le intercourse;
and an English deaf-mute had no difficulty in conversing with
Laplanders. It appears, also, on the authority of Sibscota, whose
treatise was published in 1670, that Cornelius Haga, ambassador of
the United Provinces to the Sublime Porte, found the Sultan's mutes
to have established a language among themselves in which they
could discourse with a speaking interpreter, a degree of ingenuity
interfering with the object of their selection as slaves unable to
repeat conversation. A curious instance has also been reported to the
writer of operatives in a large mill where the constant rattling of
the machinery rendered them practically deaf during the hours of work
and where an original system of gestures was adopted.

In connection with the late international convention, at Milan, of
persons interested in the instruction of deaf-mutes which, in the
enthusiasm of the members for the new system of artificial articulate
speech, made war upon all gesture-signs, it is curious that such
prohibition of gesture should be urged regarding mutes when it was
prevalent to so great an extent among the speaking people of the
country where the convention was held, and when the advocates of it
were themselves so dependent on gestures to assist their own oratory
if not their ordinary conversation. Artificial articulation surely
needs the aid of significant gestures more, when in the highest
perfection to which it can attain, than does oral speech in its own
high development. The use of artificial speech is also necessarily
confined to the oral language acquired by the interlocutors and throws
away the advantage of universality possessed by signs.

_USE BY MODERN ACTORS AND ORATORS._

Less of practical value can be learned of sign language, considered as
a system, from the study of gestures of actors and orators than would
appear without reflection. The pantomimist who uses no words whatever
is obliged to avail himself of every natural or imagined connection
between thought and gesture, and, depending wholly on the latter,
makes himself intelligible. On the stage and the rostrum words are
the main reliance, and gestures generally serve for rhythmic movement
and to display personal grace. At the most they give the appropriate
representation of the general idea expressed by the words, but do not
attempt to indicate the idea itself. An instance is recorded of
the addition of significance to gesture when it is employed by the