308 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY chap, xxi 



An incident which diversified one of the Gilchrist lec- 

 tures to working men is thus recorded by the Times of 

 January 23, 1867: — 



A GOOD EXAMPLE. Last night, at the termination of a 

 lecture on ethnology, delivered by Professor Huxley to an audi- 

 ence which filled the theatre of the London Mechanics' Institute 

 in Southampton Buildings, Chancery Lane, the lecturer said 

 that he had received a letter as he entered the building which he 

 would not take the responsibility of declining to read, although 

 it had no reference to the subject under consideration. He then 

 read the letter, which was simply signed " A Regular Attendant 

 at Your Lectures," and which in a few words drew attention 

 to the appalling distress existing among the population out of 

 work at the East End, and suggested that all those present at 

 the lecture that night should be allowed the opportunity of con- 

 tributing id. or 2d. each towards a fund for their relief, and that 

 the professor should become the treasurer for the evening. This 

 suggestion was received by the audience with marks of approval. 

 The professor said he would not put pressure on anyone; he 

 would simply place his own subscription in one of the skulls on 

 the table. This he did, and all the audience coming on the plat- 

 form, threw in money in copper and silver until the novel cash 

 box was filled with coin which amounted to a large sum. A 

 gentleman present expressed a hope that the example set by 

 that audience might be followed with good results wherever 

 large bodies assembled either for educational or recreative 

 purposes. 



At the end of April this year my father spent a week in 

 Brittany with Dr. Hooker and Sir J. Lubbock, rambhng 

 about the neighbourhood of Rennes and Vannes, and com- 

 bining the examination of prehistoric remains with the re- 

 freshment of holiday making. 



Few letters of this period exist. The x Club was doing 

 its work. Most of those to whom he would naturally have 

 written he met constantly. Two letters to Professor 

 Haeckel give pieces of his experience. One suggests the 

 limits of aggressive polemics, as to which I remember his 

 once sajdng that he himself had only twice been the ag- 

 gressor in controversy, without waiting to be personally 

 attacked ; once where he found his opponent was engaged 



