HAND-SHAKING HABIT.

Press, Volume LVIII, Issue 17401, 11 March 1922, Page 9

HAND-SHAKING HABIT.

(From Melbourne "Age. )

Some doctors are up in arms og j the incessant lifting up of our an in order to clasp the hands of o e It is certainly remarkable in these ays, when strikes are so fashionable, ia there has not been a strike agains 0 hand-shaking habit. It is impossi e mention any vseful purpose it serve s , or any artistic effect it achieves. W y no then cut it out? There was some prospect of the reform being initiated when thei P of Wales paid us his visit. iOU member the preposterous amo shaking his hand got? "L j quite sympathetic, but that didn " ter us from struggling for our c to shake it. In Canada he had ius right hand bandaged for days, hi was so sore he couldn't raise it t . head. Of course, he was onlv paying the price of his princedom. The gr ones of earth are no longer a ow ride by in solemn state, the viewing tnem reverently from , a ' ar " mocracy has insisted on drawing » looking to Royalty to dispense handshakes generally. , , e The doctors Bay that the health of both President Roosevelt and Pre • Wilson was directly impaired by strain of the handshaking they had to nnd|ergft. William Jennings Bryan, America's famous orator, cannot sleep for ho.irs afler giving an address, no because of the address, but because of aopreciative handshakes from the pe pie who have been addressed. His doctor explains that a jar is communicated through the right arm to the spine, and not only cracks the m places, but spreads its devastating effects throughout all the communicatinfnn t e h7name of humanity it ought to be stopped, or put under restraint. But the habit is deep-rooted a.nd it isi difficult to see what could be substituted. So many different things have been tried. Kissing, sniffing, bowing, curtseying, prostrating, they are all being practised somewhere on the earth as forms pf greeting It is. of c o^ B6 ' perative that there should be some tacit understanding as to what you are exoected to do when you encounter another of your species.. Wherever human beings meet some fQrm of ceremony is doing servioe. Many romantic people, usually female, secretly believe that kissing is the true form of greeting; that it is a gesture instinctive to all human nature. Ui course it isn't true. It may be sad. to think of it, but the fact is half the world never heard of kissing. The kiss was originally the salute by taste; quite as widespread was the salute by smell. In its primitive form it was a process of sniffing in order to determine the qualities of the stranger; it has now developed into the rubbing of noses as the Maoris practice it. Similarly the salute of taste has developed jnto the pleasant amorous, exercise called kissmg. There is good reason for hoping that we shall yet get rid of much of our hand-shaking. Look completely ,we have got rid of male kissing male* Once it was never omitted. The .nj® 11 of ancient Greece and Rome and of the Orient kissed each other on'the cheek • the Frenchman will do it to you today, if you "will only let him. The early Christians carried over the IKabit into their ceremonies. . But they spoiled it by overdoing it. The men practised it so freely on all the pretty unmanned —and married—women in the congregations that the superiors had to interfere. Thev said that if they were so very keen" on kissing, the men could practise on each other, the women on women. That prompt stopped _it. The women, however, have kept up tne practice pretty well with eacih other, and'when circumstanoes are favourably and he happens to be agreeable, with an occasional' male. Happily it has been cut out entirely between men. Which is just as well. It must have been a savourless business at best. ; With the kissing cut, out some other, form of salutation had to be found; so our practice of shaking hands began to appear first in the Middle Ages. The r.ncients did not shake hands: they struck hands; to this day a mere touch of the palms satisfies the ceremonial requirements of the Arabs on this score. Grasping the hand!appears first in antiquity as a legal act, symbolical of the parties joining in some compact, always friendly and matrimonial usually. « passed from that into a relijnnus form of giving, the right hand of fellowship. It was then an easy transition into a time-wasting ceremonies. Take bowing, for instance. How the ancient Israel ites must have, loved H f a ° t °wround nothing of bowing himself to the ground seven times simply on meeting a brother he hadn't, seen for some little time. There was an orgy of the bowing and scraping business among the dandies ot the eighteenth century; there was quite 'an elaborate etiquette attached to it, too We seem to have speeded up things since then.. In business hours we barely have time for the passing nod and the curt "How do?" An2 even in social hours our girls must be much more sensible than their eighteenth century predecessors. It is certain they don't want their time wasted with ceremonial frills. Come to think of it, shaking the hand of a lady is a curiously anomalous process. Contact with her hand is expected of you; try to establish contact with her tips, and her husband or the police will interfere with you. Yet is there any essential difference between touching lightly ft woman's hand ana touchina lightly & woman's lips? Obviously not. Jt is all a matter of custom. The marvel is that woman has not herself got rid of the public hand-shake as completely as she has got rid .of the public, kiss. . Some women take an extraordinary pride in their hands; often enough they are warranted. The hand may be a thing of beauty and a sure index of character, and every woman who respects her hands is entitled to ask exemption ,froifl the amateur palmmassaging to which she is expected to pubmit in discharging what -is foolishly considered a necessary social convention. .

- The amount of hand-shaking some of US undergo would never harm anyone. That ia one of the blessings that console us for obscurity; so few people want to pump-handle our hand. But there are people who must avoid the practice as a prudential measure. Your nrst-class violinist or pianist could scarcely afford to have his fingers indiscriminately pressed and twisted by crazy enthusiasts. The delicate touch, of the surgeon is imperilled every time he places his hand within some bearlike paw as a sacrifice to the senseless fetish of shaking hands. For the variety of hands and shakes is infinite, and we all have our particular preferences and aversions. If you are sensitive to touch, as some people especially are, a hand-grip can be to you a most eloquent thing. Such joyful vitality there is in some, such coldness and flabbiness in others. Some men, they are often enough complete strangers grip your hand vice-like, and Bhake it as if you were a long-lost brother. Some slip their hand away before you can clasp it, as if they wero sure you had a deadly fever. Nothing is more irritating than to feel threo frigid fingers touch you and hastily retreat, as if their owner were conscious of being soiled in body and soul by the momentary contact with inferior human material. And few can make you feel such a fool as the gawky girl who listlessly gives you her hand to shake and is too listless to withdraw it agam, (Continued At loot of Nest Column.)

leaving you to deposit it safely at her side once more as if it were a parcel. The old slap-your-back, work-your-arm-out-of-ifcs-socket hand shake was onoe greatly admired. You scarcely meet it now. It is not merely goingit has gone. And it has gene unregretted. It waii never more than an affectation, and it has long since been found out. 'And as these violent forms of salutation have disappeared, so, gradually, will the more tepid. The future generations will be intensely practical, and only those things which can justify their existence by their utility or their beauty will be spared. .Hand-djaking, therefore, will go. But, of course, human hands will continue to clasp', soft and dainty some pairs strong ana shapely other pairs. Hands like these were meant to meet, not for.shaking, but for squeezing. And for youthful hands that is a perfectly lawful and extremely agreeable form of ocoupation. *