Ferdinand von Mueller

10/3/96.

I find, dear Mr M'Donald, that his Excellency,

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Victoria's Governor, Lord Brassey.

whom I did not wish to trouble while Parliament was sitting, is now on a tour to the West of the Colony; so it will be some days, before I can ascertain whether the Governor can attend

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favor us written above can attend.

a meeting of ours yet before Easter or whether it must be deferred til after the holidays; but I will let you know this, so soon as I have ascertain this.

I feel very poorly from anxieties and worries, and dread 8 or 9 Hours railway-travelling to Warnambool,

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Warrnambool, Vic.

but must try to muster strength for it, if finally it is decided to go there. I do not think that the chances of advancing our finance-position there is anything like what it promises to be about Camperdown, which place we can reach in 4 hours. I have not your robust constitution and am older than yourself. I cannot see, what harm it would be to ask our Member, Mr Manifold, whom I knew in his boyhood, for advise where we could near or at Camperdown have simply an afternoons-party and […]

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Text ends at the bottom of the page; an unknown amount of text missing. At a meeting of the Council on 1 April 1896, under the heading 'Proposed Annual Excursion', 'Correspondence was read from Mr. W. T. Manifold of Camperdown, and Mr. Joseph Archibald of Warrnambool, as to arrangements for an excursion to both localities named, and it was resolved to postpone further consideration of the matter' (Transactions of the Royal Geographical Society of Australasia (Victoria), vol. 14 (1896), p. 13).