Dear Ned:
I shall be in Washington on the evening of November 9, at the Riggs House. I lecture for some charity next day, Sunday.
I want you to do me and the Hull public and humanity generally a great favor. (I am still living at Hull,—in the new house.) Captain Joshua James, the chief of the new United States life-savmg crew at Hull, has not yet appointed his men. He told me last night that he wanted a first-class man as No. 1 of the crew, and that the best man in Hull, and one of the ablest surfmen on the whole coast, Alonzo Mitchell, was a year over the official age. I know Alonzo Mitchell, and he is all he says—a brave, powerful, cool-headed, experienced surf man; and a younger man than you or I.
What I want you to do is to ask Mr. Kimball to allow Capt. James to appoint Alonzo Mitchell. Capt. James is otherwise hampered in the restrictions regarding relatives, for all our regular Hull fishermen are intermarried in the most extraordinary way. But this really ought to be allowed. It gives Capt. James as second the very best man in the town, his own selection, in whom he has complete confidence.
Will you kindly urge this on Mr. Kimball, and let me know the result?
And I am always affectionately yours,
John Boyle O'Reilly.
