Sacramento daily record-union., 1889-06-09
HAND SHAKES.
DISCLOSURES THROUGH THE SCIENCE
OF CHIROGNoMY.
Reading the Incidents of a Life From
the Palm-The Seven
Classes.

the Palm-The Seven
Classes.
By the way, did you ever think of it
that there is right and wrong way OF
hand-shaking, and that, as a rule, the
latter way is rather too popular?
1t is horrible when your unoffending
digits are seized in the sharp compress of
kind of vice and wrung and squeezed
until you feel as if they were reduced to a
jelly. Nor is it less horrible when you
find then lying in limp, nerveless clasp,
which makes no response to your hearty
greeting, but chills you like lump of ice.
Shake hands as if you meant it, swiftly
and courteously, neither using an undue
pressure nor falling wholly supine. You
may judge Of persons character by the
handshake he or she gives. There is the
shake emphatic, the shake aggressive the
shake suspicious, the shake supercillious,
the shake imperative, the shake sympa-
thetic and the shake emotional If you
notice you will see that some persons
thrust forth their hand with a sudden
jerk, and 10 they have taken possession of
your own, and are doing with it as they
will before you have recovered breath.
Others put forward their fingers with an
apparent timidity or reluctance, and COM
pei you to pounce upon them and draw
them toward you in order to perform an
effective shake. Others, again, extend
their hand timidly, partly withdraw it,
and again extend it, until you are uncer-
tain whether or not the act of handshaking
will be performed after all.
Leigh Hunt says that from the first time
he began to notice the manners of people
he observed the errors in the custom of
shaking hands. OF all "shakes," he pre-
ferred the one given by the person whose
face is earnest and whose handshake is long
and close and rejoicing, as if you were an
old friend newly returned from the wilds
of Central America.
So much does handshake reveal, that
blind person can form pretty good idea
of the character Of a person by this means
But, without so much as touching the
hand, the student of chirognomy declares
that he has only to glance at the hands of
his neighbor, whether they be occupied or
quiescent, to arrive at complete analysis
of the general outlines Of the character.
Character may be read from the
features and expression of the face; but
why not from the marks and lines upon
the hand ?' the enthusiastic chirognomist
asks. If he examines your hand closely he
will say, perhaps-as one said to a friend
Of mine" once in your life you were
nearly drowned" and then, without paus-
ing to say whether to be "nearly drowned"
several times again in the course of her
life was to be her fate, he continued: "In
disposition you are bright and Joyous :;
you are very self-willed and act on impulse.
and it was this that made you crush your
first and only love affair. Please do not
correct me. | am certain Of it."
That authority on the subject, Heron
Allen, once astonished the young lady
whom he took out to dinner at a certain
entertainment by remarking, as she drew
off her gloves:
81 hope, Miss -, we shall not bore
one another, for see you paint and don't.
am musical, and see that you are not :;
that is to say, that you prefer catchy
melody to abstruse harmony; that you
prefer Sullivan to Wagner. You have a
will, or rather obstinacy, which will not
let you give in in any argument, however
wrong you may be. This being the case,
you choose subject, and l will discuss it
and be convinced"
"Well," the young lady replied, seeing
that we have known one another about
four minutes, / think this is about the
coolest speech / ever heard, but at the
same time it is marvelously correct and
how did you find it all OUT"
"As you took off your gloves l looked at
you hands"
"What do you mean?" she asked, and at
the same time held up her hands, palms
| uppermost, as if to see there what had
guided him in arriving at summary of
| her character.
beg pardon" continued the chirog-
nomist; "by that motion of your hand |
see | have male a mistake, for you are i'm
aginative-no, not romantic-and so am /.
You have also a painfully keen sense of
the ridiculous, which is also any greatest
misfortune"
| This is a most extraordinary thing"
the young lady returned will you tell
me how you are analyzing me in this per-
sonal but horribly accurate manner ~
It is quite simple" he said, with a
view to choosing subject of conversation.
l looked at your hand by the light of my
favorite science, Chirognomy' By the
conical tips Of your rather square fingers,
and the frmness with which your hand
rested on my arm as we came in, / knew
that you paint. By the want of method
and order shown by your knuckles l saw
that you were not musician and, added
to this, the development of your thumb
shows n good -humored obstinacy"
This is as interesting as fortune-tell-
ing" remarked the young lady. "Suppose
you tell me something about our neigh
bors"
cannot tell much, of course, from a
superficial examination of the external
formation of hand, but, as far as | can
here goes That old gentleman over there
is hard and calculating, but if he has any
near relations they find him amiable away
from his business, which is mechanical and
scientific"
Every true" replied Miss -. "Heis
my uncle; dear old gentleman a civil
engineer of great experience and some
| CSlcDIllN-
"The lady next to him is blue-stock.
ing, presumably spinster accustomed tc
command. The gentleman next to her is
in business, clever and clear-headed man
and hellady on the other side of him is a
pianist, head-strong, but the embodiment
of good nature. She is also inquisitive
and nervous. How are we getting on ?"
"The first lady you pointed out" was
the answer, ais the principal Of girl;
school. That man don't know. The
third is my sister, and there you are quite
right"
The high priests of the science of chirog
nomy divide hands into seven classes
First, the elementary, or large -palmed
second, the necessary, or spatulate hand
third, the artistic, or conical; fourth the
useful, or square; fifth, the philosophical
or knotty; sixth, the psychic, or pointed
seventh, the mixed hand
If your second joints are developed, you
have a well-ordered a&nd if both joint.
1 i