Edmund Hume — personal cashbook, signature for November 1921
[A single eight-leaf signature, removed from a smaller octavo cashbook bound in plain calf, refolded into the back of Lloyd's Register of Shipping, 1921–22 volume, which stood on the lower shelf of the partners' desk in Edmund Hume's private office on the second floor of the Hume Shipping Co. building, Quay 3, Port Hume. The cashbook itself was never recovered after Hume's death in October 1934; the probate inventory of November 1934 records rolltop desk, contents undisturbed pending Mrs. Hume's instruction, with no further enumeration. The Register stood on the office bookshelf through three estate sales and was acquired with a lot of nautical reference matter by the Port Hume Maritime Society in 1958. The signature was found during conservation work in 1962 and catalogued as Hume Papers 14-c-iii. The remainder of the cashbook is presumed destroyed.
The hand is Edmund Hume's, small and square, in brown ink throughout. Domestic items run alongside firm-personal disbursements in the same column. Where a name is given in full elsewhere in the firm's papers, here it is initials.]
Cashbook — E.H. — Nov. 1921 (For my own records only. Not to leave the desk.)
Tu. 1 Nov.
- W. Tichenor, tailor — suit, final fitting .......... 84.50
- Cook, beef & poultry (wkly.) ............... 4.20
- Erie Trust, cash to acct., round figure ........ 2,500.00
Memo: H.L. has begun the schedule he was always going to begin. He has not asked me about it. He will not. The schedule is his clarity, not mine.
Mon. 14 Nov.
- Carriage hire, week ..................... 9.00
Re Mrs. T., Buffalo box: $90 to be drawn 30th inst., as in every month since the spring of 1904. The box rental is paid for the calendar year. Do not let it lapse while the lady lives. One further year is to be paid after; then review the arrangement with no one.
Fri. 25 Nov.
- H.H., Nov. token .................... 1,100.00
- Sgt. B. to ledger this at his own desk as office expense. The receipt is not to come back. It is not to exist.
- Gang M., Friday cash, Q.3 ................. 240.00
- D.M. apportions at the quay, evening. Do not exceed last quarter's average without instruction from me.
- Dined Beacon Club. M.R.L. of the Beacon mentioned the Sunday column. I declined to read it.
Costigan understands the column reads as remembrance, not as obligation. The Sunday column is for the public; this page is for the office.
Sat. 26 Nov.
- Tailor, linings ........................ 8.75
Standing instr. to H.L., confirmed verbally on Friday last in the small office: the Thompson row continues as long as the lady continues. No documentary alteration is to be made. No letter, no card, no instruction in writing from this office to that one. The arrangement is set here. It is reconciled here. It does not leave this drawer to be set elsewhere.
Sun. 27 Nov.
The Beacon column appeared. M.R.L. is reliable.
(at the foot of the signature, in a slightly thicker nib, undated, separated from the column by a single horizontal rule:)
Any clerk who reconciles the standing arrangements of this house without standing to ask is, in the firm's interest, a useful clerk. He is to be retained on no further inquiry being made of him.
The form is for the public. The book is for the office. The arrangement is set by the desk it is set at, and by no other.
— E.H.