He may have, this prehistoric man, this Cave-dweller, chattered like a monkey in a patois understood only by his own family; but what is more reasonable to suppose than that the Drift-men of the marshes and coastlines had only a restricted use for vocal sounds, sign-language being expressive enough to meet their few wants? Meagre social conditions, peculiar isolation, savagery, strife for life, call for no complex language, but sign-language has the authority of people living on the globe to-day, not only amongst uncivilised races, but traces are seen in our very midst. The few examples of custom and signs given below will better illustrate the force of the statement. "Amongst the Uvinza, when two grandees meet, the junior leans forward, bends his knees, and places the palms of his hands on the ground, one on either side his feet, while the senior claps hands over him six or seven times." In the morning among the Walunga all the villagers turn out, and a continuous clapping is kept up to the vocalisation of a shrill "Kwi-tata?" or "How do you do?" Two special signs for "good" are in the sign-vocabulary of the North American Indians, and are worth recording. The person greeting holds the right hand, back up, in front of and close to the heart, with the fingers extended and pointing to the left. Another habit is that of passing the open right hand, palm downwards, from the heart, towards the person greeted. A stranger making his appearance on the frontier line of an Indian camp seldom fails to recognise the true sentiment of the chief's salutation, the extended fingers on the left side meaning-- "You are near my heart--expect no treachery," a most solemn surety; while the hand sent from the heart towards the visitor seems to say-- "I extend hospitality to you." The "attingere extremis digitis" of the Romans expressed the same temperate conduct. But greeting by gesture and hand-clapping still live, and are discovered in the first lessons given by a mother to her babe. "Clap hands, papa comes," and "Pat a cake, pat a cake, my little man, Yes, I will, mother, as fast as I can" have a universal significance in Child Land. Unfortunately this survival of hand-clapping, a vestige of a habit belonging to primitive people, does not begin and end in our modern nursery. "When I was a child I spake as a child, but when I became a man I put away childish things," is a resolve daily forgotten. In the theatre, when our sentiment is awakened by the craft of the stage player, we show approbation by a round of hand-clapping not one whit less savage than the habit of the Uvinza grandee or the good-morning among the Walunga tribe. "O wad some Power the giftie gie us To see oursels as others see us!"