Default Metadata, or override by section

  My Dear Old Friend,

Just a few lines to send you my love & [torn-away] say "How do" to you a cross the deep Atlantic

Things are going on with us here much as usual & the days succeed each other in all too rapid succession, each bringing its duties wh: have got to be done & wh: are done in some  fa[cut away] then & with these I have been kept rather busy of late

I send you a Bolton Chronicle containing an account of a fatal accident to one of our firemen, Joe Wilkinson, who was buried alive beneath bags of cotton waste & debris of a building wh. collapsed after a fire. As soon as his mates realised that Joe was missing they set to & worked like veritable heroes to extricate their poor friend. Never shall I forget the scene—the gleam of the torches flaring upon the brass accountrements & helmets of the blue coated firemen working in that death trap  with its suffocating smoke for the cotton was still smouldering & every now & again rushing out gasping for fresh air, their faces blackened & grimy streaked with perspiration—the superintendant quietly giving his orders—Kind for moving about in the semidarkness with jugfuls of steaming hot coffee wh: [cut away] thoughtful soul had kindly sent—the digging, the pulling & the wrenching [cut away] get at poor Joe—the discovery of his helmet still on his head the rapid clearing of his face—the cry of "Now Doctor here he is! Is he dead?"—the rapid  examination & encouragement to go on & get his chest freed so that artificial respiration could be tried—the renewed efforts—the hush while I was down in that pit of death performing artificial respiration (for his feet were still immovably fixed by [cut away] timber & resisted the united efforts of six men to dislodge them—the moan of disappointmenkt when the opinion was given that re-animation was impossible &c &c all made up a scene of weirdness & tragic horror I shall never forget.

 

A letter from JWW says that he has not been so well this week—got a bad cold while working or rather superintending some work on a canal.

I sincerely trust that things are well with you

R.K.G just called & sends his love as does

Yours affectly J Johnston