Bendigo,
October 22 1854
Dear Mother,

Dont be uneasy about me. I hope to be able to live at home yet!

Altho you will probably have received a letter which I sent from Melbourne about 3 weeks ago, yet as I am in better circumstances now than I was then I thought you would be glad to hear it. I found that times were very dull in town when I arrived and everything so dear that it would not do to remain very idle and not being able to get employment I with 2 others packed our ‘swag’ and took the road for the ‘Diggins’ uncertain which to go to. But as Providence directed we took this road and a short time after my arrival I met James Little who was formerly in Mr. Adams shop in Armagh, now keeping a store for Mr Francis of Tandragee, who is a very extensive merchant in this place and who immediately employed me through his influence £3.0.0 per week and found working about his stores, taking down old and building new and making myself generally useful.

It is a great deal better than going to sea. Altho we have not the comfort of the old country, as tis very warm in day time and very cold at night and you swallow the dust by whole sale, yet tis a place for making money. A person cannot make their fortune in a day at the ‘diggins’ now but it seems to pay the majority well. I have come as it were the day after the fair but we cannot tell what good fortune is before us. I live well and can save nearly all I earn as people do not sent to Paris for the fashions here.

I wonder very much that the state of society is so good here. The stores and houses are mostly canvas and wood yet there are not so many robberies as at home and working tools of all descriptions are laid outside without molestation. Certainly there are a great many mounted troopers and colts revolvers knocking about.

I think if England does not take care that this country will be a second America. The Government does no seem to be in very suitable hands at present and the People evince a great spirit of Independence. Coming up from Melbourne we had a little ‘Life in the Bush’. The distance is near a hundred miles. We walked about 20 a day which was pretty well for ‘New Chums’ and I carried my haversack (full of clothes) besides. At the end of our first days march we were overtaken by 3 countrymen from Newtownards and who accompanied us here and one of whom is in the store with me, so the time passed pleasantly and camping under a large tree or bush at night with a roasting fire before us, I slept as comfortable as if the leaves I slept one were turned into the soft bed I used to repose on in Killough and the pale moon the face of my mother watching the wanderer as he slept.

Give my love to Father , Grandma, Aunt, Sisters and Brothers also to Joe and Mrs S, Miss Lascelles, Dr Aicken and W. Also remember me to Mary Rending?, Sarah, old Margeret and Susy. Tell Joe I do not forget the 2/6. Send me Mr George Little direction and believe me your affect tho absent son.

J.C. Parkinson.