18 LIFE OF TEGETMEIER 



Mr. Gee, writing under date Dec. 14th, 1838, 

 says : — 



" I duly received yours yesterday morning 

 and its contents dispose me to think you are 

 perfectly qualified for my situation, taking an 

 active part in my practice and . . . either for 

 a certificated apothecary or member of the 

 College. The acquaintance between Mr. R. and 

 your family having been of so long standing 

 will render unnecessary any further testimonials. 

 My last Assistant received 25 Gns. per annum. 

 However as £30 was mentioned I will say 

 nothing as to the difference. You are silent as 

 to age, however from the various situations you 

 have occupied presume it cannot be less than 

 three or four and twenty years." As a matter 

 of fact, it was exactly twenty-two, and the 

 young medico had only ceased attending the 

 University College Hospital in the preceding 

 September. Mr. Gee, after suggesting that his 

 new assistant should come down to Brackley on 

 the Friday after Christmas Day, adds: "The 

 conveyances hither are two coaches daily from 

 the railroad — the Mail between four and five 

 o'clock in the afternoon and another at eight 

 in the evening." But perhaps the postscript is as 

 indicative of the period as anything else in the 

 letter: "P.S. — If you object [to] travelling by 

 railroad the Banbury Old Times Coach continues 

 to run daily within two miles of this place or 

 leaves its passengers at Buckingham for the 

 railroad Coach to Brackley." 



Evidently, it was quite the usual thing to 

 object to travel " per railway " in those days. 

 In fact, an aunt of Mrs. Tegetmeier absolutely 

 refused to travel by train to her dying day, 



