Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 48.djvu/882

800 in prison. Inaction is even harder to endure than pain. The influence of vanity is still greater. Those even who have not studied the insane know how powerful this passion is, which is found in all grades of the social scale, and perhaps even in animals, and can lead to the strangest and most foolish actions, from the chevalier who dotes on a little bit of ribbon to the idiot who struts with a straw behind his ear. For this, savages who go entirely naked wear figures on their breasts; for this, our contemporaries who are clothed tattoo that part of the body which is most exposed to sight, especially the forearm, and more frequently the right than the left. An old soldier told me that in 1820 there was not a man in the army especially not a subordinate officer who had not been tattooed to exhibit his courage in supporting pain. The figures of the tattooing vary in New Zealand as do the fashion styles with us.

The spirit of the organization and the spirit of sect contribute to it. I have been led to this conclusion by the examination of some initials which I studied upon incendiaries at Milan, and of certain signs found on young police prisoners at Turin and Naples. Figures of tarantulas and of frogs appear often. I suspect that some groups of camorrists have adopted this new kind of primitive ornamentation to distinguish their sect, as they formerly adopted rings, pins, chains, and different cuts of the beard.

Lastly, the stimulus of the noblest human passions has had, its part. It is very natural that the rites of the village, the image of his patron, the recollections of infancy and of the heart's friend should return to the mind of the poor soldier, and be rendered more lively by the tattooed design, when he is struggling against danger, suffering, and privations.

But the primary, chief cause that has spread this custom among us is in my opinion atavism, or that other kind of historical atavism that is called tradition. Tattooing is, in fact, one of the essential characteristics of primitive man, and of men who still live in the savage state.

Some of those pointed bones which are used by modern savages in tattooing themselves have been found in the prehistoric grottoes of Avignac, and in the tombs of ancient Egypt. The Assyrians, according to Lucian, and the Dacians, according to Pliny, covered their whole bodies with figures. The Phœnicians and the Jews traced lines which they called "signs of God" on their foreheads and their hands (Ewald, Judäischen Alterthum, ii, p. 7). This usage was so widespread among the Britons that their name (from Brith, painting), like that of Pict and Pictons, seems to have been derived from it. See Cæsar. "These peoples," he says, "trace, with iron, designs on the skin of the youngest