Correspondence, 1927. January-April

Communication No 101

DEPARTMENT OF ANATOMY PEKING UNION MEDICAL COLLEGE PEKING, CHINA.

Monday January 3rd 1927

Dearest we mother o me, Heres the first chat of the New Year beginning - may it bring you health and happiness Granny B!! Your dear extravagant Christmas parcel of books came this afternoon - such a lovely assortment you picked out! Hsiao mei mei will be delighted with her rag book - but Davy is going to run her a close second in his admiration of it! The clock on the bach helps him very much learning to tell the time - and the ten little chicks on the last page......they just take the cake! I have inked in your pencil dedication sos she will not wear it off the first day... Davys animal stories are only equalled by those for Adena and me - lovely stuff and well told. Blessings on thee!! This has been quite a day of news - a cable came through from New York first thing before I was awake saying the necessary appropriation had been made to underwrite the Chou Kou Tien research programme - thats the first step in my two year programme before Central Asia to get the Institute started. With any luck we will get some great stuff out of the deposit. Now we are in a position to get our man from Sweden - one of Wiman's men - to come out and take charge of the actual field excavations under my general direction - he doing all the work and me having all the material to play with. Good combination eh? Also a letter from von Bonin saying he hoped to be there by the end of the week. I finished the draft of a routine scheme of work that will keep him busy a year last night about 4. That was why I was asleep when the cable came this morn. Heine telephoned the house when it came but I did not get the message and didnt see him till 11 when I staggered into the lab all bleary eyed. He enquired over the phone if I were strong enough to stane a blow and I replied it was quite safe to bust any news to me for in the condition I was in I would feel no pain till on in the afternoon. Whereat he read the cable. Then I got an answer to a letter I wrote in May 1922!

At that time I sent to the Smithsonian Institution two boxes of mammal bones for identification and since then have had no word from them except the signed receipt fot the double registered parcel and three similarly registe red letters I have sent. Perhaps we will get the report by 1928 if they s speed up like this! I am going to get some snaps of hsiao mei mei in her crab act I hope this week - she has an original sort of crawl that is most intreagueing to watch - one little leg tucked under her little self and tother sustaining the prodigious weight of her little behind while her two arms support her uppers. Shes nearly as wide as she is long and she does the rolling or twisting on her central axis stunt with marvelous speed and agility. She will be walking in another month - does now with the help of chair backs and table tops and amahs and things. And such a little entertainer! Just bustin with choice gossip and charming smiles and airy graces - some heart breaker shell be if she keeps on. The week has been humdrum so far as parties is concerned - we have been at home for a change and have done some reading and work in odd moments. Bern and Katherine Read were in to lunch last Thursday to see the kids and I could hardly get Bern back to the lab he was so much interested in one of Davys mechanical toys - he devised a simple timing device for his lab on the principle of the toy. They do have some interesting things for kids these days although they dont seem to be anything like so exciting as the toys we used to get - I suppose no toys ever could be so. I have just thrown away two very valuable hours enjoying some of the Roberts stories you sent - picked up one of the books as we were having coffee in the drawingroom and thought to read for a few minutes - and behold it was 11 and Wang came in with the 11 oclock coffee before I realized how the time had fled - so you see how much I appreciate em! The weather has become much milder since New Years Eve - wonderful sunny brisk days instead of the bighting bitter north westers we had been having for weeks - nice change and helps the coal bill! Must start something now dear wee honey-o. Good night dear and heaps and heaps of love to you from us Four. Bestest toGG&kids ASAGUJBeaex39itesStCsetal. Bless you and keep you safe. BBSOCYK SYL HOL YAS Dyo

Communication No 102

DEPARTMENT OF ANATOMY PEKING UNION MEDICAL COLLEGE PEKING, CHINA.

Sunday January 9th 1927

Dearest mater mine, Another week has flown and now we are arrived at AWGrabaus birthday - one hundred years less one month odd since Darwin took his first peek at descending man! I am going out to AWGs tonight to help celebrate at a surprize party for him - Adena is not feeling like it so she will keep houes while Im away. They - Adena, hsia mei mei, Davy and amah are busy taking down the tree in the drawingroom. I hate to se it go Do you remember Kiplings "Track of lie"? Well call it a fairy story and it resembles the track of my recent fiction on the dispersal of Primates. About a month ago I had a review from a chap I do not know - a reviewer on the staff of the Am Jour of Science - enclosing comp copies of his review. Not a bad effort taking it by and large. Then last week arrived a complimentary copy of "Nature" in which there was a very nice editorial review of it and in another section of the number was my spiel on the ChouKouTien discovery. The latter left here on Oct 24 last and was printed in Natuer in its issue of Nov 20th - not a bad speed that. Then in the same mail came a letter from Elliot Smith with a clipping of a note by him in the London Times Nov 16 issue ending in a two paragraph quotation from my CKT spiel. He said the note was his bot the headlines were not! He wrote it to correct certain roumours that had spread apropos of a remark let fall by Roy in his RoyGoegraph Lecture - what the latter was I dont know. Then a letter from Keith saying good luck to you and remarking on the interest aroused over the work being done here. Then one from Hrdlicka in typical Hrdlickian vein but admitting reluctantly between the lines that Asia might be what I had cracked it up to be but wanting further news and confirmation. Altogether the two spiels have done their little work finely and it is worth the risk I have taken in digressing into fiction - I had a legitimate excuse and from where we sit just now it

seems as if all the support we hoped for will eventuate. Dudley Buxton writes from Oxford that he has been asked to review my spiels in the JourRoyAnthropInst but that he cant say whether or not it will be good or bad as he hasnt written it yet. He has snaffled the new Gibraltar skull to describe which is a splendid piece of luck and well deserved. Further our Institute plans are fermentin and it sure looks like as if we could make real hard liker soon! Which brings me to the point of mentionin me deep quiet contented joy over the results of the Ontario elections - I knew that there was a large body of sensible people at home who would express their opinion in no uncertain terms sooner or later and its the time to do it now. It will have a very interesting and important influence on the next presidential ellection in the States. If they can get back light wines and beers m the us they will be fixed but Im afraid the dashed fools of prohibitionists will make it necessary to vote wet or dry and that will bring back the hard likker to. Its good in its place but the lighter stuff would do the trick if theyd let it I do be thinkin. Your dear extravagant box of chocs arrived safe and sound on Jan 5th - my word theyre nice!!! Theyre in front of me now - wont you join me??!! As for the political siruation dont worry - Theres a chap in command in the Yangtze area who evidently has a head on his shoulders the way he has handled the delicate situation in Hankow this last week, If wed used force as they were trying to make us do then the devil and all would be to pay. No we dont want force till the powers are all in agreement and then if necessary we should use it in no half measures. But theres a good chance that such drastic action will never be needed if the situation is handled right. May that happen! Its the reverse of Boxer days for tis the south that was quiet then. It may sound a bit fussy to one at home but please dont worry for theres a heap of good sense left in China though you mightnt notice it in press dispatches. Bishops men have just got their stuff to Peking from the Shansi area in which they have worked this fall and he had a dinner last week with a report of progressParty didnt break up till 2.30. Adena and 8 girls in to brideg that night and I attended to the majority under the mistletoe before I had to leave - jolly gang. Then she and I talked till after 3 when I got home. Must run along and dress for dinner dear wee honey-o Good night dear God bless and keep you and make you well. Heaps of love from us four. Bestest toGG&kidsASAGUJex39itesBeaStCsetal BBSOCYK HOL YAS Dyo

65 Hsias Ya Pas [Haliing?]. Peking January 9th 1927.

My dear Aunt Maggie - What a wonderful pile of Christmas packages for all of us - It would do your heart good to see the baby enjoy her very own rap book! She says "tick, tick" to the clock on the back page & reads it all with one fat finger pointing out each picture. I wanted one for her so much but there are none here so I was pleased when it popped out. Davy will like his when I read it to him. I know - but he still loves the Mother Goose one you gave him long ago, best of all - Dyo & I are delighted with the Roberts books, he has an understanding mind - & I do hope you enjoyed them first before passing them out of sight! As for the chocs, they are delicious so fresh, as if made today! I'm enjoying them too well! You shouldnt have done it dear. Ive had a quiet but happy Christmas - I have never known one with