PHYSICAL PREJUDICES. (Spectator )

Waikato Times, Volume I, Issue 120, 11 February 1873, Page 2

PHYSICAL PREJUDICES. (Spectator )

jfii^Rß nrc hundreds of person? m Great Britain who at one tune looked two «ajs at once and now look straight, yet no alteration has (aken place m their moral characters. The idea is, in fact, a mere prejudice, arising from, the notion that if a man cannot look you" straigKfc in the face he must bo dishonest, a notion only true when the inability arises from a momentary operation of the mind. The dislike woul.?" extend to one-eyed men, does so indeed in some minds, but lhat it is usually overborne by" the means of pity for a misibrtune. It is of a piece w ith the 6trong prejudice existing in sonic places against half-handedncss, a peculiarity usually an accident or habit, and as absolutely without connection • with the- character a3 any other not strange cnougb to arouse in its possessor' that passion' of self-pity, and therefore of fiivy, which is the key to^hc malignity constantly, and in thousands of case? falsely, attributed *to hiufchbacks. It probably has its origin in somo remote connection with the belief, once nearly universal, tnat'tlie "rfgnt" was the lucky, side, the one approved by divinities, — a belief still embalmed in our own habitual use of the word "sinister," which mcfans Cliffy '"loft," but' Dears with it the impression of the old doctrine of the Augurs that the "left" was the unlucky, and therefore bad side of things, the side on which omens should not appear The other prejudice on this subject, that left-handed men are unusually strong, is, we believe, equally ill-founde 1, and nrtses from an]obbeiva'ion cf cases in wh clic 1 i men have an unusual facility in using both hands — as monkeys oTcarlyiiave — or from surprise at an unexpected method" of attack,'— the secret, we imagine, of the success of lefthanded bowling. The existence of this particular fancy is the more odd, because m popular slang a "left-hnnded way" of doing tilings means an awkward way of doing them, and nurses carefully correct' any tendency to the hrbit which we should add, seems to be much rprer in women than in men. The existence of "a dislike for any visible malformation is intelligible enoufelC as is" also the attribution of bad qualities to that which istlisliked — eg , the popular notion of the innate" ferocity of'th'o dumb— but it is not so ensy to explain the maa* of latent prejudices about the colour of the hair and eyes, prejudices from which we venture to say no cultivated man is entirely f 1 cc. It is nearly impossible to believe that any relation can exist been character and the colour of the hair or eyes, yet thousands of otherwise intelligent persons are influenced by such 'notions in their daily life. Every conceivable variety of 'character exists Mirrfng the peoples of Southern Asia, including India, yet it may be said, speaking -broadly, and allowing for disease, or' albinoism, or other accidental peculiarity, all hair and all eyes among those tens of millions are of one and the same colour. Both, though varying in every other respect, are always black. . Yet in spite of this and of every-day experience, Englishmen do constantly associate colour in hair and eyes with moral qualities and mental capacities, and this from mere prejudice, without attemptto formulate a thepry. The n,otioP(f, for example, that sandy-haired people are weakly deceitful, that red-haired people — the true bright red— are exceptionally malignant, especially, if pock-marked, and that people with steel-blue eyes are unfeeling, are almost immovable by any amount of evidence So is the notion, consecrated in Dickens' writings, that cadaverous people .are cruel — they are often exceptionally gentle— and this other, which has passed into a proverb, that the special shade of grey whirh is' Cdn- : deinned as~green tVidieates envious acerbity. There is not the faiutcst reason for that belief, which Shakespeare possibly entertained — though: in " Troifns and t'ressida" he says "the eagle that not' so greeny so fair an eye as Paris hath," making of the colour a merit — anil which so angers Mi Trollope that in his last novel he sings a hymn ti'bout green eyes as tokens of an affectionate nature. The whclb thedry is knocked on the head at once by George Eliot's remark, that people often inherit features without their original meaning-,- the physique having been transmitted but not the other character, and by the evident mutability of popular impressions in the matter. A villain' is now usually red aud with deficient eyelashes, but formerly 116 was always dark and beetle-browed, a prejudice st.ill visible in those queer books, most of them extremely oftl, which profess to explain dreams and help fools to see their future. If we are not mistaken, there exists at this moment a quite definite impression that brown men arc abler than fair men ; an impression for which the only visible foundation is thu, that brown men in England have usually somo touch of Southern, or Celtic, or Jewish blood, and we are apt, therefore, to be a little more vivacious. Quite half the men now- at the head of affairs in England are rery fail- men', and one, certainly not inferior' in mere intellectual force to any of them, has always had white hair ; while* of the four greatest poets only one can be called dark, and lit 1 ' is not rrfveh-hairech There are no statistics to quote, of bourse, but tho probability is that the majority of English great men, like the majority of tho populatyn, have feeeii brown-haired, •rfith eyes some shade of grey — though the faucy that induces novelists to invest all their soldiers with keen grey eyes is a fallacy, most of the great soldiers having been brown or black' eyed men. There can be no, move reality in the queer prejudices of most brown men and women that blorid6 women are "shallow-hearted," for if it were true herie it would be true in Gfermany, where tho ablest peojilo b£licve,-ngairf without reason, exactly tho contrary. This particular pr>ju"dico' is tho more unaccountablo if, ai js uslialy believed, the tendency of men and women is to admire tho. type, particularly as to complexion, to which they do n»t belong. To account for su<»h prejudices is as difficult n4 to dissipate them, but we presume their original source was race-hatred, retained after its reason bad disappeared, and after races hnd become so mixed, that in obedience to the law of ata\ ism, pcoplo of the sane family, same capacities, and same character will present half a dozen different types'"

Otrn Naval St T rnniAcr — It may bo our dutv — and we do riot deny tbo truth, because it is unpleasant — to build more sea-going, rigged vessels, superior in character and combat iveness tojanv we already pos<e=is, even to that Mlenoir Pi tor Ihe Great But there are two wn}B of putting the, thing, and Mr Reed ha* chosen the one most offensive to patriotic Englishmen. We must (to it, he say*, to regiin the lead, to restore our single-ship supremacy. We (Broad Arrow) prefer putting the thing in another form. If it be ft' duty, it must be done because? we are supreme, not becniisc we have ceased to be so. There must, bo pride in it, not becanso we are quivering with fear, but beciiu°e we ha^e to develop pur resources to meet changing conditions, and our liitest efforts should embody (he last results of both science and experience. To be goaded into recltlcs* histe is surely as bad as being a little slow, and where other Powers move by spasm, we bhall not be wise to imitate their example, lest we submit our claims to a narrow and temporary test, and illustrate bv a weak contention, the philosophy of tho wins aphorism that "contiwcvj cquaUiOs Ujao toen aud fools, aild too fool» kuotr it. 1 '