement of my determination to inform every family within realm of the villainy he has been guilty of. The tutors at the Charter house must take some steps to relieve themselves from the [8]7 slur of harbouring such a degraded character. And I will never rest, morning, noon, or night, till I have seen him reduced to the very lowest position a man can occupy. He shall pay me to the last farthing, if he and his family have to go into the work house the next day.

John Hampden [signature]

Sept[ember]. 18 [18]/85

1
The repository reference number "[WP13/1/15 (1)]" appears here.
2
Full date given at foot of page 4.
3
Hampden, John (no dates available) of Swindon, Wiltshire, set a public challenge for proof of the rotundity of the earth, which ARW accepted and won. Hampden refused to accept the result. He launched a lengthy campaign of writing letters to various publications and to organisations of which ARW was a member, denouncing him as a swindler and a thief. ARW won multiple libel suits against Hampden, but the resulting litigation cost him more than the amount of the wager and he was criticized by his peers for "his 'injudicious' involvement in a bet to 'decide' the most fundamental and established of scientific facts".
4
ARW built a cottage at Godalming near the Charterhouse school in 1880, and grew nearly 1000 species of plants in the garden which he made. He moved to Dorset in 1889.
5
Charterhouse is an English public school situated at Godalming, Surrey. It was founded by Thomas Sutton in 1611 on the site of the old Carthusian monastery in Charterhouse Square, London.
6
The author has added '/over' here.
7
The repository reference number "[WP13/1/15 (2)]" appears here.

Editorial information

Status: Draft transcription [Letter (WCP623.623)]

For more information about the transcriptions and metadata, see https://wallaceletters.myspecies.info/content/epsilon

Revision history

Transcribed by O'Dell, Sandra [2018-08-15]

Please cite as “WCP623,” in Beccaloni, G. W. (ed.), Ɛpsilon: The Alfred Russel Wallace Collection accessed on 27 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/wallace/letters/WCP623