5 JO 



NA TURE 



\_April 17, 1884 



A modified system of communism prevails with regard 

 to property, every man having claims on the general pos- 

 sessions of the clan, so that in building a house or a canoe 

 he can always draw on his relations. Dr. Turner says 

 that this system is a sad hindrance to the industrious ; 

 but he also points out that it obviates the necessity of 

 poor laws by ma'cing poverty unknown and inconceivable 

 (p. 160). 



We miss in Dr. Turner's book any estimate of the pro- 

 gress made by the Samoans since or in consequence of 

 the arrival of the missionaries in 1830 ; though he makes 

 it clear that before that time they had made some inde- 

 pendent advance in the ways of civilisation. Thus he 

 notices the previous mitigation of their penal code (p. 

 17S) : and points to tradition as attesting in former times 

 the custom both of cannibalism (pp. 236, 240) and of 

 human sacrifices (p. 201). One would gladly know whether 

 their numbers are increasing or the reverse ; whether 

 their wars have stopped ; and whether it can still be said 

 of them, as Dr. Turner says of them as heathens, that 

 " ^e^'x drank to excess." 



The last chapter deals with twenty-three islands away 

 from the Samoan group, such as the Gilbert group and 

 the New Hebrides, but in reference to these the writer 

 speaks more on the authority of nitive teachers than on 

 a prolonged personal residence among them. The most 

 noticeable thing is the frequency of the custom of making 

 infanticide compulsory by law ; and the generality of the 

 belief in the original resting of the sky upon the earth 

 and in the necessity of pushing it upwards. Perhaps the 

 most curious custom on these islands is that quoted of 

 the isle Peru, by which a married woman for years after 

 her marriage was prohibited from looking at or speaking 

 to any one but her husband. When she went out she 

 was covered in a mat with only a small hole in it by 

 which she might see her way, and any man who saw her 

 coming was obliged to hide himself till she had passed 

 (p. 29S}. 



Having touched on the chief points of interest in Dr. 

 Turner" s work, we cannot do more than commend it 

 earnestly to the attention of all who take interest in the 

 customs of unadulterated heathenism. We may fairly 

 des:ribe it as one of the most important contributions 

 to the science of anthropology that has been published 

 for many years. In matter and arrangement it is a great 

 improvement on the " Nineteen Years in Polynesia" in 

 which Dr. Turner first gave to the world his e.xperiences 

 of Samoa. There is an entire absence, perhaps too much, 

 of personal missionary narrative ; nor will any one regret 

 in the present work the long chapter which in the former 

 drew attention to a quantity of more or less trifling resem- 

 blances between the customs of the Samoans and the 

 Jews. The similarity is doubtless a real one, but it only 

 shows, as wherever else it appears, not that the people in 

 question had any connection whatever with the Jews, but 

 that the Jews in their evolution from savagery passed 

 through the same stages of thought and custom which 

 still characterise barbarism wherever it exists. The more 

 the customs of remote parts of the world are brought into 

 comparison, the more wonderful in its almost mechanical 

 regularity must appear the history of human development. 



J. A. Farrer 



VOICE, SONG, AND SPEECH 

 Voice, Song, and Speech. A Practical Guide for Singers 



and Speakers, from the Cotnbined View of Vocal Surgeon 



and Voice Trainer. By Lennox Browne, F.R.C.S. 



Edin., &c., and Emil Behnke, iic. 8vo, pp. 322. 



(London : Sampson Low, Marslon. Searle, and Riving- 



ton, 1S83.) 

 ' ! "HIS bulky handsome volume of 322 pages seems at 

 -*■ first sight to present considerable difficulties to a 

 reviewer, which begin with the very title-page, wherein 

 its contents are said to be derived "from the combined 

 view of vocal surgeon and voice trainer." The latter 

 occupation is fairly definite ; but what exactly is the 

 former.? It might indeed be thought that the striking 

 photograph, with wide-opened mouth and glaring eye- 

 balls, which faces the title, represents the vocal surgeon 

 in question, seen in the very act of giving tongue. But 

 this explanation turns out to be incorrect ; as it is an 

 excellent though not a " combined " view of Mr. Emil 

 Behnke's larynx, taken from nature and untouched by 

 hand. This feature, if indeed the larynx can be correctly 

 called a feature, of the work, is, it may be at once said, the 

 best it contains. The gentleman just named has exhibited 

 remarkable energy'and perseverance in obtaining, for the 

 first time, a series of nutolaryngoscopic views of the vocal 

 chords in the process of phonation, and in different 

 registers of the voice. Four of these, given on an en- 

 larged scale in the body of the volume, go some way 

 towards settling the long debated question as to the 

 different mechanism of the natural and the artificial or 

 " falsetto " voice. In all other respects the book is very 

 unequal, and contains little that cannot be as well or 

 better obtained elsewhere. It has two prefaces : one of 

 the usual kind, and in the usual place ; the other at the 

 opposite extremity of the work, quaintly termed a Preface 

 to Advertisements, in which it is stated that "the authors 

 have stipulated with the publishers that no advertisement 

 whatever should be admitted without their express sanc- 

 tion." The opening chapter is entitled " A Plea for Vocal 

 Physiology," and is followed by others on the laws of 

 sound, the anatomy and physiology of the vocal organ, 

 and on the larynx, which need no special notice except to 

 remark that the nomenclature adopted in the description 

 of the last-named organ, like that employed in another of 

 Mr. Behnke's works, is somewhat un-English and clumsy. 

 The old Greek names thyroid, cricoid, arytenoid, and 

 the like are at least as graceful, and perhaps as easy to 

 retain in the memory as the "ring-shield aperture," the 

 " shield -pyramid muscles," and the "buffer cartilages.' 

 In the chapter on vocal hygiene some characteristics, 

 fortunately uncommon, begin to show themselves. We 

 are told that " Better than a respirator is the veil invented 

 bv Mr. Lennox Browne, and sold by Messrs. Marshall 

 and Snelgrove.'' On turning to the selected and expur- 

 gated advertisements, we find one from the latter firm, 

 adorned with a fascinating picture of a lady wearing the 

 said invention, of which the price is " ss., or by post 

 5j. 2rf." On pp. no and in we meet two old friends, 

 again ladies, one with a natural, another with a deformed, 

 waist ; and to our delight they reappear with farther in- 

 ternal detail on pp. 112 and 113. Four pages having been 

 thus pleasantly got over, we learn with relief on p. 117, 



