A.D. 1846.] RESIDENCE AT KILBURN. 43 There is an entry in his journal for August 1846, highly characteristic of his thoughtful and precise habit of mind :— The last few weeks have been marked with very important and serious events. First came the decision affecting my future life, of the results of which no one. can form any estimate. Then my coming of age on 24th June was a serious event, as, with the liberal means afforded me by my father, and the general though tacit concession of freedom of thought and action, . . . the acknowledgment that I am a man-all have opened up fresh responsibilities and duties, without removing any that previously existed. . . . On the 30th ulto., Mr Ford waited upon us by appointment to take our joint instructions as to the Partnership, which gives me £500 a-year clear, board and lodging, a comparative interest in the capital of £2000- for seven years, but liable to six months' notice on either side. These terms, with which was coupled an express declaration that they were only temporary, as a prelude to much greater concessions, are extremely liberal and considerate. Somewhere about the year 1840 his father had bought Kilburn House, a pleasant suburban villa, then standing in ample private grounds, though it has now disappeared under the advancing tide of bricks and mortar. This became the home of the family instead of the house in the Strand, and every week-day morning at four o'clock, summer and winter, the brougham used to come to the door to convey the father or son, or both of them, to the Strand office, to attend to the despatch of the papers by the early mails. You are correct [wrote young Smith to Mrs Beal in 1847] in supposing that I have been prevented from writing to you. I never remember such a period of excitement and hard work. I have been in town with Father, once at 3 o'clock in the morning, and every other day since the beginning of the season before 5, excepting Mondays and Thursdays; and we have already had 9 special express engines to Liverpool, Manchester, and Birmingham, and they will run every day this week. All this I have mainly to arrange, and I can assure you it has worn me not a little. Constant excitement and anxiety during the days, and short and disturbed sleep at nights as the consequence, are gradually making me as low and nervous as I was a few months back. But exclusive reliance was not placed on the mail-coaches for the transmission of news. Light carts with fast horses were employed when the newspapers were late of coming from the publishers, to overtake the mails; and in addition to these, when any event of unusual importance took place, or when something of interest happened too late for insertion in the papers of that day, Smith had his own mounted messengers, riding sometimes a couple of hours in front of the mails, distributing printed slips among his agents and customers in provincial towns. isive 19" ges for s ..th fast. lishers, to e to these as tot plac, don + Sission of news. Light were employed when the of eming hom the pul se the nails; and in a dalen ay event of nausal in erture when something of interest 1 insertion in the papers of the t id's ova mounted dessengers soneti aes a couple of hot s r Balls distroaung painted dies fort gents 10.I customers in provi, ilt was. |