Book 9" by 7", about 56 leaves plus endpapers, cover decorated boards, cloth backstrip. The binding is loose, the backstrip torn, and a number of the leaves have been torn out. The front endpaper bears the inscription THOs a Beckett November 1853, embellished with small sketches. A number of the drawings pasted in are of ships, and could have been executed during the owner's passage to Sydney in the Andromache in 1850. (His diary of this voyage has been presented to the La Trobe Library.) Other sketches are humorous, or portray the fashions of the eighteen-fifties. Some of the better sketches may be copies from woodcuts in magazines. Loosely inserted is a humorous letter dated 30 November 1854, beginning 'Dear William', and presumably addressed to the writer's brother, Sir William a'Beckett, Chief Justice of Victoria. Most of the allusions are obscure.
