that of tattooing the face and wearing a labret is the most noticeable.
The custom of tattooing having existed from the earliest historical
epochs is important, not only from an ethnological but from a medical
and pathological point of view, and even in its relation to medical
jurisprudence in cases of contested personal identity.

Without going into the history of the subject, it may not be irrelevant
to mention that tattooing was condemned by the Fathers of the Church,
Tertullian, among others, who gives the following rather singular reason
for interdicting its use among women: "Certi sumus Spiritum Sanctum
magis masculis tale aliquid subscribere potuisse si feminis
subscripsisset."[2]

In addition to much that has been written by French and German writers,
the matter of tattoo-marks has of late claimed the attention of the law
courts of England, the Chief-Justice, Cockburn, in the Tichbourne case,
having described this species of evidence as of "vital importance," and
in itself final and conclusive. The absence of the tattoo-marks in this
case justified the jury in their finding that the defendant was not and
could not be Roger Tichbourne, whereupon the alleged claimant was proved
to be an impostor, found guilty of perjury, and sentenced to penal
servitude.[3]

[Illustration: Style of personal ornamentation adopted by the women of
Saint Lawrence island.]

Why the ancient habit of tattooing should prevail so extensively among
some of the primitive tribes as it does, for instance, in the Polynesian
islands and some parts of Japan, and we may say as a survival of a
superstitious practice of paganism among sailors and others, is a