Trades Exempt from Disease—See [Disease, Exemption from].
TRADITION
Custom makes laws harder to break than those of the land in which we may happen to live. It frequently happens that these laws are founded on experience, on mature judgment, on good sense, but occasionally they are founded on old superstitions which in other forms have passed away. Among the unfortunate customs that still linger is the habit of crippling the left hand.
If a child in shaking hands offers the left, the horrified mother or nurse at once corrects the blunder and apologizes for it to the bystanders. She does not know why she does this beyond the fact that “it is the custom”; she does not know that in medieval times the right hand was the “dextrous” hand, the hand of good faith, while the left was the “sinister” hand, the hand of bad faith. We have crystallized these beliefs in our present interpretation of these words; if we are “dextrous” we are doing things in a right-handed way, while the mildest meaning given to “sinister” is “unfortunate or awkward.” So the child is crippled in its left hand to conform to a custom which has been discarded and forgotten. (Text.)—The Medical Times.
(3265)
See [Custom].
TRADITION, UNMEANING
One of the oldest customs in the navy and one that is often puzzling to the landsman is that of “saluting the quarter-deck.” Many have the hazy idea that the national colors are its object and that it is merely a naval fad. While to a certain extent it is a fad, it is one of hoary antiquity, being a survival of the days when a crucifix was placed on the stern of a ship and was always saluted as a matter of course. When the crucifix was taken away the old feeling still remained, and men continued to salute the place where it had been. The younger generation imitated their elders, and the salute became a habit and continues until this day, (Text.)
(3266)
TRAINING