Pièce 6 - Letter from Herbert Housman to Lucy Housman

1 folded sheet, 1 stamped envelope

Thayetmyo, (Burma).—Responds to news from home, and discusses the outbreak of cholera in Burma.

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Transcript

Thayetmyo.
September 28th / 92.

Dearest Mater,

Yesterday I finished my 1st class certificate Examination, and I now have a little time to breathe. I think there is no doubt I have passed, but I am getting too old to relish having to learn English History & Geography. The manuscript is rather a curiosity, and so I send it and the other papers, by the same post as this. {1} We also had a long piece of dictation which was of course quite easy to me. Your No. 29 reached me on the 26th, & had been delayed a week somewhere, apparently. You are having a very delightful holiday, I should think, and your accounts are very entertaining. I am highly flattered by the intense interest your three graces showed in my doings, and am thinking of rewarding one of them some day by offering my hand & heart, and am only sorry I cannot marry all three; it would be very nice to be able to take a better third out to dances, while one third stopped at home to receive visitors, and the other to do the cooking & washing. Many of the questions you ask, I have unwittingly answered before they reach me, & of course you know long before this that the later ship has been abandoned & that Dec. 6th is the day. We hear that the Malabar has broken down, and that the Crocodile is to be our boat, but how true this is I don’t know. I think it looks as if I was going to jump out of the frying pan into the fire in the matter of cholera, and shall probably think more of one case in England than I should of 1000 out here. A case of scarlet fever causes more excitement in Bromsgrove than an epidemic of cholera here, and now that all danger is past for another year I dont mind telling you that ever since the beginning of June, the greater part of the native town has been out of bounds to the troops owing to cholera & hundreds of natives {2} have died. At its height there were 30 & 40 cases a day, but more recover than people are aware of in England. Only once did it get into Barracks when of three men caught 2 died & 1 recovered. I had occasion to be sent on business one day to the Chief Commissioners Office by the Colonel, and had to pass through an afflicted quarter, and there were some horrible cases to be seen actually in the road, where the relatives like to deposit the living-dead when in the last stage of their agony & play tom-toms round them to drive the devil away, What with these performances & the lamentations over the really dead ones, the noise was as horrible as the sight, and I was very glad I was on a pony and could get out of it pretty quickly. {3} However I do not regret having been there, it is another incident in a lifetime to talk about, The place was declared quite free about 3 weeks ago, so you need not be alarmed now, as it only comes once a year. The kite-hawks are the most sensible creatures. Before we heard of the outbreak we remarked that they were getting scarce, and ever since it stopped they have been coming gradually back again. I wonder where they get to, for very few places in Burma have been free from Cholera this year. I quite agree with you about Rosalie’s health. She is one of the strongest young ladies I know, though she knows how to look poorly at times like her mother. I hope she will never be thrown away on that beast of a Sharpe. Mrs Underhill has no business to have twins, she isn’t a curate’s wife. I shall be posting my photographs soon, so don’t be surprised & wonder where they come from, if I don’t write too. The cold weather continues to be very hot, but the wind has come again, and is going to blow for three months in the opposite direction to which it has been blowing for the last three. You see we are very “reglar” in our habit in Burma, not changeable & frivolous like you are at home. I think I am getting a little fatter again, but expect to look very long & thin to you. I was told the other day that I was still growing, and felt insulted. This day two months we shall about be leaving Gibraltar & the sunny South behind, not without some regret perhaps if we catch a snow storm in the Bay. Give my best and very nearly my last Thayetmyo love to the Dad & Cousin M & all the rest & look out for me in 2½ months time for your every loving boy Herbert.

[Direction on envelope:] Mrs E. Housman. | “Perry Hall.” | Bromsgrove. | Worcestershire. | England [Added at the head:] From L/c G. H. Housman, 6365. “B” Coy, 4th Battn King’s Royal Rifles. Burmah. [Added at the foot:] G. Actin {4} Major | King’s Royal Rifles. | Comdg: 4th Battalion.

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Ruled paper. The envelope bears an Indian stamp with the value of 9 pies, and is postmarked ‘BOMBAY | F | OC. 8 | 92’ and ‘BROMSGROVE | A | OC26 | 92’. The punctuation is occasionally irregular.

{1} The papers referred to are not with the letter.

{2} The final letter was probably intended but only a slight mark was made.

{3} Full stop supplied. The preceding word is at the end of a line.

{4} This signature is in a different hand to the rest of the writing on the envelope. The name is in-distinct.

This description was created by A. C. Green in 2023.