The story of my life / by the late Colonel Meadows Taylor ; edited by his daughter.

  • Philip Meadows Taylor
Date:
1878
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The story of my life / by the late Colonel Meadows Taylor ; edited by his daughter. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    “Bravo, my boy! here’s half-a-crown for you. Go off and treat your backers, and J too, if you like.” And so I did. I do not know bow it came about, but at the close of that half-year I was told that I was to go to Liverpool and enter the office of Messrs Yates Brothers & Co., West India merchants, and be articled to them for seven years. I did not like the prospect at all. I should leave my darling mother and my studies, in which I was beginning to take such pleasure. Why was I sent away ? I am at a loss to imagine, and it is useless to speculate now, but so it was ; and to the intense grief of my mother, I was taken away, young and utterly inexperienced, and placed as a boarder and lodger with Mr Hassal, a clerk in some office in Liverpool, who had been recommended to my father. I was duly introduced to Messrs Yates’s office, in which were several young boys — learners like myself. ]\Ir Ashton Yates, the senior partner, was invariably good to me, and I have a grateful memory of his kindness while I remained in the office. At first I was set to copy circulars, and such easy work ; then I was promoted to being post-office clerk—not an easy task in those days, as the postage on letters sent and received was of consider- able amount and variety. I afterwards became one of the clerks for attending the discharge of cargoes, sitting in all weathers in a wooden shed with the Custom-house landing- waitex’, enteiiug, under their vai'ious max’ks, cotton bales, sugar hogsheads, and goods of all descriptions from the East and West Indies. It was a hard life ; and day after day, in snow, frost, or rain, I have sat for houi’S together, shivering and benumbed with cold, being allowed an hour for my dinner, in which time I had to run two miles to eat it, and run back again. Sometimes a friendly captain would ask me to partake of his meal; and I have fre- quently shared a landing - waiter’s lunch when offered. Our nominal hour for closing office w^as six o’clock; but