Thanks for Richard Monckton Milnes' poetry, charmingly dedicated to his sister; asks how they should acknowledge it. Wished to have walked to Thornes to visit 'yourself, & dear Mrs M. Gaskell' who is a great favourite; kind remembrances from her sister also.
Bristol. - Seeking information for her work on reformatory schools; sources already consulted; her own work locally; Mr Fletcher's report to the Education Council; inability of ragged schools to provide the moral teaching necessary for true reformation without proper state support; recommends provision of schools 'on the Aberdeen and Glasgow plan' and juvenile reformatories to keep children out of prisons.
Bristol. - Did not reply to Milnes' letter from Paris as passage of Bill rendered an interview with Palmerston unnecessary; certificate for Kingswood; girls' reformatories needed; Lady Noel Byron has bought an Elizabethan house [Red Lodge] for the purpose; hopes proposed school will be self-supporting but in the meantime would be glad of funds.
Letter, 7 Mar. [1872?], from Margaret Ingram to Houghton, with letter to Mary [?], 27 Jan. 1872, proposing a visit by Houghton.
Bolsover Castle. - Values poems as remembrance of Milnes' visit to Bolsover; enchanting visions of Egypt.
Stoke near Chichester. - Milnes' and other contributions to The Tribute; subscribers to posthumous volume of Edward Smedley's poetry; will send copies to Darley and Tennyson; will travel to London next week.
23: Salutation 'Tramontane' and signed 'Litherwit', characters from his Olympian Revels. Note perhaps written on scrap paper: geometrical diagram, equations, and doodled face also present.
24: Addressed to 'Sig[nor]' and Sig[nor]a Milnes, Via Tritone [Rome]', salutation 'Dear Trochee and Spondee' and signed 'Yours Anti-Hexameter'.
Castle Ashby.- Cannot postpone publication of The Tribute until winter; misunderstanding about number of copies to be sent to Tennyson and Darley; subscribers.
Belmont. - Death of Milnes' father [Richard Slater Milnes]; choice of subject for Cambridge Latin Declamation Prize; Milnes should have the highest English Declamation Prize; envies Milnes' trip to Edinburgh; hopes he will remain at Cambridge until Christmas; right choice of college.
Corsham Court, Chippenham. - On the death of Robert Pemberton Milnes. Saw the news in the newspaper of the 'sad event' which prevented Milnes's visit. Quite true that Broughton's friend Charles [Skinner] Matthews compared Robert Pemberton Milnes to 'the admirable [James] Crichton - referring to his intellectual power & his physical energy & agility'; this was said on seeing Milnes 'jump over a very high gate hunting'.
Whitton Park, Hounslow. - Agrees as to inadvisability of publishing memoir of Charles Skinner Matthews: personal details of his short life, including 'passion for Whist & for boxing; will overshadow importance of a talent never fully developed; will inform Henry Matthews. Scrope Berdmore Davies had only about £200 on departure last year, but Mr Hibbert thinks he might escape calamity of income from King's College fellowship can be conveyed to him; he is at Ostend with irretrievable debts of seventeen or eighteen thousand pounds; Mr Andrews will be hardest hit'; Davies should have sought help from his friends rather than obtain money under false pretences. Hibbert's address is 47 Great Ormond Street.