tJ8 TAfi' and Ltttera of Francis Galtott 



of our M-'ifutilic luen liavc been n-oorded in the weekly press, and ihc want of a weekly organ 

 which would afford soicntitic nii-n n. nutans of rotnmunication between themselves and with the 

 public, have been lonj{ felt." 



The aim of The Readier, without neglecting Literature, Art, Music and 

 the I>rama, was to supply this need. The pros|)ectu8 then goes on to say 

 that "the scientitic arnmgenients of Tfw Ifendcr \ui\e the siij)j)ort and ap- 

 proval of" — and then follow 75 names, which cover practically all the men 

 who created mid- Victorian science: Darwin, Galton, Grove, Hooker, Huxley, 

 Lubbock, Lyell, Murchison, Sabine, Sjwttiswoode, Tyiidall and Wallace; 

 Adams, Balfour Stewart, Cayley, Crookes, Ue la Hue, Frankland, Glaisher, 

 Hind, Hirst, Hofmann, Maskelyne, Odling, Roscoe, Stokes, Tait, William 

 Thomson (Lord Kelvin) and Williamson ; Babington, G. Bentham, G. Busk, 

 John Evans, W. H. Flower, Andrew llamsay, Sclater, Sharpey and Woodward, 

 with many other names familiar enough to the scientific world of the third 

 quarter of the nineteenth century. 1 1 was a tremendous force to bring together, 

 and, all l)ecause there was no one man who would devote his whole life and 

 whole energy to the projected task, T/ie Header came to nought. 



The original shareholders in the company were G. Burges, J. E. Cairns, 

 Rev. LI. Davies, Galton, Gassiot, Huth, T. Hughes, Huxley, Lubbock, 

 Lockyer, Robins, Roget, Spottiswoode, Spencer and Tyndall ! 



The first meeting was held in the looms of Tom Hughes' in Lincoln's Inn 

 Fields on Nov. 15, 1864, and the rough notes of the proceedings are in 

 Gralton's handwriting. £2250 were to be paid for the paper, plant and lease. 

 Cairns was to take charge of the Political Ex;onomy, Galton of Travel and 

 Ethnology, Huxley of Biology, Lewes of Fiction and Poetry, Spencer and 

 Bowen of Philosophy, Psychology and Theology, while Seeley was to be asked 

 to take charge of Classics and Philology. There were to be ten pages of Lite- 

 rature, three of Miscellanea, eight of Science, two of Art, and two of Music 

 and the Drama. Four thousand copies were to be printed at a weekly cost of 

 £110 including printing, paper, publication and office expenses. The returns 

 were modestly estimated at sales 2000 copies ,£25 and advertisements £65, 

 80 that an initial loss weekly of £20 was anticipated. It made a brave show 

 on paper — Tom Hughes' familiar legal blue 'opinion' paper — but the outcome 

 was a little different. Herbert Spencer wasted the time of the committee in 

 discussing 'first principles'; the powerful scientific support failed when it was 

 pressed for reviews and articles, the paid sub-editor, the only man with ' real 

 journalistic experience,' rather got on the nerves of the managing committee 

 through his methods of procuring advertisements. Learned but illegible con- 

 tributors sternly remonstrated with the editors about the inadequate and 

 imaginative efforts of the proof-readers. The reviewere knew in some cases more 

 of the subject than the authors of the books reviewed, and as a consequence the 

 latter wrote long and angry letters to TTie Header. Notably Burton, within a 

 few months of Speke's death, replying to a review of his own Nile Basin, pre- 

 sumably by Galton, sent a truculent letter carrying on j)ost-nioi'tevi hosiWitiea. 

 The critic, Burton tells us, ought to have known that his theory was one of the 



' The author of Tom Broum't Schooldays. 



