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17 Dec 58 Peter Hong Kong Mother 5, Hyde Park Place West ______________________________________________________________________________________________

Hong Kong, 17 Dec 58

My dear Mother

I was not able to write to you last mail in consequence of continual press of business so I am beginning early this time to try & make up for it.

Little Lylie is perched up on the sofa rubbing herself against me, just like a little pussy & altho’ she is eternally in disgrace for being stupid & spiteful, I am very fond of her & she is my constant companion of an evening.

It amuses me to see the way she sits up, just like a cat. I have made two ineffectual attempts to portray it but unhappily failed in both. I even thought I heard her make a noise like ‘miaou’ a few days ago. She used to go out walking with me every morning to the race course but latterly as I have begun training I have been obliged to leave her behind.

I always take my horse round twice every morning & this morning I was asked to train another called ‘Mozart’ which last year came out in very flying colors. I am afraid however I shall be too heavy for riding at the races themselves. I can assure you it is no joke training 2 horses every morning before breakfast.

The Hong Kong races are (so Teddy says, & I believe he is right) considered the best races out of England – & considering the wealth of the parties interested & the manner in which they devote themselves to the sport, they ought to be. Only gentlemen jockeys are allowed. They come off in Feby. & I daresay you recollect the pictures of them in the Illustrated & my mention of them last year – or rather this.

We have lately got up some Balls at the Club which go off very well – only perhaps not so well as could be expected. The fact is, it is the mercantile community get them up & the military get all the fun, which is not fair, altho’ from the time they have on their hands & the engagements they are previously able to make, it is perhaps to be expected. A lady entering the room is usually, if attractive, engaged for the whole evening, so that one stands no chance; for a red coat cancels any amount of dollars.

We had a very great piece of excitement here a short time since in the shape of a fire & all the military & jacks were brought into action upon the occasion. It was great fun to see how they went to work & the order of the day seemed to be catching all unhappy Chinamen of whatever grade & making them work at the engines. Corporal so & so was sent off with a few men to catch such & such a number of Chinamen & you saw them by & bye walking in with each some half dozen Chinamen fast by their pigtails.

It was no use rebelling. They were compelled to work & the poor unfortunates must have found out for once what inconvenient stupid things these pigtails are. A great many China houses were burnt down but the fire was luckily subdued with the destruction of but one European house – of which the previous evening the bailiffs had taken possession but which you may imagine they soon vacated. The only way to stop a fire amongst China Houses is to pull down a few intermediate ones & then let it burn out. It is not very difficult pulling down a China House.

Mr Turner – Cooper Turner, he calls himself, is Crown Solicitor here. His partner Hazeland (his nephew) tells me it is only worth £150 per annum which in a place like this is not worth accepting – so that it is not such an ‘important’ appointment as you seem to think. What was the appointment Oliver was offered. I cannot hear of any that was vacant about that time.

We have just received more distressing news. One of our coasting schooners, the ‘Mazeppa’ has foundered with all hands. It was the Captain’s first voyage as Captain. The schooner had long been condemned & all the officers that went in her before they started, stated it to be their conviction that they would never return.

The former Captain made his will before he started last time & one of the officers this time actually before leaving had his portrait taken, to be sent home to his friends if lost & he is lost & every body with him & the thing is passed off as a business transaction & now all care is being taken to recover the treasure which is in her. But the lives of the officers & crew can never be recovered.

It is only two months since another of our schooners went down in exactly the same manner & every soul perished & it is the very same hand that writes to tell the fate of both. The Admiral has just despatched the steamer ‘Fury’ to the wreck. In two months we have lost 3 vessels & the very hand that writes to tell of the two was himself the Commander of the third.

St Andrew’s Day (the patron Saint of Scotland’s) is a great day here & every one on that important occasion, if possible, is Scotch. At daylight the big brass gun – a sort of Queen Elizabeth’s pocket pistol,* the most attractive feature on our Wharf, is fired & shakes all Hong Kong. This gun was found on board an old East Indiaman bought by the house & is supposed to have been taken from pirates who again must have captured it from some Spanish Galleon as the inscriptions upon it would denote its origin. It is certainly a very handsome gun.

All the fleet – that is J M & Co’s fleet – is profusely decorated & the flagstaff itself looked more gay than all but it is the evenings entertainment which is the crowning point. To describe this it would be impossible. There were some fifty at dinner, speeches and singing & whiskey toddy. Everybody is expected to get dreadfully tipsy & to lose all restraint. Scotch reels & reeling of another description finish up the evening in which every body joins & everybody, if not really tipsy, is expected to be found rolling on the floor.

It was 5 o’clock when I got to bed & at ½ past 6 the office ‘boy’ came in with a letter to me on business (clearly from some one who was no Scot), so I sent a boot flying at his head & he & the boot disappeared immediately. The next day not a soul except myself showed up.

Last mail 2 of the partners of Blenkin Rawson & Co. went home. Mr B is up at Shanghai I believe. As my Father says, I believe he is ‘honest’ but I must say he’s very ‘heavy’. He may have a good deal in him, but it certainly never comes out.

Norton, one of the two, was a great friend of mine & is a fearfully talkative man. Whittall, one of our attachés is also very talkative & the two together were something awful. Norton used to say there was only one thing would annoy him in his grave & that was the idea that Whittall would have it all his own way.

I wish you would remember to send me out an atlas. I am alway in want of one & really have not seen such a thing since I left England.

It is very amusing to hear people’s notions of my age. I have just been told that I am 30 at least & nothing on earth could persuade the gentleman I was less – not even the Family Bible. ‘Why, you are a regular old man’ he said, ‘not merely in your looks but in your ways’. I protested I was only 20, but to no purpose. As a general rule, I go down for 4 or 5 & twenty, but nobody believes my real age.

On board the Tynemouth it was always considered great chaff to say to me ‘you’re only 20, you know’. However it is a very good thing for me that it should be so & no doubt had it not been for that, I should never have been in the position I am. For I have succeeded a man of 35 & who had been 15 years acquiring the position which I filled at once.

28 Dec 1858

The ‘Wm. Hammond’ has arrived & I have luckily succeeded early in getting my case of Saddlery, which is all capital – the whip especially – altho’ as before stated, you have already sent me out one. The portraits of Mrs Heath & Alfred are very good. In future, in sending a package, please remember to send it down to the ship as late as possible as it is then stored on the top & I get it all the sooner. [Otherwise] I might be a month before getting it.

On Christmas Day we all dined with Mr Jardine who wished us a merry Christmas, but unfortunately in China things go by contraries & the wish in this particular cannot be father to the fact. I am writing late at night with a severe headache so pray excuse me. Perhaps my headache may in some way be traceable to the Ball last night – the Freemasons’, which kept me up till ½ past 3. Everybody nearly here is a Freemason & I was of course thinking of being one too, all in good time.

But the Ball last night opened my eyes & I must say I now think, with my Father, that it is nothing more than a ‘boosing concourse’. It was a very pretty night however to see them all in their blue sashes & orders, some presenting the appearance of very distinguished Generals & the room was splendidly got up with festoons & inscriptions.

The supper – the boosing part of the concern, was very grand, but the speech of the Deputy Grand Master which was to have been something very thrilling & chiefly comprehensible to Masons, was a complete break-down & comprehensible to no one. All Hong Kong, high & low, was present & all the officers of the Royals (2nd Battn.) who are the most slow, clumsy looking lot I have ever come across, altho’ considered very crack.

I intended to write to my Father by this mail but fear it is now too late as I am very busy. I am very sorry to hear he has been so unwell & do not know to what to attribute it. This is a dreadful place for eyes. Sir Peter too, appears to have been suffering but I hope ere this all is well. I have been very seedy myself & in bad spirits for a fortnight.

Never mind the atlas – I have just picked one up at a sale here.

28/12/58 – The mail is now closing so good bye, with a kiss to little Helen, whose portrait has not yet arrived.

Your affect. Son

Peter G. Laurie

* Queen Elizabeth’s pocket pistol – A 23 ft long brass cannon that was made in 1544 in Utrecht (before Elizabeth came to the throne) and presented to Henry VIII. It is now on display at Dover Castle