Ɛpsilon

To ?   10 May [1866?]1

Down. | Bromley. | Kent. S.E.

May 10th

My dear Sir

Many thanks for your note & kind desire for me not to answer.—2 The case seemed worth enquiry, so I wrote to Mr Dorrell, a head man in Messrs. Clowes enormous establishment3 & he assures me that the difference in apparent length of arms is by no means common with compositors,4 & that when it occurs it is only apparent from one shoulder drooping. Hence compositors often walk with one arm retained in a peculiar position. He says when the apparently unequal arms are measured there is no real difference in their length.— File-makers, I may add, get into a habit of standing in so peculiar a position, that they always speak of one of their legs as the hind leg, even when not at work.—

With many thanks | Yours very sincerely | Ch. Darwin

Endorsement: ‘1866.’

1
The year is conjectured from the endorsement, which is in an unknown hand.
2
The note has not been found.
3
Dorrell was evidently in charge of typesetting at the firm of William Clowes and Sons, printers to CD’s publisher, John Murray; he was probably a member of the family firm Edmund Robson Dorrell & Son, booksellers with premises next to Clowes on Charing Cross (S.W.), London (Post Office London directory 1866). CD later wrote to Dorrell about the printing and typesetting of Descent (letter to Mr Dorrell, 9 August 1870, Calendar no. 7298).
4
CD discussed modifications to the body parts of animals in relation to their use or disuse in Origin, pp. 11, 134–9, Variation 2: 295–303, and Descent 1: 116–21, where he considered the effects of different occupations.

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

1.6 the … unequal] interl

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-5083,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-5083