bject, and is the same gesture that now
indicates _theft_ in Naples, Fig. 74, and among some of the North
American Indians, Fig. 75. The pictorial propriety of the sign is
preserved by the apparent desire of the traitor to obtain the one
white loaf of bread on the table (the remainder being of coarser
quality) which lies near where his hand is tending. Raffaelle was
equally particular in his exhibition of gesture language, even
unto the minutest detail of the arrangement of the fingers. It is
traditional that he sketched the Madonna's hands for the Spasimo di
Sicilia in eleven different positions before he was satisfied.

[Illustration: Fig. 74.]

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 member of the Belgian Chamber of Representatives, in
addition to his rank in the Roman Catholic Church, been active in
promoting the cause of education in general, and especially that of
the deaf and dumb. His admirable treatise _The Natural Language of
Signs_ 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. E.A. FAY, of the National Deaf Mute College
at Washington, and now in its twenty-sixth volume, a large amount of
the current literature on the subject indicated by its title can be
found.

[Illustration: Fig. 75.]

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 Frenchman, because his talk is
illustrated with gestures as a book with pictures, is less civilized
than a German or Englishman." This is true, and yet it is almost
impossible for persons not accustomed to gestures to observe them
without associating the idea of low culture. Thus in Mr. Darwin's
summing up of those characteristics of the natives of Tierra
del Fuego, which rendered it difficult to believe them to be
fellow-creatures, he classes their "violent gestures" 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 humanity.

Whether or not the power of the visible gesture relative to, and
its influence upon