Congratulations [on election to Parliament]; hopes science will not suffer because of politics.

Previously wrote inquiring about savages and suicide, but JL need not hurry to answer.

Suicide is rare among savages [see Descent 1: 94].

The Census Bill is down on the paper for tomorrow; will CD restate how he wants to put the question [on cousin marriages]?

CD would like questions on consanguineous marriages inserted in the Census to ascertain effects, if any, on fertility.

Thanks JL for his book [Origin of civilization (1870)], which he has read with "extreme interest". Wishes JL had published four or five months earlier as CD would have "so profited & saved so much work". CD will have to modify some of what he has written [in Descent]. Sees they differ a good deal about moral sense "but hardly two men ever do agree on this perplexing subject".

JL’s note of the 16th [see 7277] about the Census arrived too late for CD to answer.

Brought forward the "cousin question" in the House; read most of CD’s letter to the House.

Some good men spoke for CD’s amendment, but in vain.

Returns, with thanks, a copy of JL's father's [John William Lubbock] work on lunar theory, and compliments JL on his own writings on prehistoric man.