HAND AND LEFT-HANDEDNESS. 31 
after that the right arm acquires its predominance.” But the coordination of the right or 
left hand and the corresponding foot is by no means so invariable as to justify any such 
theory. Hopping, pirouetting, and standing on one foot, are comparatively exceptional 
actions. The two lower limbs are most frequently employed in necessarily alternate 
locomotion. The use of the lower limbs, moreover, is much more independent of direct 
conscious volition than that of the hands, and the purposes to which their action is applied 
are rarely of a nature to invite special attention to them. There is, however, an instinctive 
tendency with many, if not indeed with the majority, to use one foot in preference to the 
other, but not necessarily the corresponding one to the dextrous hand, be it right or left. 
In skating, for example, where military training has not habituated to the use of the left 
foot in starting, 
football, it is not with most players a matter of mere chance which foot will be used 
most persons have an instinctive preference for one foot. So also in 
in starting the ball. Possibly the same reason may help to account for the invariable 
tendency of a blindfold walker to deviate to one side or the other. It is scarcely possible 
to walk in a straight line with the eyes shut. The one leg apparently tends to outwalk the 
other. Guided mainly by my own experience, I remarked, when first writing on this 
subject, that “the same influences appear to affect the whole left side, as shown in hopping, 
skating, football,” etc. But this is partial and uncertain. Dr. Brown-Sequard affirms that 
right-sidedness affects the arms much more than the legs, and in proof of this he states that 
“it is exceedingly rare that the leg is affected in the same degree by paralysis as the arm.” 
Dr. Joseph Workman, for many years Medical Superientendent of the Provincial Lunatic 
Asylum at Toronto, thus writes to me: “When you say that left-footedness is (only) as 
frequent as left-handedness, I am quite sure you are in error. I remember well, when I 
was a boy, observing the fact among labouring men engaged in what was called in Ireland 
‘sodding’ potatoes, in ridges about five feet wide, instead of planting in drills, that in 
any given number of men, from four up to a dozen, right and left-footedness prevailed 
about equally. Each pair carrying up the work of a ridge required to be right and 
left-footed men. I am myself left-footed ; and of eight brothers, I believe about four were 
left and four right-footed. Sir Charies Bell, in asserting that ‘no boy, unless he is 
left-handed, hops on the left foot, asserts far more than the fact. I believe every boy will 
hop on his spade foot ; at least Ido so, and I am not left-handed; and I instinctively do 
so because I dig with this foot.” 
Dr. Buchanan states that “in all adults who use the right hand in preference to the 
left—that is, in the great majority of mankind,—the muscles of the right side, as well as 
the bones and other organs of motion, are more highly developed than those on the left 
side;” and the predominance of the upper limb follows, as a rule, the previous develop- 
ment of the lower limb on the same side. The power of overcoming weight or resistance, 
and that of passively bearing weights, he assigns to opposite sides,—both naturally 
resulting from the centre of gravity lying on the right side. If such be the case, the 
great majority of mankind should instinctively use the same side in bearing a burden. A 
favorable opportunity occurred for testing this question. During a voyage of some days 
in one of the large steamboats on the Mississippi River, my attention was attracted by the 
deck-porters, who at every landing are employed in transporting the freight to and from 
the levee, and in supplying the vessel with cordwood. They constitute, as a class, the 
rudest representatives of unskilled labour, including both whites and negroes. For hours 
