Summary

Brought forward the "cousin question" in the House; read most of CD’s letter to the House.

Summary

Suicide is rare among savages [see Descent 1: 94].

Summary

The Census Bill is down on the paper for tomorrow; will CD restate how he wants to put the question [on cousin marriages]?

Summary

Some good men spoke for CD’s amendment, but in vain.

Summary

CD would like questions on consanguineous marriages inserted in the Census to ascertain effects, if any, on fertility.

Summary

Thanks JL for his book [Origin of civilization (1870)], which he has read with "extreme interest". Wishes JL had published four or five months earlier as CD would have "so profited & saved so much work". CD will have to modify some of what he has written [in Descent]. Sees they differ a good deal about moral sense "but hardly two men ever do agree on this perplexing subject".

JL’s note of the 16th [see 7277] about the Census arrived too late for CD to answer.

Summary

Congratulations [on election to Parliament]; hopes science will not suffer because of politics.

Previously wrote inquiring about savages and suicide, but JL need not hurry to answer.

Summary

John Lubbock has nearly finished his Thysanura book [Monograph of the Collembola and Thysanura (1873)].

Summary

Is glad John Lubbock made the fight he did [to amend Census Bill to enable insertion of questions on consanguineous marriages].

Summary

Thanks for HHV’s interest in the census [CD’s plan to add questions on consanguineous marriage to the census] on which CD hopes to persuade Sir J. Lubbock to speak.

Summary

Discusses the Census Bill and CD’s attempt to get questions on consanguineous marriage added to the census.

Summary

Discusses germination of charlock after a long interval.

Summary

Describes the unusual appearance of a horse whose mother had previously borne a foal by a quagga. The effect of one mating on the subsequent pregnancy of another mating is explained by JJW using Pangenesis.

Summary

Reports on the 1870 BAAS meeting at Liverpool. Huxley’s address was over the heads of the laymen.

Tyndall’s was eloquent to listen to, disappointing to read.

George Rolleston’s "Rococo" address [Nature 2 (1870): 423–7, 442–6].

Murchison.

Lyell.

Has done an immense lot of work.

Regrets CD has not kept the simple title "Origin of man" [for Descent].

Summary

The Negro’s idea of beauty is the same as white man’s.

Believes the Jollops select for blackness.

Native immunity from coast fever is not complete.

Has found stone instruments.