lation to the
frivolous grounds on which he based it.

We must not, however, under-rate the tenacity with which this
horror of nakedness was held. Nothing illustrates more vividly
the deeply ingrained hatred which the nineteenth century felt of
nakedness than the ferocity--there is no other word for it--with
which Christian missionaries to savages all over the world, even
in the tropics, insisted on their converts adopting the
conventional clothing of Northern Europe. Travellers' narratives
abound in references to the emphasis placed by missionaries on
this change of custom, which was both injurious to the health of
the people and degrading to their dignity. It is sufficient to
quote one authoritative witness, Lord Stanmore, formerly Governor
of Fiji, who read a long paper to the Anglican Missionary
Conference in 1894 on the subject of "Undue Introduction of
Western Ways." "In the centre of the village," he remarked in
quoting a typical case (and referring not to Fiji but to Tonga),
"is the church, a wooden barn-like building. If the day be
Sunday, we shall find the native minister arrayed in a
greenish-black swallow-tail coat, a neckcloth, once white, and a
pair of spectacles, which he probably does not need, preaching to
a congregation, the male portion of which is dressed in much the
same manner as himself, while the women are dizened out in old
battered hats or bonnets, and shapeless gowns like bathing
dresses, or it may be in crinolines of an early type. Chiefs of
influence and women of high birth, who in their native dress
would look, and do look, the ladies and gentlemen they are, are,
by their Sunday finery, given the appearance of attendants upon
Jack-in-the-Green. If a visit be paid to the houses of the town,
after the morning's work of the people is over, the family will
be found sitting on chairs, listless and uncomfortable, in a room
full of litter. In the houses of the superior native clergy there
will be a yet greater aping of the manners of the West. There
will be chairs covered with hideous antimacassars, tasteless
round worsted-work mats for absent flower jars, and a lot of ugly
cheap and vulgar china chimney ornaments, which, there being no
fireplace, and consequently no chimney-piece, are set out in
order on a rickety deal table. The whole life of these vill