The fore, middle, and ring-fingers of the right hands of the father, mother, and all their accessible children, in many families, were severally tabulated under the fifty-three heads already specified. The total number of children was 389, namely 136 sons and 219 daughters. The same pattern was found on the same finger, both of a child and of one or other of his parents, in the following number of cases:-- TABLE XXIX. _Relative Influence of Father and Mother._ +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | |Fore.|Middle.|Ring.|| Totals. | Corrected | | | | | | || | Totals. | | |---------------------|-----|-------|-----||---------|-----------|-----| | Father and son | 17 | 35 | 28 || 80 | 80 |}149 | | " " daughter | 29 | 52 | 30 || (111) | 69 |} | | | | | || | | | | Mother and son | 18 | 50 | 26 || 94 | 94 |}186 | | " " daughter | 38 | 75 | 35 || (148) | 92 |} | +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ The entries in the first three columns are not comparable on equal terms, on account of the large difference between the numbers of the sons and daughters. This difference is easily remedied by multiplying the number of daughters by 136/219, that is by 0.621, as has been done in the fifth column headed Corrected Totals. It would appear from these figures, that the maternal influence is more powerful than the paternal in the proportion of 186 to 149, or as 5 to 4; but, as some of the details from which the totals are built up, vary rather widely, it is better for the present to reserve an opinion as to their trustworthiness. CHAPTER XII RACES AND CLASSES The races whose finger prints I have studied in considerable numbers are English, pure Welsh, Hebrew, and Negro; also some Basques from Cambo in the French Pyrenees, twenty miles south-east of Bayonne. For the Welsh prints I am primarily indebted to the very obliging help of Mr. R. W. Atkinson, of Cardiff, who interested the masters of schools in purely Welsh-speaking mountainous districts on my behalf; for the Hebrew prints to Mr. Isidore Spielman, who introduced me to the great Hebrew schools in London, whose head-masters gave cordial assistance; and for the Negro prints to Sir George Taubman Goldie, Dep. Governor of the Royal Niger Co., who interested Dr Crosse on my behalf, from whom valuable sets of prints were received, together with particulars of the races of the men from whom they were made. As to the Basques, they were printed by myself.