The Wheeling Daily Register

Hand Shaking.

In the last number of All the Year Round we find the following:

How did people first get in the habit of shaking hands? The answer is not far to seek. In early and barbarous times, when every savage or semi-savage was his own lawgiver, judge, soldier and policeman, and had to watch over his own safety, in default of all other protection, two friends or acquaintances, or two strangers desiring to be friends or acquaintances, when they chanced to meet, offered each to the other the right hand—the hand alike of offense and defense, the hand that wields the sword, the dagger, the club, the tomahawk, or other weapon of war. Each did this to show that the hand was empty, and that neither war nor treachery was intended. A man cannot well stab another while he is engaged in shaking hands with him, unless he be a double-dyed traitor and villain, and strives to aim a cowardly blow with the left, while giving the right and pretending to be on good terms with his victim. The custom of hand shaking prevails, more or less, among all civilized nations and is the tacit avowal of friendship and good will, just as the kiss of a warmer passion.

Ladies, as every one must have remarked, seldom or never shake hands with the cordiality of gentlemen; unless it be with each other. The reason is obvious. It is for them to receive homage, not to give it. They cannot be expected to show to persons of the other sex a warmth of greeting, which might be misinterpreted; unless such persons are very closely related to them by family, or affection; in which cases hand shaking is not needed, and the lips do more agreeable duty.

Every man shakes hands according to his nature, whether it be timid or aggressive, proud or humble, courteous or churlish, vulgar or refined, sincere or hypocritical, enthusiastic or indifferent. The nicest refinements and idiosyncrasies of character may not, perhaps, be discoverable in this fashion, but the more salient points of the temperament and individuality may, doubtless, be made clear to the understanding of most people by a better study of what I shall call the physiology or the philosophy of handshaking.

Some people are too "robustious" to be altogether pleasant. They take the offered hand with the grasp of a vice and as if they had, with malice prepense, resolved to squeeze all the delicate little bones of your knuckles into pulp or minced meat. And while the tears of agony come into your eyes and run down your cheeks, they smile at you benignantly, like gentle giants, unconscious of their strength, and of the tyranny with which they exercise it.

To shake hands without removing the glove is an act of discourtesy, which, if unintentional and thoughtless, requires an apology for the hurry or inadvertence which led to it. This idea would also seem to be an occult remnant of the old notion that the glove might conceal a weapon. Hence true courtesy and friendship required that the hand should be naked as a proof of bona fides.

To refuse pointedly to shake hands with one who offers you the opportunity in a friendly manner amounts to a declaration of hostility. And after a quarrel—or act of open hostility—the acceptance of the hand offered is like the sign and ratification of peace.