From:
John Brodie Innes
To:
Thomas Sellwood Stephens
Date:
[before 5 May 1862]
Source of text:
DAR 167: 2
Summary:
JBI asks Stephens to ask CD to send particulars of Tegetmeier’s beehives.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
JBI asks Stephens to ask CD to send particulars of Tegetmeier’s beehives.
About Quiz and [Horace Darwin’s] health.
Asks whether CD has tried W. B. Tegetmeier’s beehives.
News of family and friends.
Saw a white rabbit with black-tipped ears on a moor where only brown ones commonly and black ones occasionally dwell.
Family and local news.
Duke of Argyll has been dubbed "Duke Darwinii" by papers.
Large number of toads have been found in railway cuttings; wishes a scientific observer had taken pains to explain where they came from.
Comments on Scottish schools and on the morals of the adult poor.
Family and local news, and memories of old times.
CD’s youngest son, Horace, is too delicate to go to school.
CD has had a bad summer, is still ill, can do very little work – "Botany … is all that I am good for".
Explains "Duke Darwinii" reference [in 4283].
Family news.
Writes of Scottish immorality and pious talk.
Suggests a new school for CD’s son [Horace].
Urges Emma to bring CD to hydropathic establishment at Forres.
Family affairs.
Mrs Innes’ brother-in-law has died.
Recommends a tutor for CD’s son.
Sends school subscription to CD as treasurer. Hopes Henrietta will assist in teaching there.
CD thanks JBI for contribution to Down school.
George [Darwin] has passed his examination at Cambridge;
Henrietta has been poorly.
Congratulates CD on son’s [George’s] distinction [Second Wrangler] at Cambridge.
Writes about difficulties in which S. J. O. Horsman, curate at Down, has involved himself and others. Horsman has said he would resign. JBI offers to give up his interests in the living at Down.
CD writes in detail about difficulties with Horsman’s financial accounts and the affairs of the parish.
Further discussion of the difficulties with S. J. O’H. Horsman [curate at Down].
JBI has been charmed with Variation. Does not think there is really any theological difficulty in the "predestination of variation".
Surprised and pleased JBI liked his "big book" [Variation].
Luckily, naturalists do not seem to think he has committed suicide with the work.
CD wants to turn over the school accounts to John Robinson [curate of Down]. Writes of other parish news.
Will vote in person for Sir John Lubbock.
The election of 1868.
Remarkable deflection of the plummet observed east of Forres.