When Billy Edwards came to this country from South Africa we received a nice, kind
letter of introduction from Jack Slavin which was so eulogistic that it made the
modest Billy blush (says an English exchange). Since then we have had the
sad news that Bill Slavin has died from that frightful scourge smallpox. When Bill
Slavin left this country and found means to reach South Africa, he was not unmindful
of his brother Jack, whom he had left in London. Things had gone so bad with Bill
that in his first letter from the Dark Continent he advised Jack not to venture. After
a time, however, things became more hopeful, and Bill sent for his brother Jack not a
moment too soon, for Jack had drifted into a kind of odd man in the billiard-room at the
Ship public-house in Gate-street, Lincoln's Inn Fields. Verily might Jack and Bill
Slavin say:
We have lived and loved together,
for they were a pair of inseparables, and one was hardly ever seen without the
other; and it says much for brotherly love, when we say that the first money Bill Slavin
earned in South Africa he forwarded a remittance to his brother Jack to enable
Jack to try his fortune on a new soil.
Referee (Sydney, New South Wales, Australia), June 1, 1898.
Bill Slavin, Paddy Slavin's brother, died in South Africa recently from fever.
Morning Bulletin (Rockhampton, Queensland, Australia), April 26, 1898.