Democratic Sentinel, Volume 10, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 June 1886 — THE MIND AND THE LEGS. [ARTICLE]

THE MIND AND THE LEGS.

Why a Man Sometimes Crosses His Loner Limbs and Sometimes l>oes Not Men generally cross their legs when there is the least pressure on their minds. You will never find a man actually engaged in business w.th his legs crossed, says a writer in the Denver Tribune-Republican. The limbs at those times are straighter than at any other, because tho mind and body work together. A man engaged in auditing accounts will never cross his legs; neither will a man who is writing an article, or who is employed in any manner where liis brain is actively engaged; when at work in a sitting posture the limbs naturally extend to the fioor in a perfectly straight line. A man may cross liis legs if lie is sitting in an office chair discussing some business proposition with another man, but the instant he becomes really in earnest and perceives something to be gained his limbs uncross quick as a flash, he bends forward toward liis neighbor, and begins to use liis hands. This is a phase that I believe you will always observe.

Men often cross their legs at public meetings, because they go there to listen or to be entertained; they are not the factors in the performance, and they naturally place themselves iu the most comfortable position known to them, namely, that of leaning well back in their chairs and crossing their legs. A man always crosses his legs when he reads a newspaper, but is more apt to lie down when he reads a book. He reads the paper, of course, to inform himself, but at the same time the perusal of its contents is recreation for him, and his body seeks its position of relaxation.

When a man is reading a newspaper and waiting for his breakfast his legs are always crossed, but so soon as the breakfast is brought to him he puts the paper aside, straightens out liis legs, and goes to work; that is, begins to eat, his mind now turning on the duties of the day before him. Men cross tlieir legs in a ball-room, but it is far from an elegant thing to do, and is not done by those who have been brought up in good society. It is your “three-penny-bit young man” who crosses his legs at a ball; and, would you believe, I have seen young ladies do the same thing.