Eugenics as a Creed and the Last Decade of Galton's Life 377 



Crown Hotel, Lyndhurst. March 18, 1909. 



My dear Karl Pearson, Excuse pencil. The demon lumbago has planted beak and claws 

 into my loins and sent me helplessly to bed. I have a good doctor and a skilful man-nurse, 

 besides my niece and her maid. Also this hotel is most comfortable, so there is no cause for 

 murmuring. 



Hartog will fix some day for the Committee in the latter half of May that will fit in with 

 other work. He is much pleased, as well he should be, with the work done under your super- 

 vision at the Eugenics Laboratory. What an immense amount of information, closely packed, 

 there is in the Treasury ! I congratulate you heartily upon it. Excuse more for I write under 

 difficulty. 1 am curious to learn how you will arrange about the Laboratory during your holiday 

 absence, which I trust will be both enjoyable and healthful. It is good news that Heron lectures 

 so well and is so promising. 



The " Bull and the Earl "• — I suggested it for a vignette, if arrangement could be made, in 

 the new Review. M. Crackanthorpe rose to the idea, but I don't know what will come of it. 

 I wonder whether you noted a most Eugenic undertaking in last week's Spectator, signed by 

 (Lady) Constance Grosvenor. I sent it — just in time — to M. Crackanthorpe for the Review. It 

 is worth reading and digesting. 



Ever affectionately but crippled now, Francis Galton. 



Hampstead. March 20, 1909. 



My dear Francis Galton, I am indeed sorry to hear of the lumbago and I know by recent 

 experience, how trying it is. The only point I know in its favour is that it goes as quickly and 

 mysteriously as it comes ! And I trust this will be your case. Curiously enough only a post 

 or two earlier I heard from my chief craniological worker — Dr Crewdson Benington — that the 

 fiend had seized him. I don't think you need anticipate that I shall be a long time away, 

 probably I shall only try to get a complete summer holiday. I have got Dr Goring and two 

 assistants coming on May 1st for a year to reduce the measurements made on the criminals in 

 H.M. Prisons. It will be a gigantic piece of work as there are about 40 characters, physical, mental 

 and moral, in more than 3000 criminals, and it ought to be the first real piece of criminal 

 anthropometry effectively reduced and discussed. The Treasury are paying for the assistants and 

 granting Dr Goring a year to do his work in. This will keep me fairly closely at it, and it ought 

 to throw light on many Eugenics questions. It is the first "semi-official" recognition of our 

 statistical laboratory. 



I am rather anxious to see what support the Treasury meets with. We have made a bigger 

 venture than anything since Biometrika was started, and I don't know whether the medicals 

 will rise to the occasion. Let me have a card to say how you get on. 



Affectionately, Karl Pearson. 



Crown Hotel, Lyndhurst. March 22, 1909. 



My dear Karl Pearson, The lumbago, after one week in bed, is " mysteriously disappear- 

 ing." Allah be praised ! ! 



I write now about the Eldertons' little elementary book, for the cost of publication of which 

 I am responsible. It never occurred to me before, but the Eugenics Education Society are just 

 the people to publish it. It is exactly in their way. They have published several essays and are 

 about to republish mine (I received a letter this morning), and as the writing of the Eldertons' 

 book was due to the suggestion in my Oxford lecture, it would come into their series of publi- 

 cations with aptness. 



Thank you for all you tell me. We shall be turned out of this hotel about the end of March 

 by a crowd of hunting men who make a practice of coming to the New Forest in April. 

 Whether I then return to town, or stay out longer, depends much on the caprices of the 

 mysterious lumbago. It is wonderful what capable and well educated young' doctors one finds 

 now in such small places as this. Ever affectionately yours, Francis Galton. 



I am writing to Miss Elderton. 



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