Olive Schreiner Letters Online

Letter Reference	Steyn Papers: Emily Hobhouse (Olive Schreiner) 156/3/12/4
Archive	Free State Archives Repository, Bloemfontein
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	8 October 1903
Address From	Hanover, Northern Cape
Address To
Who To	Emily Hobhouse
Other Versions

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Emily Hobhouse, 8 October 1903, Free State Archives Repository, Bloemfontein, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the Free State Archives Repository for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of their collections. The letter exists in the form of a handwritten copy made by Emily Hobhouse; the original cannot be traced.

1:  From Olive Schreiner
2:  Copy
3: 
4:  Hanover
5:  Oct 8th 1903
6: 
7: 
8:  Dear Miss Hobhouse,
9: 
10:  I am afraid you must be very tired. No one who does not know the
11:  country can realize all the simple hard labour you have gone through.
12:  I sympathized greatly with your letter in the South African News about
13:  the difficulty and complexity of distributing to the needy wisely and
14:  rightly and justly. Even with my washing machine I have found a
15:  difficulty. I found the machine cost £12 not £10 as I had thought. A
16:  friend in Cape Town contributed this extra money and I, out of my own
17:  pocket, paid the carriage from Cape Town to this which came to £2.16.0,
18:  the machine thus costing £14.16.0 when it got here.
19: 
20:  I felt sure Mrs Nienaber was now provided for. When I got here I found
21:  she had developed kidney disease of a most troublesome form (floating
22:  kidney) and the doctor had strictly forbidden her to wash. So I am
23:  landed with it on my hands. I shall try to put it up for auction at
24:  the next Bazaar for orphans & widows.
25: 
26:  What I want to ask you is this. There is a much harder case in the
27:  town than Mrs Nienhaber's even. There is a man called David Cilliers,
28:  who was imprisoned for 6 months because the Boers came to his farm,
29:  while he was in Hanover not on the farm at all. He developed terrible
30:  heart disease as the result of the fever he got in prison. When he was
31:  nearly dead he was allowed to come out, in what we thought a dying
32:  state. His farm had been ravaged, his crops, furniture and stock
33:  destroyed. He lost about £1200 & was left quite penniless with a wife
34:  and six little children, the eldest of whom is 8 years old! The doctor
35:  says he is in such a state that manual labour must kill him, and yet
36:  he is obliged to do hard physical labour here to keep his wife &
37:  children. His father is a very poor but good and respectable man & her
38:  old father is equally poor.
39: 
40:  What I want to know is, if I am able to sell the machine might I give
41:  part of the money to him. We are all trying to help Mrs Nienhaber now,
42:  because she is ill. No one is trying to help him, and he is too
43:  independent to ask help. Let me know. It is wonderful how to give the
44:  least little bit of effective and wise help takes time and thought. I
45:  don't know how you have got through all you have done. I do wish so I
46:  could see you if only for one day before you go.
47: 
48:  Yours with deepest good wishes
49:  Olive Schreiner
50: 

Notation
Emily Hobhouse sent lists detailing those who had given donations to the post-war relief fund she organised and distributed to newspapers for publication; these appeared in many papers including the South African News in September and October 1903. The closest thing to an actual 'article' which appeared is a lengthy letter: Emily Hobhouse 'The Distress in the North' South African News 3 October 1903 (p.8); this concerns the ill-effects of dolling out small amounts that will do no long-term good.