I received, this week, yours of September 16th. (I write in the office, where we are paying off the men, with a deal of disturbance). You say that I fail to make you understand the process & grounds of Miller & Curtis’ failure. Very likely, for I don’t at all understand it myself. If it had occurred a month later you would probably not have wanted any explanations, and I suppose the truth is that some difficulty occurred which might have been got over for the time, but Curtis smelt the inevitable crash coming and determined to surrender in an orderly way while he yet could. As far as I know, every body has failed, only some not so publickly as others. You are mistaken in supposing that a “friend” was employed as a lawyer, either by Miller, or Shaw, or Curtis or Olmsted. I am very glad you were not here, though I have no idea you would have been called upon, after I left as a partner, to assist them. This was most distinctly, and on honor, understood. —Well, I have employed Emerson to do anything necessary. It is an even chance, I guess, that I shall be cleared of legal responsibility for the debts of Dix, Edwards & Co.

Now, Waring fails with everybody else. He bought a hay-press yesterday & will get his hay to market as fast as possible. At the worst, he says, he will pay on the 15th November. Several of his friends & debtors have failed. You can[104] scarcely have a conception of the ridiculous straits of men who are ordinarily flush. I heard a fellow yesterday offering 6 per cent. a month for a hundred dollars.

There is a melancholy satisfaction to me in the fact that my rivals in London, Bangs Brothers & Company, to whom all the English consignors to Miller & Curtis ordered their goods transferred on the failure of the latter, have also, since, been obliged to suspend. Jewett & Company, Mrs. Stowe’s first (U. Tom) publishers, have failed, & other book people (Since this the Harpers & others). Bowen, McNamee, as you will see, held up yesterday.

I, personally, am lately in debt $200 for my horse, $20 for his board, $75 for lodging etc. 3 months, $60 cash of Elliott and Godkin, and am confoundedly bothered for want of shoes, hat, coal, & I have had to write to Uncle O. to lend me some money for I am getting beyond the ridiculous. I get $80 today, however, for my salary, and shall overtake all this class of debts in a few months.

On the park, we unexpectedly received an order to payoff & discharge all the men this week, & have been doing it. Probably we shall take on even a larger force, a thousand is talked of, next week. There is a good deal of a row among the Commissioners, the difference being chiefly referrable to a greater or less degree of confidence in Viele. Those who are jealous of Viele strive to advance me—withdraw responsibility from him & confer it on me. They have passed three resolutions within a fortnight making requisitions for information & advice on the Chief Engineer and the Superintendent; and there is a disposition to promote me in this way, evident at every meeting. I yesterday sent in a Report, of general advice regarding draining, which was read to the Board, & a motion made to print it. Objected to on the score of economy. The President said it was a capital paper & ought to be printed: if the Commission could not afford it, he would pay for it himself, whereupon the motion to print passed.

You tell me to write for anything I want in London immediately. I have already mentioned a lot of things, boots, photographs of parks, &c., marmalade. —Colonel Viele would be obliged to you if you would give yourself the trouble to get for him one of the nice, thin, light, silk faced, English India rubber over-coats. They are not to be procured here. Viele is a man of my size; that is, thinner & smaller than you. It should be a tight overcoat fit for you. There are lots of things I should like if I could afford them now. Especially one of the great, water shedding, close grained, drab overcoats, such as can not be got here, for winter horse-back work. An English hunting saddle, small, neat and thoroughly unwearable, at Peat’s—everybody knows him, Bond Street or Regents’, £6 or so. I ride my Texas saddle now, but it is a dangerous thing in slippery fast riding. I came down a while ago, going over my horse’s head in the most approved fox hunting style, & not hurt a bit. I was in a borrowed saddle of the English model that day; if I had been in the Texas one, the probability is, I should have been laid up for a week—if not worse. I want a pair of screw, steel spurs. They are of this form, & the best, I understand, cost but 3 or 4 [105]shillings in London; here they ask $3 to $5 for them. I should like, if they don’t cost excessively, 4 of the nice flannel shirts that English gentlemen wear in travelling. They are fine, check patterns, warm colors. Here they ask $5 a piece for them.

My health & strength is constantly improving, but I take cold too easily, & have toothache & rheumatism, which makes me anxious for warm clothing for my winter work. I think it likely, partly as a charitable measure, we shall keep 1000 hands at work all winter.

Mr. Emerson offers you his house. I have not got the terms yet. But I guess the best you can do, if you come home, is to take lodging at the Brevoort or St. Germain, or rooms near a good restaurant. It is the only way to live easily in New York.