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been terribly hard worked this year, and thought I was going 

 to break down a few weeks ago but luckily I have pulled 

 through. 



I heartily wish that there were the smallest chance of my 

 being able to accept your kind invitation and take part in your 

 great scheme at Calcutta. But it is impossible for me to leave 

 England for more than six weeks or two months, and that only 

 in the autumn, a time of year when I imagine Calcutta is not 

 likely to be the scene of anything but cholera patients. 



As to your plan itself, I think it a most grand and useful one 

 if it can be properly carried out. But you do things on so grand 

 a scale in India that I suppose all the practical difficulties which 

 suggest themselves to me may be overcome. 



It strikes me that it will not do to be content with a single 

 representative of each tribe. At least four or five will be needed 

 to eliminate the chances of accident, and even then much will 

 depend upon the discretion and judgment of the local agent who 

 makes the suggestion. This difficulty, however, applies chiefly if 

 not solely to physical ethnology. To the philologer the oppor- 

 tunities for comparing dialects and checking pronunciation will 

 be splendid, however [few] the individual speakers of each dia- 

 lect may be. The most difficult task of all will be to prevent the 

 assembled Savans from massacring the " specimens " at the end 

 of the exhibition for the sake of their skulls and pelves ! 



I am really afraid that my own virtue might yield if so 

 tempted ! 



Jesting apart, I heartily wish your plans success, and if there 

 are any more definite ways in which I can help, let me know, 

 and I will do my best. You will want, I should think, a physical 

 and a philological committee to organise schemes: (i) for sys- 

 tematic measuring, weighing, and portraiture, with observation 

 and recording of all physical characters; and (2) for uniform 

 registering of sounds by Roman letters and collection of vocabu- 

 laries and gramrnatical forms upon an uniform system. 



I should advise you to look into the Museum of the Societe 

 d' Anthropologic of Paris, and to put yourself in communication 

 with M. Paul Broca, one of its most active members, who has 

 lately been organising a scheme of general anthropological in- 

 structions. But don't have anything to do with the quacks who 

 are at the head of the " Anthropological Society " over here. 

 If they catch scent of what you are about they will certainly 

 want to hook on to you. 



Once more I wish I had the chance of being able to visit 

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