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Halifax Disaster Record Office
Archibald MacMechan F.R.S.C.
Director Halifax, N.S.
66 South Kline St.
City

Jan 13, 1918

Miss Wheaton

Dear Madam:

I am a respectable citizen that never needed help from anyone. I did not know that the relief was charity. Talk about big strong man. I want you to understand that I am not lazy. We were all hurt here and we never got a thing since the explosion, only $5.25 which would be about enough to feed a canary bird since the time of the explosion and if you call it charity I will pay it back. Talk about working on and off. I want you to understand that I was not very able to work since the explosion and I am not very able to work yet, but sooner than see my wife have to huble herself to strangers I would sooner suffer privation. Furthermore you have not seen me to know whether I am able bodied or not. Many is the time before the explosion I have worked 60 to 70 hours at a shift. Some weeks I only had two nights rest. It seems queer that some are getting loads of everything and their men working every day and I know it for a fact. They have been getting relief since the explosion and they had not been hurted either. It was only the other day that the doctor took a piece of glass out of my wife's eye in the Y.M.C.A. I understand this money was sent here for those that suffered through the explosion, but it seem that some of the sufferers has to actually beg to get anything.

Yours Trully
Thos. Buckley