480 LEFTHANDEDNESS. 



A striking illustration of this lias recently been commimicated to 

 me. The Chief Manager of one of the Canadian Banks 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. On inquiry it turned out that his correspondent" was 

 lefthanded, 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 penmanship, an upright, rounded, neat, and very legible 

 handwriting. 



In formerly treating of this subject, under the title of " Right- 

 handedness," I entered with some minuteness into my own personal 

 experiences, as one in whom the instinctive preference for the left 

 hand remains unaffected by education and the enforced habit of a 

 lifetime. At the Buffalo meeting of the American Association for 

 the Advancement of Science, I was attracted by the facility with 

 which Professor Edward S. Morse used his left hand when illus- 

 trating his communications by crayon drawings on the blackboard. 

 His ability in thus appealing to the eye is well known. The Boston 

 Evening Transcript, in commenting on a course of lectures delivered 

 there, thus proceeds : "We must not omit to mention the wonderful 

 skill displayed by Professor Morse in his blackboard drawings of 

 illustrations, using either hand with facility, but working chiefly 

 with the left hand. The rapidity, simplicity, and remarkable finish 

 of these drawings elicited the heartiest applause of his audience." 

 Referring to the narrative of my own experiences as a naturally left- 

 handed person subjected to the usual right hand training with pen, 

 pencil, knife, &c., Professor Morse remarks: "I was particularly, 

 struck by- the description of your experiences in the matter, for 

 they so closely accord with my own ; my teachers having in vain 

 endeavoured to break off the use of the left hand, which only resulted 

 in teaching me to use my right hand also; At a short distance I can 

 toss or throw with the right hand quite as accurately as I can with 

 my left. But when it comes to flinging a stone or other object a 

 long distance I always use the left hand, as coming the most natural. 

 There are two things which I cannot possibly do with my right hand, 

 and that is to drive a nail, or to carve, cut or whittle. For several 



