CHAPTER XIX. 



FLEXURES OF THE PALM AND SOLE. 



Those flexures of the palmar and plantar skin which are called 

 by Galton chiromantic creases, and said by him to be no more 

 significant to others than palmists than the creases of old clothes, 

 have received a remarkable amount of pseudo-scientific attention 

 since earliest times in Chinese and Greek history. The former 

 even added podoscopy to their chiromancy. The line of life, the 

 line of the head, the line of the heart, the line of fortune and that 

 of the liver, figure freely in fortune-telling of modern drawing-rooms 

 by women who ought to be in Holloway gaol, but are not. The 

 gipsies, their predecessors and equally honest teachers, did not 

 employ such high-sounding words, but I believe that by observing 

 closely the bearing, looks, dress and manner of their dupes, while 

 pretending to study their palms, both classes of practitioners, like 

 phrenologists, are able to tell a good deal of what their customers 

 are,, and being shrewd persons they are able to guess pretty well 

 what they will be and will do. 



I agree with Galton that these creases of hand and foot are 

 no more significant than those of an old coat-sleeve, a pair of 

 trousers, or boots ; but they are not less significant of certain muscular 

 habits of the wearers of those articles. 1 



The flexures in question are in line with the subjects of the 

 two preceding chapters, and require little more description in detail 

 than is afforded by the accompanying illustration of mammalian 

 hands and feet. 



Description of Flexures. 



There are two classes which may be conveniently called here 

 Primary and Secondary, the latter being too variable and accidental 

 for further notice. The former lie in three main directions and are 

 longitudinal, oblique or transverse. They represent in graphic 

 characters the nature and degree of the functions exercised by 



1 Gallon might have referred by way of illustration to an immortal 

 woman in Martin Chuzzleurit, who shall be nameless here. 



