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10 Apr 59 Peter Hong Kong Father ______________________________________________________________________________________________

Hong Kong, 10 April ‘59

My dear Father

Your letter just received brings me news on two or three, to me, important matters.

For the trouble you are taking as to consignments to me many thanks, but what you say in this letter is so vague that I will defer entering into the subject by this mail until I hear further from you. However in the meantime many thanks for it is certainly a beginning.

I am glad to hear that my Crimean Journal has turned up & I shall look for Goddard’s arrival soon. I hope however he will not carry it on to Shanghai.

The specimen from the Nassau Press* arrived safely & I am rather surprised than otherwise to find the expense will be so little. I like the specimen very well & would certainly wish it to be printed at once & the expense can be referred to me when we square up accounts which I suppose should be on the arrival of the consignment you speak of as squaring accounts is far cheaper than transmitting money to & fro.

There is one thing which I don’t think I either mentioned to you or cared for in the manuscript & that is the paragraphs, as I thought that like the stops, the printers would look after that. However I daresay it will be all right.

I should wish a blue cloth; (block) binding with gilt letters, the plainer the better & if you could send me 6 copies as soon as possible overland by post & a further supply in the first case.

If any friends like to take so many copies at so much apiece, of course they can do so & that would serve to pay a part of the expense but all that I leave to you. I do not know whether the binding is included in the expense you name but if not, perhaps it might be advisable only to have a portion bound or if on the other hand it is cheaper to have the whole lot done at once – then they had better all be bound alike.

Holliday Wise* are very decent people I believe, but not exactly first rate I should say. I should think they do a very good quiet little business & are thoroughly to be depended upon – tho’ I don’t think they have any means.

The ‘Cairngorm’, the vessel you mention, belongs to us & made the fastest passage home with the last new Teas.

I am fearfully busy this mail & am taking advantage of Sunday evening to write to you, but hope to find more time next mail.

Your affect. Son

Peter G. Laurie

* Nassau Press – W.S.Johnson, Nassau Steam Press, 60 St Martin’s Lane, London WC.

* Holliday Wise – Holliday Wise & Co, silk traders based in Manchester, and with interests in China and Philippines