London 5.September 1874.
Dear Moor,
Jersey has changed a great deal since we were there together. A vast amount of building, elegant villas, big hotels - high, almost English prices in them, everything also much more expensive in the market. Here, too, the London market has a price raising effect. The French language rapidly disappearing, even the country children now speak almost nothing but English without any French accent, nearly all of them. Only the elderly distinguished citizens still cling firmly to the French. During the season there are daily trips through the Island by five different entrepreneurs.
On one occasion we joined one of over 150 persons in 8-9 carriages, the public - philistines, commercial clerks and volunteers, and snobs - giving rise to some amusement and occasional annoyance. The true Briton casts off his cultivated manner as soon as he is on such a trip in Jersey, but resumes it more conscientiously at the table d'hote. The increasing availability of money among certain rising individuals - one can hardly call them strata - of England's small middle class and the resulting extent of luxury and of refined so-called good society was easy to observe in Jersey just because Jersey is still regarded as inexpensive and hence unfashionable little island. The respectability standards of Jersey visitors seems to decline each year - but we made the same observation also in Ramsgate, where no one complained more vociferously about this than the unfortunate barber who cut our hair so short last April.
Yours,
General.
Trafalgar Hotel
St. Aubins.
August 14. 1879
Dear Fred,
Our trip to Jersey from Southampton was too much dampened by a violent rainstorm; since we arrived in St. Helier, where it also "poured" violently. Since then, the weather, after some hither and yon changes, has been very good. In Jersey the peasants believed that the world was coming to an end; they claimed never to have experienced such a bad spring and summer. To-morrow we move to the Hotel de L'Europe, in St. Helier. We are giving up St. Aubin's because Jessy and I have a horror of a monotonous dally lamb and mutton diet, as a result of which I have become a reluctant vegetarian over the past few days. Other rooms here - and we looked around a great deal - are not to be found. When we arrived in Jersey, it was still relatively empty, but in time came masses of immigrants, including Frenchies. When we enquired for rooms this morning at the Hotel de L 'Europe, we were fortunate In that fifty Frenchmen were preparing to leave, while steamers heavily loaded with new passengers had not arrived yet.
At our departure from London, at Waterloo Station, we met Harney who came to see his wife off to Jersey. Fortunately, they already had a ticket for first class, while we took second class. We met again on the boat. Mrs Harney, like ourselves, does not suffer from seasickness but is otherwise unwell. Upon landing we separated, but receiving from her the address of her brother, with whom she is staying. We have paid her there a short "condolence" visit. The woman is altogether impracticable (bloody useless). Although a Jersey native she could give us no information other than printed in the guide. Two tenant farmers from Derbyshire, father and son, have been our table mates here in the Trafalgar Hotel. The day before yesterday they made an excursion to St. Malo by a sailboat and returned with an unequally healthy respect for themselves.
The father was of a mind to make a Mediterranean trip with his son, but he thought it "too hot" there. "By no means", the son, who is the book learned man, corrected him; "By no means, there it is now winter". The older man (in his prime and a sharp fellow, with a true business eye) also informed be that St Malo lies on the Southwest coast of France. But they are more conversant with agriculture and other farmers questions.
Jessy finds no difficulty with the bathing, has hitherto taken them alternately in St. Brelade's Bay and St. Helier's Bay, and currently she alternates between the latter and St. Clement's Bay.
Yours,
Moor