224 DANIEL WILSON ON THE RIGHT 
the other.” In the case of Professor Morse, I may add, the indications of the hereditary 
transmission of left-handedness nearly correspond with my own. His maternal uncle, 
and also a cousin, are left-handed. In my case, the same habit appeared in a paternal 
uncle and a niece; and my grandson, manifested at an early age, a decided preference 
for the left hand. Even in the absence of such habitual use of both hands as Professor 
Morse practises, the command of the left hand in the case of a left-handed person is such 
that very slight effort is necessary to enable him to use the pen freely with it. An apt 
illustration of this has been communicated to me by the manager of one of the Canadian 
banks. He had occasion to complain of the letters of one of his local agents as at times 
troublesome to decipher, and instructed him in certain cases to dictate to a junior clerk 
who wrote a clear, legible hand. The letters subsequently sent to the manager, though 
transmitted to him by the same agent, presented in signature, as in all else, a totally 
different caligraphy. The change of signature led to inquiry ; when it turned out that 
his correspondent was left-handed, and by merely shifting the pen to the more dextrous 
hand, he was able, with a very little practice, to substitute for the old cramped pen- 
manship, an upright, rounded, neat, and very legible handwriting. 
In reference to the question of hereditary transmission, the evidence, as in the case of 
Dr. Rae, is undoubted. Dr. R. A. Reeve, in whom also the original left-handedness has 
given place toa nearly equal facility with both hands, informs me that his father was 
left-handed. Again Dr. Pye-Smith quotes from the “ Lancet” of October, 1870, the case of 
Mr. R. A. Lithgow, who writes to say, that he himself, his father and his grandfather, 
have all been left-handed. This accords with the statement of M. Ribot in his “Here- 
dity.” “ There are,” he says, “ families in which the special use of the left hand is here- 
ditary. Girou mentions a family in which the father, the children, and most of the 
grandchildren were left-handed. One of the latter betrayed its left-handedness from 
earliest infancy, nor could it be broken of the habit, though the left hand was bound 
and swathed.” Such persistent left-handedness is not, indeed, rare. In an instance com 
municated to me, both of the parents of a gentleman in Shropshire were left-handed. His 
mother, accordingly watched his early manifestations of the same tendency, and 
employed every available means to counteract it. His left hand was bound up, or tied 
behind him ; and this was persevered in until it was feared that the left arm had been 
permanently injured. Yet all proved vain. The boy resumed the use of the left hand 
as soon as the restraint was removed ; and, though learning like others, to use his right 
hand with facility in the use of the pen, and in other cases in which custom enforces 
compliance with the practise of the majority, he remained inveterately left-handed. 
Again a Canadian friend, whose sister-in-law is left-handed, thus writes to me: “I never 
heard of any of the rest of the family who were so; but one of her brothers had much 
more than the usual facility in using both hands, and in paddling, chopping, etc., used 
to shift about the implement from one hand to the other in a way which I envied. As 
to my sister-in-law, she had great advantages from her left-handedness. She was a 
very good performer on the piano, and her bass was magnificent. If there was a part 
to be taken only with one hand, she used to take the left as often as the right. But it 
was at needle-work that I watched her with the greatest interest. If she was cutting out, 
she used to shift the scissors from one hand to the other; and would have employed the 
left hand more, were it not that all scissors, as she complained, are made right-handed, 
