Holograph Letter (in secretarial hand), signed (“William Booth”) by Booth, to Archdeacon F.W. Farrar.
[London]: May 13, 1893.
Price: $750.00
About the item
3 pp. pen and ink on folded sheet of Salvation Army letterhead. 4to. Stain on first page, affecting three lines, and on third page, affecting one word, tears at fold tape-repaired. Very good in custom maroon cloth chemise.
Item #248323
Letter outlining the Salvation Army’s early successes, as well as its financial difficulties. Reading in part, “The Scheme as outlines in my book ‘In Darkest England’ … may now be said to be fairly launched … An immense amount of misery has been relieved and remedied and so far as I can judge there appears to be every prospect of the enterprise becoming a great and permanent success. Statesmen, Clergymen, Philanthropists, experts, members of the aristocracy and leaders of the labour party have inspected our operations, and with scarcely an exception agreed in the opinion that the experiment ought to be pushed on to completion …” Booth says the Salvation Army requires about £30,000 a year for its “maintenance and development,” and, after informing Farrar that he has raised only £4,000 so far in this year and is running the church on loans from his bankers, asks “if you will further help me in working out this effort and … kindly intimate to what extend [sic] you feel disposed to do so.” The letter is in a secretarial hand, possibly that of Second in Command George Scott Railton, and signed by Booth.
