1882.01.28 English

[1] JMC: In his address, RMH indicates two titles. However, the second one, “konferenceråd”, is an obsolete and untranslatable title and I have therefore omitted it. The first title, however, “Privy Councillor” (in Danish: ‘Gehejmeråd’ or ‘Gehejmeetatsråd’) denoted a top ranking civil servant, advisor to his majesty and with access to matters of state security.
CB: Trap (1810-1885) wrote the amazing work “Trap Denmark”, described more in detail in the footnotes of another letter.
SA: Trap also served as the Director of the Institute for the Deaf-Mutes, and hence was a close cooperating partner of Malling-Hansen. They had worked out a modus operandi which suited RMH excellently: Trap had delegated the task of opening all mail addressed to the director and to decide for himself which issues should be brought to the attention of the director. Trap also entrusted RMH to take all important decisions, as long as Trap was kept informed.

[2] CB: ’p.p.’ indicates ”and all further titles and decorations”

[3] CB: The only other person by the name of Trap in ’The Salmonsen Encyclopedia’ is Cordt Trap (1859-1937), a statistician and economist. He headed the Copenhagen Office of Statistics and wrote a number of books on subjects related to statistics. If RMH’s reference is to him, he must have graduated in 1882 – 23 years old – when the father was 72 years old.