1907.] on Dexterity and the Bend Sinister. \ 633 



suspected that it was a subtle way of detecting incipient insanity and 

 declined to have anything to do with it. The basis of induction 

 supplied to me was not, therefore, as ample as I had hoped it would 

 be, but it was still sufficiently broad to justify some interesting and 

 suggestive conclusions, one or two of which I shall submit to you 

 this evening. 



In the first place, the returns bear on the relative frequency of 

 right and left-handedness, and of ambidexterity in the educated classes 

 in" this country, and show that of the 957 persons — regarding whom 

 information was obtained, 881, or 92 per cent., were right-handed, 

 40, or 41 per cent., were left-handed, and 36, or 3*76 per cent., were 

 ambidextrous, or stated themselves to be so. 



Right and Left Handedness in 957 Persons : 694 Males, 263 Females. 



These figures, I have no doubt, place the proportion of the 

 left-handed and ambidextrous much too high. I found that my 

 distributors, in circulating my papers, naturally thought more 

 of their interesting left-handed acquaintances than of the common- 

 place right-handed ones, and that left-handed persons, regarding 

 themselves as unique and being generally rather proud of their 

 eccentricity, were more ready to answer my questions than their less 

 distinguished right-handed neighbours. As a control observation 

 I got Dr. Charles Mayhew to examine some of the prisoners in Pen- 

 tonville Prison — not, certainly, a selected group with reference to 

 this inquiry — and he found that of 975 prisoners just 24, or about 2^ 

 per cent., were left-handed, no ambidexterity being noted, although 

 one might have thought that a convenient accomplishment for the pick- 

 pockets ; while of 60 officers examined there were 2 left-handed men. 

 Dr. Ogle discovered left-handedness in 4^ per cent, of the individuals 

 whom he examined, and Dr. Brinton has estimated that amongst 

 educated. Americans the proportion of the left-handed is from 2 to 4 

 per cent. I am inclined to believe that the left-handed and ambi- 

 dextrous together do not exceed 4 per cent, of the population of this 

 country. 



Under ambidexterity in my table have been included all those 

 who declared themselves to be ambidextrous, although only in 20 

 cases out of the 36 was complete equality claimed — probably without 

 justification — for both hands. In the 16 other cases, while 

 ambidexterity was recorded, there were admitted disparities in the 



