Characterisation, especially bij Letters 591 



in a way that shall not irritate but be conclusive. I have clone nry best, and I hate newspaper 

 controversy. There is really some spring now in the air, and a snowdrop in the garden, but 

 much that is nasty may happen before spring comes. I suppose your home will be in much 

 beauty even before May. How you will all enjoy it. The account of Guy's motor expenses is 

 very interesting. I see that much effort is being now made to produce small motors at small cost, 

 that will travel at a moderate pace and be good machines. Being one's own chauffeur greatly 

 facilitates matters. My loaned donkey grows lazier and lazier, and more caressing at the same 

 time. If she was not so old, and so prized by her owner, and if neither Eva nor other humani- 

 tarian persons saw me, T should make her "taste stick." Do you know that "walloping" is 

 derived from the names of the two (?) Generals or Admirals (?) who were ancestors of Lord 

 Portsmouth, and who walloped the enemies of England? Best loves. 



Ever affectionately, Francis Galton. 



Meadow Cottage, Brockham Green, Betchworth, Surrey. January 17, 1909. 



1>i;akkst Milly, As to that newspaper correspondence, I enclose my reply of which I have 

 duplicate; please therefore return it when you next write. It is in answer to very positive 

 assertions by two men of Anglo-Indian weight, who ought to have informed themselves more 

 exactly when they wrote. I purposely wrote as civilly as possible. Whether more will follow, 

 I know not. Also, I enclose a short letter of mine in this week's Nature, on quite another 

 subject, "Sequestrated Church Property," which may interest Amy. It arose through Eva's 

 inclination to believe in the supposed curse. Please let me have this back too, when next you 

 write. What interests me the most in this little inquiry is that the average tenure of landed 

 property in England is between 25 and 26 years. Yesterday I had a long letter from Har- 

 court Butler, from India, enthusiastic about the finger-print system. He has indeed succeeded 

 in life, being now Foreign Secretary to the Government of India, though still young. How 

 responsibility brings out character. It seems to have done so with Signorina Cotta. I pity you 

 with your fire-places. You may recollect my own troubles in Rutland Gate many years ago 

 about the kitchen chimney, when I called in an advertising expert who spoke like an oracle : 

 "Sir, I am a practical man and can assure you that all that is wanted is to enlarge the opening 

 of the chimney pot." I allowed him to try, and the chimney smoked as badly, if not worse than 

 before. Then I called in a still greater expert and be began just as the other, "Sir, I am 

 a practical man and can assure you that all that is wanted is to constrict the aperture of the 

 chimney pot." I think that plan also was tried. Anyhow a much more intelligible cause of the 

 fault suggested itself and thai was remedied and all went well. If you could remember, as I do, 

 my dear Bister Adele, your mother, long before you were burn, you would probably have 

 associated her as I often do with the fire-place of her bedroom in Lansdowne Place, which had 

 two hobs, <>n one of which a kettle always stood most conveniently at hand. 



Your ants must be a great interest. Do you yet know the features of any one of them? 

 1 we that Guy's motor account works out at a trifle under 3d. a mile, exclusive of depreciation 

 of the value of the motor. That ought to be included, but I have not a notion of what it is — 

 somewhere between 16 and 20 per cent, of its original cost, 1 suppose, but quere. Eva is gone 

 for two nights to London. Lady Galton is very ill but not worse, and with DO hope of ultimate 

 recovery, for it is senile gangrene. Ever affectionately, Francis G.w/roN. 



.Meadow Cottage, Brockham Green, Betchworth, Surrey. January 31, 1909. 



Dearest Milly, Poor Erasmus! He is so very stoical. When he felt "something give" as 

 he was about to enter the tram and fell on the road, the first thing he said to those who picked 

 him up was, "It's all arranged, and mind I'm to be cremated"! 1 hear that he is as free from 

 pain and as comfortable as may be, but that the broken bone can never heal, so all his habitual 

 walks and independencies must end. I am extremely sorry for him. He somehow seems to me to 

 have failed to get as much interest and "go" in life as his circumstances might have given him. 

 Thanks for returning the newspaper cutting. Sir W. Herschel wrote subsequently a very nice 

 letter to the Times, which I was very glad of, for he of all men can speak out best on the early 

 stages of finger prints in India. 



Why don't you try Charles Darwin's perfectly successful plan of warming your room? The 

 air enters through the wall, behind the fire-grate, into a compartment closed in front and top, 



