Lelirjahre and Wanderjahre 121 



please write shortly and tell me all the news and his present plans. I shall also want 

 £10 (the Governor told me to apply to you), which please send soon as I am in some 

 want of it. I have to invest in several new books owing to my attending perfectly new 

 subjects for lectures. Don't forget to tell the Governor in your 7iext letter that you 

 have given it to mo. Also please tell him that tlie lectures that I am attending 

 are 1. Botany at King's College, 2. Forensic Medicine, 3. Chemical Manipulation, 

 4. Surgical Operations, and 5. Botany under Lindley' at the Chelsea Botanical Gardens, 

 only twice a week. I do not attend the Civil Engineering Classes as it would be too much 

 I think to do well''; neither do I dissect as I had previously intended, because I can only 

 get pickled subjects, and also because there is an immense deal of microscopifying 

 required in Vegetable Physiology, to which, it seems to me, that I had better at present 

 give my time. I like my summer course very much indeed, it is not half such hard 

 work as the Winter Course, and much more amusing, and two good prizes open to me 

 at the end of the course, viz. Botany and Forensic Medicine. 



I received a letter from Bessy the other day, who told me that she had just had 

 a letter from Delly, who assumed the honour of sending her (Bessy) the first glutinous 

 stamp, but Delly not being very expert, the stamp did not stick on, and so Bessy had to 

 pay double Postage. 



Oh, Delly! Delly 1 your congratulatory letters with regard to the reduced Postage 

 System have been singularly unfortunate ; in case of any fresh alteration, please don't 

 write to me. 



Good bye. Your aflfectionate son, 



Fras. Galton. 



P.S. Mrs and Miss Hodgson are just gone to Brighton to recruit from the Hooping 

 Cough (no vicious w, you observe, to my Hooping Cough'). How are Darwin and 

 Claverdon getting on ? 



On Tertius Galton's return in June there was a good deal of corre- 

 spondence about expenses. Francis had not been really extravagant, 

 but he had taken his accounts to Paris to show to his father, he had 

 not shown them and then he had lost them I Further, he did not 

 always promptly acknowledge the receipt of remittances and Tertius' 

 training as a banker demanded absolute punctuality in these matters. 



' Lindley was Professor of Botany at University College (1829 — 1860), and 

 attracted large classes. He was also lecturer on Botany to the Apothecaries Company 

 at Chelsea (1836 — 1853). He was a botanist of great distinction, and it is plea-sant to 

 think of Galton attending his Chelsea lectures. 



- This is the first evidence of Francis Galton's interest in Engineering. No 

 earlier reference to the possibility of attending these lectures has been found, and 

 it is probable that mechanical rather than civil engineering would have specially 

 interested him. 



' Francis Galton appears to have hit oflf the older form (see on the point Skeat and 

 Johnson). Or was it the French tour ? 



H. <i. 16 



