RIGHT-HANDEDNESS 



RIGHT OF WAY 



725 



maintained by carrying it on the left side. If 

 the weight be a heavy one, borne on the left 

 shoulder, the burden is really being supported very 

 much by the right limb, owing to the natural 

 curve of the body towards the right side, while 

 sustaining the pressure. 



But, it may lie argued, if this theory covers the 

 case, then left-handedness, which is certainly in- 

 herited, cannot be accounted for except on the 

 extraordinary supposition of transference of the 

 viscera. In a very few cases left-handedness has 

 been found to accompany such transposition. 

 Strange to say the liver has been found on the left 

 side, and the heart, stomach, and spleen on the 

 right without any derangement to the health of 

 the subject, even from the point of view of a life- 

 insurance company. Nevertheless, the number of 

 cases of genuine left-handedness far exceeds such 

 instances of transposition. . An explanation of left- 

 handediifss in normal structures has been sought 

 by falling Kick on the fact that the cerebral hemi- 

 spheres of the brain work the muscles cross-wise. 

 Ferrier's researches have proved that when we see 

 with tlie right eye we see with the left side of the 

 brain. Another curious and instructive fact is that, 

 although an animal be rendered blind of an eye by 

 the destruction of a convolution on one side of the 

 brain, the blindness is temporary. Soon the other 

 hemisphere can take up the function, and then 

 vision is possible with both eyes as before. 



Viewed in this light, hereditary left-handedness 

 may be due to the greater development of the right 

 side of the brain. Suppose accident, or the cruelty 

 of the conqueror, hau deprived a comparatively 

 young archer of his right hand or right eye (and 

 the latter cruel custom is referred to in the Bible), 

 then the left hand, governed by the right hemi- 

 sphere, Iteing called into work would react on that 

 hemisphere, whose blood-vessels would be oftener 

 replenished and whose strength and sensitiveness 

 would grow. It is not too much to assume that in 

 some cases this improved power of the right hemi- 

 sphere might be transmitted to a descendant. ' It 

 is practically certain," says Dr Bostian, 'that the 

 great preponderance of right-handed movements in 

 ordinary individuals must tend to produce a mure 

 complex organisation of the left than the right 

 hemisphere. M. Broca states that in forty brains 

 he examined he found the left frontal lobe heavier 

 than the right. These investigations have not yet 

 been thoroughly carried out ; but possibly the 

 explanation of obstinate left-handedness lies in 

 that direction. 



In connection with the evolution of the species 

 right-handedness, in all probability, has been a late 

 acquisition. The body is more symmetrical in 

 early youth, and is more symmetrical in the female 

 than in the male. A very young child betrays no 

 ill-position to use the right hand more than the 

 lc-ft. The habit of using the right hand gradually 

 increases with boyhood, and lx>ys have to the last 

 a wider range with the right hand than girls, who 

 are proverbially bad stone-throwers. Hitherto, 

 however, the oldest records of the human race, 

 even when man sketched with a flint point on the 

 bones of extinct animals, prove him to have been a 

 riglit-lianded being. His profiles are then sketched 

 with faces toward the left, just as a street arab 

 chalks them on a door at the present day. Never- 

 theless, the primeval left-handed artist often be 

 trays himself. Bronze weapons are the weapons of 

 right-handed individuals; witness the curious yew- 

 tree handle of a bronze sickle fished up from the 

 lake of Brienne, Switzerland, quite intact and 

 ingeniously carved, 'as incapable, says Sir Daniel 

 Wilson, '<>f l>eing used by a left-handed shearer 

 as nur present mower's scythe.' 



A few observers of the habits of savages have 



remarked that left-handed individuals were propor- 

 tionally more numerous among them. This is 

 what we should expect from the enormous addi- 

 tional demands made by civilisation, its manners, 

 and its tools upon the activity of the right hand. 

 It only requires to spend an hour at a carpenter's 

 bench to see how planes, screws, &c. are fashioned 

 to suit that member. In drawing a pattern of 

 small repeating character we begin, as we begin to 

 write a page, at the top left-hand side, so as to 

 avoid placing fingers on the still undried pigments. 

 Military drill, associated labour, and, as much 

 as any, the tyrant fashion, all urge on the right 

 hand in the path of greater dexterity, leaving the 

 left as the inept drudge whose duty it is merely to 

 assist. No wonder the right has acquired strength, 

 size, greater tactile sensibility, and greater patience 

 of the extremes of heat and cold. Naturalists, who 

 observe that adult monkeys catch nuts more with the 

 right hand, that the African elephant digs more 

 with the right tusk, or that the Carolina parrot has a 

 preferential claw for grasping, tell us that these 

 habits are subject to more numerous exceptions than 

 the exception of left-handedness with human beings. 

 Egyptian and Assyrian painting and sculpture and 

 Etruscan bronzes also elucidate the general law that 

 burdens have been assigned to the left shoulder ; so 

 that the position of the shepherd's plaid is nowise a 

 whim, but has its roots in the far past. The primi- 

 tive blanket-like toga of the Etruscans covers the 

 left shoulder, and is wrapped under the right arm- 

 pit to allow of the freer motion of that arm. 



Use and disuse, by strengthening or weakening 

 organs, would warrant us in believing that where 

 there is inequality of vision l>etween one's eyes the 

 balance would be thrown in favour of the right. 

 As Sir John Herschell has remarked, cases can be 

 adduced of persons who were unaware of one of 

 their eyes hem" weak almost to blindness until far 

 advanced in life. The writer has a near-sighted 

 left eye, inherited from a grandfather short-sighted 

 in both, the defect of which he did not discover 

 until far advanced in manhood. It is well to know 

 that such disparity in power of vision can be greatly 

 mitigated by the lenses of the oculist. A good 

 deal of folklore is to be found connected with the 

 right and left hands. The rale of the road and 

 the interpretation of omens tell, by the contrary 

 rule obtaining in nations of different race, no small 

 part of their story as to whether they belong to 

 the conquerors or the conquered. See Sir Daniel 

 Wilson's The i///tt Hand: Left-handedness ( 1891 ) ; 

 Professor Dwiglit in Scribner's Magazine (April 

 1891 ) ; also the article BRAIN, Vol. II. pp. 391, 392. 



Right, CLAIM OF. See FREE CHURCH. 



Right Of Way, the right which the public 

 has to the free passage over roads or tracks. The 

 expression is more generally applied to those public 

 routes which are not statutory roads, such as hill 

 or field paths, drove roads, bridle and other paths, 

 and cart or driving roads in the common use of 

 the public, which are not kept up by the county 

 authorities. In many instances these roads are 

 the only means of communication between import- 

 ant districts ; and generally they are the shorter, 

 and often the more picturesque, ways from one 

 point to another. Right of way also exists along 

 the seashore and on the banks of tidal rivers. The 

 law of rights of way is judicial and not statutory. 

 In Scotland, where of late the chief causes celebres 

 have originated, forty years' continuous use by the 

 public of such roads or paths is the prescriptive 

 period for constituting a right of way ; while in 

 England the public acquire a right of way under 

 dedication to them by the owner of the soil, and 

 user signifying their acceptance of the same, or 

 when dedication can fairly be assumed from 



