Typed Letter Signed to [G. K.] Menzies, Secretary, Royal Society of Arts.

Authority on textiles (died 1964) and writer of several works on the subject. One page, quarto. Good, on discoloured paper with one small closed tear at foot. Docketed and bearing the R.S.A. stamp. The subject of the first part of the letter would appear to be the New York 'Pool Room King', owner of the Yankees baseball team and a 'big Tammany man'. Begins 'I have read with much interest the cuttings, etc., forwarded, especially the letter of Mr. Frank J. Farrell to the "Textile Mercury". When a man starts to try and floor one as being 'academic' I have no use for him. I therefore propose to treat the letter with the silence it deserves unless you wish me to do otherwise. I can so floor Farrell that I have been sorely tempted to do so. But my whole object is to be useful to our own Silk Industry: i have said what I deem it advisable to say and little good as a rule comes from pulling critics in pieces. I stand to every word I have written in my paper and the only thing I should like doing is some intimation to be got through to the press that I am not replying to Farrell's letter because [sic] I am ignorant of it but because I deem if [sic] wiser not to reply. [...] I hope that His Excellency got the idea that the Chinese (Wing-on) mill was the best in China and not the Japanese mill. [...] request Professor King to retain the Lantern Slides and Films for me at Leeds untill [sic] my return to England'. Signed 'Aldred F. Barker'.