TRADES AND FACES. 627 



TRADES AND FACES. 



By Dr. LOUIS ROBINSON. 



IT is to be feared that any present attempt on the part of the 

 physiognomist to analyze trade expressions must be some- 

 what unsatisfactory to the lovers of exact science. Our proved 

 knowledge concerning the laws which govern facial expression 

 is very slight: we are still stumbling among the elements of 

 feature language, and it may seem presumptuous to attempt to 

 criticise the text when the very alphabet is still doubtful. 



But as the digger-out of a cryptogram finds it profitable to 

 take a general survey of the script before attacking details, so it 

 may perhaps be found that a somewhat speculative excursion, 

 such as the present, will not be altogether without value in 

 helping on more precise methods of research. At any rate, such 

 a discussion can hardly fail to interest those among the readers 

 of Maga who have observed the remarkable facial likeness often 

 found among people who follow the same calling, without being 

 able to see why a butcher should resemble his trade brethren 

 more than he resembles the other sons of his father who have 

 become bakers of bread or makers of candlesticks. 



When we seek to analyze the forces which are continually at 

 work on the human face, the complexity of the problem as to the 

 interpretation of any prevalent trade expression at once becomes 

 apparent. A few examples will bring this fact home to every 

 reader, and will also help us in taking the first step toward clas- 

 sifying the numerous factors which contribute to the result in 

 any single instance. 



In a previous article on facial expression,* attention was 

 drawn to the distinctive cast of countenance exhibited by men 

 who have much to do with horses. No great acuteness of ob- 

 servation is necessary to make it clear that, in the various 

 branches of such professions, a corresponding diversity of type 

 is visible. 



Regarding Environment as a portrait painter (if we may ven- 

 ture to personify, in classic fashion, the abstractions of the newer 

 philosophers), we find that she has, after boldly laying on a gen- 

 eral groundwork of horseyness, touched the faces with different 

 pigments which greatly affect the final result. 



If, for example, we place side by side a gentleman's groom 

 and a horse-dealer's groom, both of whom, when seen in a crowd 

 of ordinary mortals, strike us as typically horsey, these supple- 

 mentary touches are at once brought into prominence. The one 



* See Popular Science Monthly, vo 1 . xlv, p. 380. 



