WHISTLING. 253 



exhibited at the end of the last century his talent on the stage of 

 Covent Garden Theatre, and attracted for some time considerable 



notice.* 



Anyhow, the universality of the prejudice against women whistling 

 is an acknowledged fact, and there are few localities where one may 

 not hear the familiar rhyme : 



"A whistling wife and a crowing hen 

 "Will call the old gentleman out of his den." 



Of course there are various versions, as, for instance, in Northampton- 

 shire, where the peasantry say : 



" A whistling woman and a crowing hen 

 Are neither fit for God nor men." 



The Cornish saying is to the same effect : " A whistling woman and a 

 crowing hen are the two unluckiest things under the sun." Similar 

 also is the French proverb, " TJne poule qui chante le coq et unejille qui 

 siffle portent malheur clans la maison." The same superstition prevails 

 among the seafaring community ; and Mr. Henderson f relates how, 

 a few years ago, when a party of friends were about to go on board a 

 vessel at Scarborough, the captain caused no small astonishment by 

 declining in the most emphatic way to allow one of them to enter it : 

 " Not that young lady," he cried out ; " she whistles." By a curious 

 coincidence, the vessel was lost on her next voyage ; so, had the young 

 lady formed one of the party, the misfortune would certainly have been 

 attributed to her. After all, it seems hard that, if the mere act of 

 whistling can help to cheer a man, such a soothing influence should be 

 denied to a woman. " If whistling," says a writer in the " Phrenologi- 

 cal Journal," " will drive away the blues and be company for a lone- 

 some person, surely women have much more need of its services than 

 their brothers, for to them come many more such occasions than to 

 men. There is a physical advantage in whistling which should excuse 

 it against all the canons of propriety or ' good form.' It is often re- 

 marked that the average girl is so narrow-chested, and in that respect 

 compares so unfavorably with her brother, which may be due in some 

 measure to the habit of whistling which every boy acquires." An 

 eminent medical authority says : " All the men whose business it is to 

 try the wind-instruments made at the various factories before sending 

 them off for sale are, without exception, free from pulmonary affec- 

 tions. I have known many who, when entering upon this calling, 

 were very delicate, and who, nevertheless, though their duty obliged 

 them to blow for hours together, enjoyed perfect health after a certain 

 time." As the action of blowing wind-instruments is the same as that 

 of whistling, the effects should be the same. "Whistling has been pop- 

 ularly styled the " devil's music," the reason, in all probability, being 



* See an article entitled "Mouth Music" in "Book of Days," i, 751. 

 f " Folk-lore of the Northern Counties," 1879, p. 43. 



