the
Claimant. They are pulseless, chubby, oblique: yet they are remarkable.
In scrutinizing them, it is difficult not to feel that one looks upon
hands very remote indeed from the ordinary.

[Illustration: MR. BANCROFT'S HAND.]

[Illustration: HANDS OF THE TICHBORNE CLAIMANT.]

Next we look upon the hand of a giant even superior to Anak, in
Loushkin, the Russian. But physically great as was the Muscovite, it is
to be doubted if he really attained the world-wide celebrity of the
little American, Charles Stratton (otherwise known as "Tom Thumb"),
whose extremity serves as a foil to his rival for exhibition honours.

Another Boehm relic requires some explanation. Every visitor to the
Metropolis has doubtless seen and admired the heroic equestrian statue
of the Duke of Wellington, opposite Apsley House. They may even have
noticed the right hand, which is represented as lightly holding the rein
of the animal. The appended was cast from the original model in clay of
the hand of the Duke, no cast direct from life ever having been
executed.

[Illustration: THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON'S HAND.]

It is sufficient to say that the subjoined hand and arm of Lady
Cardigan, wife of the noted Crimean warrior, was one greatly admired by
Sir Edgar, in whose studio it hung for many years. In like manner will
the hand of Lady Richard Grosvenor be found the possessor of many
beautiful and interesting traits.

[Illustration: THE HANDS OF "TOM THUMB" AND LOUSHKIN, THE RUSSIAN
GIANT.]

[Illustration: LADY CARDIGAN'S HAND.]

A member not altogether dissimilar to that of the musician Liszt is the
hand of Carl von Angeli, Court painter to Her Majesty, and like that
also in setting at naught the conclusions too often arrived at by the
chirognomist. For there is here breadth without symmetry, and an utter
absence of the poise which we look for in the ideal hand of the artist.
It is instructive to compare it to the hand of the painter, John
Jackson.

[Illustration: LADY RICHARD GROSVENOR'S HAND.]

[Illustration: CARL ANGELI'S HAND.]

Observe the massive, masculine fingers and disproportionately small
finger-nails in the hands of Professor Weekes, the sculptor. There is
scarcely any perceptible tapering at the third joint, and the fingers
all exhibit very little prominence of knuckle or contour. It is anything
but an artistic hand, and yet its owner was a man of the keenest
artistic perceptions.

In Frederick Baring's (Lord Ashburton) we