HAND AND LEFT-HANDEDNESS. Th 
ancient Scottish game of golf, which is only a more refined and strictly regulated form of 
the rustic shintie, is one in which the implements are of necessity right-handed, and so 
subject the left-handed player to great disadvantage, unless he provides his own special 
clubs. The links at Leith have long been famous as an arena for Scottish golfers. King 
Charles I was engaged in a game of golf there, when, in November, 1641, a letter was 
delivered into his hands which gave him the first account of the Irish Rebellion. The 
same links were a favorite resort of his younger son, James IJ, while still Duke of York, 
and some curious traditions preserve the memory of his relish for the game. There, accord- 
ingly, golf is still played with keenest zest ; and among its present practisers is a left-handed 
golfer, who, as usual with left-handed persons, is practically ambidextrous. He has 
accordingly provided himself with a double set of right and left drivers and irons ; so that 
he can use either hand at pleasure according to the character of the ground or the position 
of the ball, to the general discomfiture of his one-handed rivals. The Scotchmen of 
Montreal and Quebec have transplanted the old national game to Canadian soil; and the 
latter city has a beautiful course on the historical battle-field, the scéne of Wolfe’s victory 
and death. There experience induced the Quebec Golf Club, when ordering spare sets of 
implements for the use of occasional guests from Great Britain, to consider the propriety 
of providing a left-handed set. In the discussion to which the proposal gave rise, it was 
urged to be unnecessary, as a left-handed player generally has his own clubs with him ; 
but finally the order was limited to two left-handed drivers, so that when a left-handed 
golfer joins them he has to put with his driver. The considerateness of the Quebec golfers 
was no doubt stimulated by the fact that there is a skilled golfer of the Montreal Club 
whose feats of dexterity as a left-handed player at times startle them. A Quebec golfer 
writes to me thus: “There is one left-handed fellow belonging to the Montreal Club who 
comes down occasionally to challenge us; and I have watched his queer play with a 
good deal of interest and astonishment.” 
To the left-handed man his right hand is the less ready, the less dexterous, and the 
weaker member. But in all ordinary experience the idea of weakness, uncertainty, unre- 
liability, attaches to the left hand, and so naturally leads to the tropical significance of 
“unreliable, untrustworthy,” in a moral sense. Both ideas are found alike in barbarous 
and classic languages. An interesting example of the former occurs in Ovid’s “ Fasti ” 
(ii. 869), where the poet speaks of the flight of Helle and her brother on the golden-fleeced 
ram, and describes her as grasping its horn, “ with her feeble left hand, when she made 
of herself a name for the waters,” 7. e., by falling off and being drowned :— 
“ Utque fugam capiant, aries nitidissimus auro 
Traditur. Ille vehit per freta longa duos. 
Dicitur informa cornu tenuisse sinistra 
Femina, cum de se nomina fecit aque.” 
In the depreciatory moral sense, Plautus, in the “Persa” (IL. ii. 44) calls the left hand 
furtifica, “thievish.” “ Estne hæc manus? Ubi illa altera est furtifica leva?” So in like 
manner the term in all its forms acquires a depreciatory significance, and is even applied 
to sinister looks. So far, then, as the evidence of language goes, the distinction of the 
right from the left hand, as the more reliable member, appears to be coeval with the 
earliest known use of language. 
