Part 3 (1/2)
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No allusion to the bibliography of gesture speech, however slight, should close without including the works of Mgr D De Haerne, who has, as a ian Chamber of Representatives, in addition to his rank in the Ro the cause of education in general, and especially that of the deaf and duns_ has been translated and is accessible to American readers in the _American Annals of the Deaf and Dumb_, 1875 In that valuable serial, conducted by Prof EA FAY, of the National Deaf Mute College at Washi+ngton, and now in its twenty-sixth volue amount of the current literature on the subject indicated by its title can be found
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MODERN USE OF GESTURE SPEECH
Dr TYLOR says (_Early History of Mankind_, 44): ”We cannot lay down as a rule that gesticulation decreases as civilization advances, and say, for instance, that a Southern Frenchestures as a book with pictures, is less civilized than a Gerlishman” This is true, and yet it is alestures to observe the the idea of low culture Thus in Mr Darwin's su up of those characteristics of the natives of Tierra del Fuego, which rendered it difficult to believe theestures” with their filthy and greasy skins, discordant voices, and hideous faces bedaubed with paint This description is quoted by the Duke of Argyle in his _Unity of Nature_ in approval of those characteristics as evidence, of the lowest condition of huesture relative to, and its influence upon the words of eneral culture, it seems established that they do not bear that or any constant proportion to the developesture is still more or less associated
The statehly-advanced languages a necessary e has become so artificial as to be cons--indeed, has been rens be wholly dispensed with The evidence for this statement is now doubted, and it is safer to affiric conditions of the speakers than upon the degree of copiousness of their oral speech
USE BY OTHER PEOPLES THAN NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS
The nearest approach to a general rule which it is now proposed to hazard is that where people speaking precisely the same dialect are not numerous, and are thrown into constant contact on equal teresture is necessarily resorted to for converse with the latter, and remains for an indefinite tie bodies enjoying coners, or, when in contact with the and adoption of their own tongue, beco insular, and now rulers when spread over continents,Italians dwelling in a n rule or to the influx of strangers on whoestures in Italy, especially a the lower and uneducated classes, that utterance without them seems to be nearly i addressed, involuntarily drop the reins or oars, at the risk of a serious accident, to respond with his arue Nor is the habit confined to the uneducated King Ferdinand returning to Naples after the revolt of 1821, and finding that the boisterous multitude would not allow his voice to be heard, resorted successfully to a royal address in signs, giving reproaches, threats, admonitions, pardon, and dismissal, to the entire satisfaction of the asseh probably not the precise manner of its e of an older tumult--
tumultum Composuit vultu, dextraque silentia fecit
This rivalry of Punch would, in London, have occasioned ust The difference in what is vaguely styled temperament does not wholly explain the contrast between the two peoples, for the perfor in an eency and to the aptness of his people, thethat in Italy there was in 1821, and still is, a recognized and cultivated language of signs long disused in Great Britain In seeking to account for this it will be remembered that the Italians have a more direct descent from the people who, as has been above shown, in classic tiesture as a systeenerally before their eyes the artistic relics in which gestures have been preserved
It is a curious fact that solish writers, notably Addison (_Spectator_, 407), have contended that it does not suit the genius of that nation to use gestures even in public speaking, against which doctrine Austin vigorously remonstrates He says: ”There s incline the us, as there are also countries in which plants of excellent use to row spontaneously; these, by care and culture, are found to thrive also in colder countries”
It is in general to be remarked that as the nuestures, though doubtless there is also weight in the fact not e has been reduced to and enerally to read and write, as are the English and Germans, will after a time think and talk as they write, and without the acco Hindus, Arabs, and the less literate of European nations
The fact that in the coe has been maintained until the present time in a perfection not observed elsewhere in Europe land's insularity, and it es have prevailed in the latter, still leaving dialects This apparent siards use of gestures more remarkable, yet there are soreater force than to Great Britain The explanation, through ns dates from the time of Dionysius, the tyrant of Syracuse, who prohibitedhis subjects, under the direst penalties, so that they adopted that expedient to hold communication It would be more useful to consider the peculiar history of the island The Sicanians being its aborigines it was colonized by Greeks, who, as the Roesture than themselves This colonization was also by separate bands of adventurers from several different states of Greece, so that they started with dialects and did not unite in a coanization, the separate cities and their territories being governed by oligarchies or tyrants frequently at ith each other, until, in the fifth century BC, the Carthaginians began to contribute a new ade and blood, followed by Roation Thus soested have existed in this case, but, whatever the explanation, the accounts given by travelers of the extent to which the language of signs has been used even during the present generation are so marvelous as to deserve quotation The one selected is from the pen of Alexandre Duenius for romance into a professedly sober account of travel:
”In the intervals of the acts of the opera I saw lively conversations carried on between the orchestra and the boxes Aranized a friend whom he had not seen for three years, and who related to hie by the eager gestures of reat interest The conversation ended, I asked hience which had seemed to interest hiood friends, who has been away fro me that he was married at Naples; then traveled with his wife in Austria and in France; there his wife gave birth to a daughter, whom he had the misfortune to lose; he arrived by steamboat yesterday, but his wife had suffered so much from sea-sickness that she kept her bed, and he came alone to the play' 'My dear friend,'
said I to Ararant me a favor' 'What is it?' said he 'It is, that you do not leave ive no instructions to your friend, and e join hins' 'That I will,' said Arami The curtain then rose; the second act of Nor recalled, as usual, ent to the side-room, where we met the traveler 'My dear friend,' said Arami, 'I did not perfectly coood as to repeat it' The traveler repeated the story word for word, and without varying a syllable frons; it was marvelous indeed
”Six weeks after this, I saw a second example of this faculty ofwith a young man of Syracuse We passed by a sentinel The soldier and rimaces, which at another time I should not even have noticed, but the instances I had before seen led hed my companion 'What did he say to you?' I asked 'Well,' said he, 'I thought that I recognized him as a Sicilian, and I learned from him, as we passed, from what place he came; he said he was from Syracuse, and that he kneell Then I asked him how he liked the Neapolitan service; he said he did not like it at all, and if his officers did not treat hinified to hiht rely upon me, and that I would aid him all in my power The poor fellow thanked me with all his heart, and I have no doubt that one day or other I shall see him come' Three days after, I was at the quarters of my Syracusan friend, when he was told that a ive his name; he went out and left , 'just as I said' 'What?' said I 'That the poor felloould desert'”
After this there is an excuse for believing the tradition that the revolt called ”the Sicilian Vespers,” in 1282, was arranged throughout the island without the use of a syllable, and even the day and hour for the ns only
Indeed, the popular story goes so far as to assert that all this was done by facial expression, without even ns
NEAPOLITAN SIGNS
It is fortunately possible to produce soe traced from the plates of De Jorio, with translations, somewhat condensed, of his descriptions and re 76--Neapolitan public letter-writer and clients]
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