Is Handshaking A

Foul Habit?

Letter to the Editor.

WE beg - to bring to your attention and solicit the aid of your valuable journal in propagating the prin ciples of an institution now forming at Tahiti—viz.: The Society for the Aboli tion of Miscellaneous Hand Shaking.

Thfs custom, we believe, originated— in an age when everyone had to be wary —as. a sign that neither carried weap ons in the right or sword hand.

The inventor of this practice little knew that he was setting loose on hu manity weapons vastly more deadly than any claymore or skull-cleaver which, could be brought to bear on an enemy at that period of enlightenment.

We first learned of these invisible and potent instruments of destruction when, as a student, we sat at the feet of an eminent profession of bacteriology. This learned instruction used to make our hair stand on end by reciting the infin ite variety of horrific and loathsome dis eases which could be transmitted through the medium of hand-shaking.

Accordingly, we took precaution: wore gloves, washed our hands at the near est tap, or, if we were abroad, carried with us a flask of disinfectant—gin by preference, as it answered a double pur pose.

But, here in the South Seas, we are helpless. One never wears gloves in this hot climate; taps are few and far be tween; and we cannot carry a gin flask, as we have a reputation of god-fearing sobriety to maintain. And. to make mat ters worse, hand-shaking is an obsession in these islands.

At any considerable gathering, every one ceremoniously shakes hands with everyone else and, in the fear he has missed one of the company, starts again and shakes hands all around a second time. At parting this general hand-shak ing is gone through once more.

If one stopped to estimate the museum of microbes he had collected from the multitude of moist hands, reason would totter on her throne and fear corrupt the marrow of one’s bones.

The S.A.M.H.S. has been instituted to abate and finally abolish this evil. We propose a graceful military salute in place of the old custom.

Our membership now numbers three.

But, regarding the mighty oaks which, in the history of the world, have grown from tiny acorns, we have great hopes for the future.

I am, etc.,

The Pounder.

Tahiti. Peb. 10.