| Description | Letter from Amelia Nyasa Laws, 7 Via Venti Settembre, Rome, to her relatives, regarding worries for Uncle over the salary of Mr. Scott at Leghorn, disrupted because of the illness from typhoid of Mr. Henderson; discrepancies arise because of exchange rates and local fluctuations, and the over-controlling nature of church officers; Mr. Scott has been given local ordination as missionary to the Sailors' Institute and the church at Leghorn, but he wishes to call himself Reverend, which he is not entitled to do; he has been photographed in gown and bands; Amelia is baffled by the use of the church rites as self-glorification; Uncle is distressed by the church accounts; the income barely covers the local expenses; Dr. Nicoll has increased his contribution; the residential religious sphere in Rome is dead, and Uncle is only now realising it; Hale Benton's commitment to the church is stifled by his wife; Uncle's further worries over Miss Jazdowska's lease [There were Jazdowskis associated with teaching and art in Aberdeen: James Bronislas Jazdowski, son of John, teacher in Aberdeen, graduated from Marischal College in 1856 and according to an annotation of the Search Room student list died in Rome in 1902]; Signor Vita's tips on how to evade tax; Bartoli, a Roman Catholic who has been attending their church for several Sundays though Aunt and Amelia do not trust him; he was a chemistry professor somewhere in India and is forever finding interesting metals in Italy - polar magnetite on the shore at Anzio, for example; Bartoli has involved Uncle in a mining project in central Italy; Rita Santoro has now been given charge of a ward and Miss Jazdowska is delighted; Mrs. Brock is still expected though not welcome; Amelia's intention to copy out some anti-Evangelical invective from a newspaper for them; the Roman Catholics have distributed leaflets to the soldiers urging them to destroy the Bibles distributed by the Evangelicals; Father Ginocchi told Mr. Davies, an American, that they had also been distributing Bibles among the troops; Mr. Davies may have been overly innocent in his response and led to the trouble; Amelia asks that this not be made use of in print; Aunt has had trouble trying to keep Uncle out of the Methodists' reply to the Roman Catholics' article, but the Waldensians were reluctant to retaliate; Luzzatti said he would have done with Uncle if he aligned himself with the Methodists; Uncle eventually resisted and is glad now that he did; thanks for letter but weight limit reached. |