WIVES ON ALL FOURS.

Thames Star, Volume XII, Issue 3864, 18 May 1881, Page 2

WIVES ON ALL FOURS.

Obeisances mark submission and servile attachment—'• I am your slave, and I love you." At Tonga Tabu the people prostrate themselves, before their chief, and he places his foot on the necks. Some kneel and knock their heads against the ground; some lie flat on their

stomachs; the Siamese crawl. At Java they waddle or jump like, frogs, with their hands on their heels ; and wires in Loagno approach their husband reverentially on all fours. Various degrees of ■tripping take us back to the naked captive as he appears in Egyptian monuments. Servants... Btrip in presence of their chiefs, chiefs in presence of their kings, and the kings as a sign of sabinis« sion to the white man. " Women mast 1 come unclothed into the presence of the Sultan of Melli; and even the Sultan's j own daughters must conform.''v.-K-Ai the Court of Uganda," says Speke, " starknaked, fullgrown women are the valets " .. Stopping to the waist is the" next abridiment witr the Tahilianll baring' the shoulder the next, as on the Gold Coast; remoT, D? Che cloak in Spain, the hat in England, and the last surmal and vanishing point is touching the hat. Perhaps the most curious of all practics is that common one of shakiug hands. Wheu Arabs in the desert meet each kisses his own hand and repents "How art fchbu; "in Yemen each does as \U he wished to kiss the other's .hand, and draws back his own hand to *»<Jid-/r«J. ceiving the same honor." ".Now," jayi Mr Spencer, "if of two persons eaefa wishes to kiss the other's hand, and each out of compliment refuses to have his own band kissed, what happens? Why, there results a raising of the hanfi by each to his own'lips, whilst^thl Other;draws it down;" ttiis is the origin of the, up and down shake of the band, a kind of struggle, hearty and rough as with country folk to this day, abridged into the icy contact, amongst the upper classes, the tendency being to drop it altogether; then- we get languid touch of finger tips ; and, finally, the slight blowing of a kiss on saying good bye.—Herbert -Spencer on " Ceremonials." "