From Francis Galton   31 March 1872

5 Bertie Terrace | Leamington

March 31 /72

My dear Darwin

Your letter will be a great encouragement to Crookes & I have forwarded it to him to read, telling him what I had written.1

About the ‘female’—I hesitated a full 10 minutes before inserting the word ‘it’, on the ground that the subject of the story might be identified in after life & that that the knowledge of the trick might damage her marrying value.!2

I do not know if I am over fastidious.— It is purely my own idea—no objection was raised by any of the family. So do entirely as you like.

Very sincerely yrs | Francis Galton

2
See letter to Francis Galton, 29 March [1872] and n. 3. In his report to CD (now missing), Galton had evidently hesitated to name the sex of the grandchild mentioned in his letter of [before 28 March 1872] (Agnes Isabel Butler). The ‘trick’ was an arm movement carried out while sleeping.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-8263,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-8263