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20 Jan 59 Peter Hong Kong Mother ______________________________________________________________________________________________

Hong Kong – 20 Jan ’59

My dear Mother

I sit down at an early date to try and write to you another of my long letters & to make up for the last which was very gloomy. I am now in better health & consequently better spirits tho’ far from what I would wish to be.

It is only 3 days now to the great event which transforms me from an infant to a man – but I do not realize it at all. The fact is every body is so dubious about the fact that I am almost beginning myself to think it must be a mistake.

Every body thinks I am joking & it has become a standing joke now about ‘Laurie coming of age’. For the handsome present which I am to expect from your last letter – many thanks. It will be my constant companion & I shall wear it next my heart – that is to say, in my left-hand waistcoat pocket.

I must however reserve for the present the major portion of my thanks. My misfortunes have in this short space of time changed in a most extraordinary manner my disposition. I have now no longer any desire for pets (for I know no other word to use). I have declined a little Newfoundland puppy & shall never I think take unto me any fresh companion. With my little Lylie I buried all my affections.

My horse is still very bad & scarcely able to keep upon his legs. Exercise they tell me is the great thing & so I mount him at my peril. Mr Robt. Jardine, a great jockey, recommends this & then when I mount he addresses me in a bitter tone ‘Ah, well, you’ll break your neck’, as much as to say ‘& serve you right too’. I only hope he will get well in time for the races – otherwise I shall be sadly disappointed.

I told you in my last that I had discharged my boy. The mode of doing this here is very simple; at least I made it so in the present occasion. ‘Why haven’t you done so & so – well, I’m tired of your foolery now. Leave the room & never come into it again. Do you hear – go.’

This is all – next day I counted my clothes over with him & eventually paid him what was due & was without a servant – a thing highly to be desired. In fact I think it is that which has put me in better spirits.

We are full of entertainments just now. I may almost say it is a most gay season, what with club balls & freemasons’ balls & amateur theatricals by two different parties; to say nothing of the races & race ball in prospective.

The amateur theatricals are a great hit. One performance being by the officers; the other by the non-commissioned officers of the 1st Royals. Both are I believe considered capital tho’ I haven’t seen them yet.

The Royals are on the whole a great Godsend to Hong Kong as they get up all sorts of amusement, have a capital band which plays once a week on the parade ground, sing in the Cathedral, private theatricals & lots of other things which tend to the edification of the community.

There are some very nice ladies in the regiment – amongst the rest, a Mrs Legge, wife of Capt. Legge,* a lady of unsurpassable beauty & attractions. Mrs Legge is everything – she is in everybody’s mouth. She flirts with all the officers of the regiment & she is, amongst them, a sort of ideal of perfection such as never was. She is rather Spanish in her looks (the regiment came from Gibraltar) & she certainly is very pretty. She rides & dances & does everything better than anybody else.

It was rather strange I made her acquaintance. A few days since I was down upon the race course when I observed Mrs Legge ride in upon Mozart, the horse I had been training for the races. I thought this rather rash but knowing that Mrs L was reported to lead the way across country & all such things, I was scarcely astonished.

Scarcely however had she got upon the race course when off the horse went – as hard as he could tear. Poor Mrs L was unable to stop him & he went all round the course & then without stopping, suddenly turning in at the gateway & leaping the outer fence. She completely lost her balance & was thrown off upon the ground apparently with great violence.

I was near the spot & rushed to her assistance, but she raised herself, walked into the grand stand, assured one she was not hurt at all & appeared to feel far more the fracture of her hat than she did the very near escape from the fracture of her neck.

She eventually mounted again & rode home & Capt. Williams* who was with her assured me next morning that she declared she wasn’t hurt a bit. The horse who had a very nasty cut in his foot hasn’t shown up since, but I saw Mrs Legge on horseback again this evening.

With regard to silk pocket handkerchiefs & counters, I think you will get all these sorts of things just as cheap at home as I can get them here. I tried some counters the other day & couldn’t get any decent ones under $3 (13s/6) p100. These were something on a par with those I recollect at the Brook’s* – the commonest are $1, but they are made of discoloured mother-of-pearl. The handkerchiefs which I sent my Father at Christmas were $3.50 for 10 at a time remember, when Chinamen would not refuse an offer.

Feb 3. 1859

Since writing the preceding I have been laid up with a tremendous abscess which for a fortnight has prevented my moving. For two weeks I have been lying on my right side unable so much as to sit down & in the greatest pain. It is this which has prevented my sending this letter, as also that to my Father & the newspaper. It is this which has prevented my bringing my horse round from the state of rheumatism in which I previously found him & which will consequently stop his running at the races – a bitter disappointment to me after having procured at some expense all my jockey outfit & it is this which has caused the Jardines to ask some one else to ride a horse or horses which I had previously understood they were going to request me to mount.

I seem doomed to nothing but mis-fortunes – everything seems to combine to my disappointment & I really am excessively disappointed. I had quite set my heart upon the races, but I must bear as best I can ‘the slings & arrows of outrageous fortune.’*

You will doubtless have heard of the affair near Canton when the Braves attacked a party of our men & how we afterwards burnt the whole place about their ears. All that about the papers found proving Peh-quei’s treachery was untrue. The great idea now is constantly sending our men out in parties amongst the villages so as to ‘accustom’ the Chinese to them. Only let the Braves catch a small party some day.

Today is the Chinese New Year – their great holiday – & all day long there has been such a noise with crackers. They are not allowed after 7 p.m., so as it is more than ½ past 6 now, you can imagine what a row there is going on. It seems as if they were concentrating it all into the last moment.

Those who are usually almost in rags, on this day somehow turn out quite spruce & to see the swells our ‘boys’ are is really something awful. They splice on extra lengths to their pigtails & all sorts of curious things. The office boy – a very hard worked & consequently well paid individual – has come out arrayed like a mandarin of the red button* & our head boatman who usually wears nothing but loose white pyjamas & shirt looks a regular Nabob & on the strength of it has been coming round for donations – a practice highly to be reprehended.

It is very strange that Arthur has never written to me or that, if he has, I have never received his letters. I do not of course know where to write to, but when you write please expatiate upon the impropriety of such neglect.

Thanks for all the newspapers sent – last mail brought a ‘Bell’s Life’.* Mr Gray – the sanctified & really good parson took it up & expressed his great affection for Bell’s Life upon which I asked him whether he liked the betting or prizefighting best. It turned out to be however the University Regattas.

He is going to be married to a young lady – or rather a doll – a Miss Burns – who went home by the last mail with her father. She is going to improve her mind a little first, & as soon as she has done that he goes home to marry her.

The parting was very affecting I believe, for he is what is called ‘very spooney’. I say ‘I believe’ for no one knows because he left here at daylight to call & say good bye so as no one should see the parting. They do say that when he arrived at 6, Miss Burns was in bed & refused to 'turn out', so that his early rising was quite lost upon her.

And now that I have got thro’ all this long preamble I must tell you of my great surprise at receiving in a most unexpected manner, the compact (both in itself & its contents) little case which the last mail steamer brought to me.

It was quite unexpected & I was never more astonished in my life than when I received intimation if its arrival. Neither John nor my Father alluded to it in any way – yes – my Father did by the bye. He said he hoped ‘the package’ would arrive safely, but at the time I could not think what he alluded to & as the writing got very doubtful & illegible soon after – at one time jumping over mountains and descending into deep valleys & performing all sorts of circuitous routes – to say nothing of some most extraordinary assertions which followed, I imagined that he must have been somewhere near the realms of Morpheus* & that this was only an imaginary package manufactured by an overworked brain.

The extraordinary assertion referred to was this: that my Father ‘saw by the Bombay Gazette that I had passed my examination’ & that I was to ‘go on & prosper & keep the name of Laurie in the ascendant’ – the former a most extraordinary notion; the latter one ever before me.

I can only imagine that he must have been in a rather dreamy state & confounded me in Hong Kong & John in Bombay with Arthur & his examinations at Madras.

But to the package. I was indeed delighted & as I unpacked each small parcel I was more & more so. The gold watch is very handsome & keeps excellent time & will as my Father says, be an heirloom. It is a little too large, but then heirlooms ought to be that – I must thank him separately in my letter to himself & now pass on to the next.

For all the little etceteras for which I asked – many thanks. The housewife* is capital (only the knife, scissors etc got rusty on the way which was a pity). The antimacassars I was above all delighted with & two of them were brought into immediate use & generally admired.

Charlotte’s portrait is not so good as I could have wished. She looks as if somebody was giving her a pinch. Little Helen is frowning dreadfully & doesn’t appear to have any more hair on her head than when I left (unless perhaps it is dressed à l’Impératrice),* which is very ugly. A high forehead is an ornament to a man but a disfigurement to a woman.

Little Frankie is capital & even beats Alfred’s which I thought very good. I don’t want to make him vain but he certainly is a very pretty little fellow. Helen’s present of a pencil case (which however has got something the matter with it & won’t work) you must give her a kiss from Brother Peter for & I must see if it can’t be put to rights.

Frankie’s of a pear made of brown paper filled with sugar plums & chocolate arrived in a sad state as far as the sugar plums were concerned & the sea voyage had evidently not agreed with them – and Alfred’s of a book marker with some Puseyite* device & inscription merits my especial favour (not on account of the device).

The neckties were all very pretty, but altho’ I admire pretty neckties I have quite lost my taste for wearing them. I must however reserve the gaudy ones for great occasions when perhaps it is lawful to cast off the simple unpretentious ribbon I usually wear.

I somehow now fancy that plain things suit me & colours don’t at all. I am writing all from memory & think I have pretty well touched upon all heads & so now again many thanks for what I can assure you is really highly appreciated. It arrived two days after my birthday.

On that eventful day, when I first became a man – altho’ I have been that a long time – I reclined gracefully on my sofa in the greatest pain – never saw a soul & never even so much as moved all day. It was thus that I came of age. It was rather a funny thing that during the time that I was ill I should take up three books running all about China, the last quite accidentally.

The first one was an account of travels thro’ India & China by an American. The second one was Goldsmith’s ‘Citizen of the world’, which I never before knew was supposed to be written by a Chinaman, & the third was ‘Father Ripa’s residence at the Court of Pekin’. The Emperor, according to him, must have been quite a jolly fellow & his great delight appears to have been to tease his wives. Those poor small footed ladies would be sitting quietly working in the garden when they suddenly would be assailed be a handful of live frogs which would frighten them dreadfully & in their attempts to escape, they would all tumble over one another in the greatest confusion for they can only stand upon their legs by means of the greatest care.

I heard from Teddy who seems quite happy. He seems to have got some appointment as far as I can make out at Cochanaba, Madras, but he doesn’t speak clearly. I wonder what Miss Douglas,* as was, is like. I should think for Teddy to have fallen in love with her she must be rather a nice person.

But à propos of books, you sent me out some very nice ones, & altho’ Master Brown’s schooldays are too much spun out, yet they are undoubtedly very truthful. That is the only one I have got thro’ except half of the ‘Derby Ministry’ & Longfellow’s ‘Miles Standish’,* which is, without exception, the most miserable thing I ever read. Independent of everything else, the Latin Hexameter measure doesn’t suit English poetry.

13 Feby ’59

We gave our grand race dinner the other day, at which altogether about 40, including all the nobs – Colonial Secretary &c. were present – & on the occasion about $5,000 changed hands. It is quite useless having any regard for money here if one wants to be considered a good fellow. There are of course some who keep out of these things but they – happy beings – are accounted poor spoonies & I have no particular desire to be set down amongst that lot.

Every evening there is some race dinner & fresh invitations to hazard money. I go on a middle course & as for betting, I always tell every body I don’t understand it, but profess to be quite open to any bet if they will give me sufficient odds. I always however manage to differ about the odds.

My horse cannot run this time, so I have been put to the expense & cherished fond hopes all for nothing. He was entered as Mr Maxwelton’s Ellington – I being Mr Maxwelton,* which is adhering to family associations in a delightful manner I think.

I certainly intended to win & I believe I should at least have been second – but the fates willed it otherwise.

I enclose a portrait of Sir John Bowring which was issued as a supplement to the daily paper – the day after the Grand Praya contest referred to in my letter to my Father. I think nothing can better show in what contempt he is held.

Remember me to all, & once again thanking you for all your presents & with a kiss to Helen

I remain

Your affect. Son

Peter G. Laurie

I have written full 20 sheets this mail

* Capt. Legge – Capt. Montagu Adam Henry Legge, 1st (The Royal) Regt. of Foot

* Capt. Williams – Capt. Richard L Williams

* Brook’s – Brooks’s, a private members’ gaming club in St James’s Street, London, established in 1778

* ‘the slings and arrows outrageous fortune’ – Hamlet, Act 2

* Mandarin with a red button – In China at this time, a mandarin was an official entitled to wear a button – a spherical knob, about an inch in diameter – on top of the hat. These officials were divided into nine grades, each being distinguished by a button of a particular colour: a transparent red stone for the first grade, pink coral for the second grade, a sapphire for the third, and so on

* Bell’s Life – Bell's Life in London and Sporting Chronicle was a British weekly sporting paper published as a pink broadsheet between 1822 and 1886

* Morpheus – Greek god of dreams; the son of Hypnos, the god of sleep

* housewife – Pronounced ‘huzzif’: a case for needles, thread and other essentials for sewing and darning, often carried by soldiers, seamen and other travellers

* à l’Impératrice – In the style of Empress Eugénie (1826-1920), the wife of Napoleon III

* Puseyite – After Edward Bouvrie Pusey, (1800-1882), Anglican canon of Oxford Cathedral, Regius Professor of Hebrew at Christ Church, Oxford, and one of the leaders of the Oxford Movement

* Miss Douglas – Edmund Lloyd married Sophia Douglas in 1858, but she died in childbirth the following year, also losing the baby. See letter 1859.09.27

* Miles Standish – ‘The Courtship of Miles Standish’, a poem by Henry Longfellow, commemorates an English born American colonial military leader who arrived in New England in 1621 as military adviser to the Pilgrims

* Maxwelton – Maxwelton House, in Maxwelltown, just to the west of Dumfries, was originally known as Glancairn Castle, and had been sold to Stephen Laurie (a thrifty citizen of Dumfries) in 1611. However nothing is known of any family connection between the Maxwelton Lauries and Sir Peter Laurie’s antecedents in Haddington, East Lothian