galton.org 165
History of Twins
165
Martin sprang on his grandchild, declaring that he was the thief, and
would have strangled him if he had not been prevented; he then became
steadily worse, complained of violent pains in his head, went out of doors
on some excuse, and tried to drown himself in the river Steir, but was
forcibly stopped by his son, who had watched and followed him. He was
then taken to an asylum by gendarmes, where he died in three hours.
François, on his part, calmed down on the morning of the 24th, and
employed the day in. inquiring about the robbery. By a strange chance, he
crossed his brother’s path at the moment when the latter was struggling
with the gendarmes; then he himself became maddened, giving way to
extravagant gestures and using incoherent language (similar to that of his
brother). He then asked to be bled, which was done, and afterwards,
declaring himself to be better, went out on the pretext of executing some
commission, but really to drown himself in the River Steir, which he
actually did, at the very spot where Martin had attempted to do the same
thing a few hours previously.
The next point which I shall mention in illustration of the extremely
close resemblance between certain twins is the similarity in the
association of their ideas. No less than eleven out of the thirty-five cases
testify to this. They make the same remarks on the same occasion, begin
singing the same song at the same moment, and so on; or one would
commence a sentence, and the other would finish it. An observant friend
graphically described to me the effect produced on her by two such twins
whom she had met casually. She said: “Their teeth grew alike, they spoke
alike and together, and said the same things, and seemed just like one
person.” One of the most curious anecdotes that I have received
concerning this similarity of ideas was that one twin, A, who happened to
be at a town in Scotland, bought a set of champagne glasses which caught
his attention, as a surprise for his brother B; while, at the same time, B,
being in England, bought a similar set of precisely the same pattern as a
surprise for A. Other anecdotes of a like kind have reached me about these
twins.
The last point to which I shall allude regards the tastes and dispositions
of the thirty-five pairs of twins. In sixteen
