From G. H. Darwin 6 February 1874
Trin Coll
Feb. 6 74
My dear Father,
I have been intending to write for some days but have had such an enormous lot of letters to write that I kept putting off. I have sent you off my copies of Dr. Mitchell’s pamphlet & of another by him which you may like to see.1 You can let me have them back when you have done with them, as I shall not want them until I’m working up my results.—2 I have received some statistics from Reg. Gen.3 & find that cousin marriages are at least 3 times as freqt. in our rank as in the lower! This fully explains the Hanwell results when the percentage was very small.—4 I shall send you a whole flight of letters in a few days to send out to Dr. C Brown’s introducees.5 I must try to get hold of some cancer, phthisical &.c Hospitals too. I think I shall get interestg. results now.—
I came down last Tuesd. to go to Gen. Strachey’s—6 I was unluckily very bad on Monday & Tuesday, but cheered up a good deal in the evening & so by eating v. little dinner got thro’ wonderfully & enjoyed myself. F. Galton7 was there Lady Colvill (wife of Indian judge & Sister of Mrs. Strachey—friend of Lubbocks—lively & pleasant but I do’nt think very wise) Mr. & Mrs. Allman—a Mrs. Johnson & a Col. Johnson(?) brother & sister—not husbd & wife & so it was a very pleasant party.8 After dinner I had some map talk with G. & Str; & we’ve settled to have the pentagon & hexagon plan constructed, tho’ I shd have liked one of the other plans rather better in some ways9
F.G. did’nt seem surprized at Huxley’s discovery of Wms.’ imposture & said he knew he was a cheat, but seemed inclined to think that there is an unexplained residuum10
I stayed the night there & came up in the morng. with Gen. S. to town, where I lunched with Uncle R.11 whom I fd. very lively; & came down here again by an afternoon train.
I have on the whole been baddish since I’ve been back tho’ with a good day or two & better for the last 2 days & decidedly better nights than for 3 weeks back. The temp. in my bedroom is 38o or 39o12 at night, but I pile on the clothes & wrap an old shawl round my head & so keep tol. warm—but I wish it wd. get warm We’ve been having dense fogs but today is lovely. Maxw.13 has begun his lectures, but I don’t think there will be any laboratory work yet.
In Italy cousin marrs. are p. cent! but then uncles marry nieces there wh. partly replaces it no doubt14
Yrs affectly | G H Darwin
Footnotes
Bibliography
Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.
Mitchell, Arthur. 1865. Blood-relationship in marriage considered in its influence upon the offspring. Memoirs read before the Anthropological Society of London 2 (1864–5): 402–56. [Also published in Edinburgh Medical Journal 10 (1865–6): 781–94, 894–913, 1074–85, under the title ‘On the influence which consanguinity in the parentage exercises upon the offspring’.]
Summary
Finds statistical evidence that cousin marriages are at least three times as frequent in "our rank" as in the lower.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-9268
- From
- George Howard Darwin
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- Trinity College, Cambridge
- Source of text
- DAR 210.2: 33
- Physical description
- ALS 4pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 9268,” accessed on 20 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-9268.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 22