Thomson.
IN 1851, the year of Aunt Anna's death, the family left Genoa and
came to Manchester, where Fleeming was entered in Fairbairn's works
as an apprentice. From the palaces and Alps, the Mole, the blue
Mediterranean, the humming lanes and the bright theatres of Genoa,
he fell - and he was sharply conscious of the fall - to the dim
skies and the foul ways of Manchester. England he found on his
return 'a horrid place,' and there is no doubt the family found it
a dear one. The story of the Jenkin finances is not easy to
follow. The family, I am told, did not practice frugality, only
lamented that it should be needful; and Mrs. Jenkin, who was always
complaining of 'those dreadful bills,' was 'always a good deal
dressed.' But at this time of the return to England, things must
have gone further. A holiday tour of a fortnight, Fleeming feared
would be beyond what he could afford, and he only projected it 'to
have a castle in the air.' And there were actual pinches. Fresh
from a warmer sun, he was obliged to go without a greatcoat, and
learned on railway journeys to supply the place of one with
wrappings of old newspaper.
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