55 Alexander Gooden to Mary Gooden, 25 October 1837

My dear Mother,

As this is the day on which I promised to write to you I make it a point of conscience to fulfil my engagement and if I have nothing to communicate shall at least feel satisfied that you have no cause for uneasiness. I am very anxious to hear that my father is recovered or recovering from that most violent attack and that James’s apprehensions of a cough coming on have not been followed by the results which he predicted. I have not escaped the general contagion and from the moment of my arrival here have been suffering from cold and during this morning from a hoarseness and tickling of the throat which I am taking proper measures to check.

I was siezed upon at the end of my journey by a posse of my friends including Taylor who carried me off to spend what remained of the evening with them. I found Cambridge (as I anticipated) extremely crowded, the number of freshmen at our college being unusually large: last year we numbered 120, but this 150. The hall and chapel are accordingly thronged to a degree I had not seen before, and proportionally uncomfortable as a matter of course. As second year men we are of course very high and take our revenge for the quizzing which was I daresay vented upon us, by behaving as charitably to the freshmen whom we now have under us.

I have seen Turner and Busk and Merivale, the latter worthy as stout and brown as usual, but only the first to speak to. I find Johnny has become acquainted with our Australian freshman Lang, to whom in details of his experience he dilates upon the changes of prospect which reduce a man from Senior Wrangler and Senior Medallist, as he pathetically remarked, to the poll.

Mr Heaviside in answer to my note informs me that ‘any sum may be paid through Messrs Smith, Payne and Smith to his private account with Messrs Mortlock, Cambridge’. His full description is Revd J W L Heaviside, Sidney Sussex College, and his bankers are in Mansion House Place. I found Tommy Burcham in lively existence. He had been in Norfolk, but not to London.