Series 01 Part 02: Hughes family correspondence, 3 April 1917-22 September 1918 - Page 514
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[Page 514]
4.
circles in New South Wales. On his tombstone at Waverley I read that he was a Knight Commander of S.S. Michael & George, a Knight Commander of St Gregory the Great, a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Pius IX, & a Roman Marquess! And yet today I had to write a short notice of Mary Jennings' death myself & send it to the Freeman, for fear it would be passed over in silence! She was the sister of Alf. Jennings of Collaroy, who married Violet Maher.
This reminds me that Eileen & Peter are still at Collaroy, where Mrs. Maher is gradually growing stronger. We hear that Peter is walking now & talking a lot. Mother taught him to bow before he went to Collaroy. He used generally to fall down in the process, & now they tell us that when he walks by himself & suddenly collapses & sits down, he indulges in camouflage by calmly remarking "Bow", as if to persuade them he has done it on purpose. Mother is sending you a little coloured photo of him which will give you the best idea you will have had yet of what he is like.
Sir Walter Davidson, our new Governor, continues to make more or less of an ass of himself. His latest effort was to indulge at a meeting of the Chamber of Commerce in a soliloquy on the virtues of a 10 hours' working day! This in a land which declares an annual public holiday to celebrate the winning of an Eight hours' day, & in which there are many now working for a six hours' day, & others working for the principle of "No work between meals" was just about the last thing in silliness, & there has been a Labour uprising everywhere, & yells for his gore, & howls for his deportation, till the wretched man wrote to Fuller a letter to be read to the Legislative Assembly in which he says he never meant nothing nohow, & there the matter rests. I am sending you some of the cuttings about it, & I am going to send more of them to Strickland, who will rejoice that he was not the only man to put his foot into it in