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Bush Advocate, Volume V, Issue 354, 16 August 1890, Page 11

Is tho polite lifting of the hat ns a form of salutiition a sign of our own gentility or a sign of ancestral slavery? A learned German, in an interesting Speneerinn essay in tho Oarlvnlaiibc, has been taking the latter view. lie derives it from tho old custom of the nn-frce man uncovering his shorn head before tho free man, in order. to exhibit the outward and visible sign of his un-freedom. The tonsure, whether of a slave or of a monk,belongs to that series of partial mutilations which indicated that tho mail was the servant of a lord who held tho powers of life and death over him. Tho owner of tho man, whether. Divmo or human, had accepted a Bym bolieal Bacrinco instead of an actual and total eacrifico to which he had a right. Hence, we never raise our hats in compliment without bearing unconscious witness to our prehistoric and barbaric ancestry. It belongs to tho conception of a sacrifice, says Dr. Buchwald, that its receiver also has a title to the use of it as food. Heuco he concludes that when wo courteously uncover our heads to a fellow-man we virtually tell him that he has the right of a cannibal god or chief over us, and may eat us if he pleases.