Iron Pot,
February 14th 1879
My dear Mother,

I received your letter with account of poor Miss L’s death and also one from Uncle E. and 5 newspapers.

I am glad to hear of the change in her mind before she died and hope that she may now be enjoying happiness everlasting. When these events happen they make us look back to more thoughtless times and perhaps Joe does not forget our excursion to Ringfad when we set the ‘whins’ on fire. I am glad to hear that Miss L did not forget Frances and heartily wish it were 10 times the amount. I am sure "as I hear that times are likely to be hard at home" that there is no necessity for you to be sending money as I have sufficient to defray expenses and if there are no more picaninnies will shortly be able to put away a trifle for the future. I have given MrMatthews the box and I intend to give him another with a pot of Cape gooseberry jam of my own making, and in it will be two strings of shells, one for Aunt E and the other for Annie. I will give you some notion of the contents of the other, pair of Indian worked uppers for slippers for George. 4 possum skins and a smaller one that we found among the rocks, sea draggons?, 2 pair of Nautilis shells, 2 ornaments from tree fern. Specimen …m, sea birds shells, shark’s jaw, specimen Tasmanian pottery, pot apricot jam, shells etc. etc. I am much obliged to Sam for his prescription but have not felt any of the pains in my hip for some time. I got it first from through getting wet in fresh water during a flood in H’town. Standing in the stream catching books etc. that were floating away. I rubbed it with an American remedy called ‘pain killer’ and soap linament and … but which of the three has been effective I do not know. I have always plenty of clothes and wear flannel drawers and shirt. This has been a very hot dry season and the heat in Melbourne has been 115 in the shade. Chris wants to know if you could send her a jacket like the one Maria has on in the photo and let me know the price and we will forward the money as they are very expensive here. She is 5 feet 3 inches and modr stout waist 29in shoulders 14in. I enclose photo of myself but do not like it and shall send one each time until you have the lot. Please let Uncle E know that I received his letter and shall answer it next mail when I get the information he required. I thank you for the nice cards. I bought Annie an album for to put them in. She is getting on pretty well and quite contented.

I hope that you may escape the severity of the weather. We have not had any rain for months and there have been terrible fires in Victoria.

I think this is all I can muster out of my dull head this time so with love to Sisters and Brothers and kind remembrances to Aunt E, Joe and Sophy etc. with love from Chris and all the youngsters.

I remain,

Dear Mother ever your affectly,

James C. Parkinson

I will send Marias photo if it is not too heavy.

P.S. Feb. 15 I have just put the other box on board the "Lufia" as she passed out so you may expect to hear from Matthews about the middle