The right hand

by Sir Daniel Wilson

But on the other hand, an exaggerated estimate is formed of the difficulties experienced by a left-handed person in many of the ordinary actions of life. It is noted by Mr. James Shaw that the buttons of our dress, and the hooks and eyes of all female attire, are expressly adapted to the right hand. Again, Sir Charles Bell remarks: “We think we may conclude that, everything being adapted, in the conveniences of life, to the right hand, as, for example, the direction of the worm of the screw, or of the cutting end of the auger, is not arbitrary, but is related to a natural endowment of the body. He who is left-handed is most sensible to the advantages of this adaptation, from the opening of the parlour door, to the opening of a penknife.” This idea, though widely entertained, is to a large extent founded on misapprehension. It is undoubtedly true that the habitual use of the right hand has controlled the form of many implements, and influenced the arrangements of dress, as well as the social customs of society. The musket is fitted for an habitually right-handed people. So, in like manner, the adze, the plane, the gimlet, the screw, and other mechanical tools, must be adapted to one or the other hand. Scissors, snuffers, shears, and other implements specially requiring the action of the thumb and fingers, are all made for the right hand. So also is it with the scythe of the reaper. Not only the lock of the gun or rifle, but the bayonet and the cartridge-pouch, are made or fitted on the assumption of the right hand being used; and even many arrangements of the fastenings of the dress are adapted to this habitual preference of the one hand over the other, so that the reversing of button and button-hole, or hook and eye, is attended with marked inconvenience. Yet even in this, much of what is due to habit is ascribed to nature. A Canadian friend, familiar in his own earlier years, at an English public school and university, with the game of cricket, tells me that when it was introduced for the first time into Canada within the last forty years, left-handed batters were common in every field; but the immigration of English cricketers has since led, for the most part, to the prevailing usage of the mother country. It was not that the batters were, as a rule, left-handed, but that the habit of using the bat on one side or other was, in the majority of cases, so little influenced by any predisposing bias, that it was readily acquired in either way. But, giving full weight to all that has been stated here as to right-handed implements, what are the legitimate conclusions which it teaches? No doubt an habitually left-handed people would have reversed all this. But if, with adze, plane, gimlet, and screw, scythe, reaping-hook, scissors and snuffers, rifle, bayonet, and all else—even to the handle of the parlour door, and the hooks and buttons of his dress,—daily enforcing on the left-handed man a preference for the right hand, he nevertheless persistently adheres to the left hand, the cause of this must lie deeper than a mere habit induced in the nursery.

It is a misapprehension, however, to suppose that the left-handed man labours under any conscious disadvantage from the impediments thus created by the usage of the majority. With rare exceptions, habit so entirely accustoms him to the requisite action, that he would be no less put out by the sudden reversal of the door-handle, knife-blade, or screw, or the transposition of the buttons on his dress, than the right-handed man. Habit is constantly mistaken for nature. The laws of the road, for example, so universally recognised in England, have become to all as it were a second nature; and, as the old rhyme says—

If you go to the left, you are sure to go right;

If you go to the right, you go wrong.

But throughout Canada and the United States the reverse is the law; and the new immigrant, adhering to the usage of the mother country, is sorely perplexed by the persistent wrong-headedness, as it seems, of every one but himself.

Yet the predominant practice does impress itself on some few implements in a way sufficiently marked to remind the left-handed operator that he is transgressing normal usage. The candle, “our peculiar and household planet!” as Charles Lamb designates it, has wellnigh become a thing of the past; but in the old days of candle-light the snuffers were among the most unmanageable of domestic implements to a left-handed man. They are so peculiarly adapted to the right hand that the impediment can only be overcome by the dexterous shift of inserting the left thumb and finger below instead of above. As to the right-handed adaptation of scissors, it is admitted by others, but I am unconscious of any difficulty that their alteration would remove. To Carlyle, as already noted, with his early experiences of country life, the idea of right and left-handed mowers attempting to co-operate presented “the simplest form of an impossibility, which but for the distinction of a ‘right hand,’ would have pervaded all human things.” But, although the mower’s scythe must be used in a direction in which the left hand is placed at some disadvantage—and a left-handed race of mowers would undoubtedly reverse the scythe—yet even in this the chief impediment is to co-operation. The difficulty to himself is surmountable. It is his fellow-workers who are troubled by his operations. Like the handling of the oar, or still more the paddle of a canoe, or the use of the musket or rifle,—so obviously designed for a right-handed marksman,—the difficulty is soon overcome. It is not uncommon to find a left-handed soldier placed on the left of his company when firing; and an opportunity—hereafter referred to,—has happily presented itself for determining the cerebral characteristics which accompany this strongly-marked type of left-handedness. As himself incorrigibly left-handed, the author’s own experience in drilling as a volunteer was that, after a little practice, he had no difficulty in firing from the right shoulder; but he never could acquire an equal facility with his companions in unfixing the bayonet and returning it to its sheath.

But as certain weapons and implements, like the rifle and the scythe, are specially adapted for the prevailing right hand, and some ancient implements have been recovered in confirmation of the antiquity of the bias; so the inveterate left-handed manipulator at times reinstates himself on an equality with rival workmen who have thus placed him at a disadvantage. Probably the most ancient example of an implement expressly adapted for the right hand is the handle of a bronze sickle, found in 1873 at the lake-dwelling of Möringen, on the Lake of Brienne, Switzerland. Bronze sickles have long been familiar to the archæologist, among the relics of the prehistoric era known as the Bronze Age; and their forms are included among the illustrations of Dr. Ferdinand Keller’s Lake Dwellings. But the one now referred to is the first example that has been recovered showing the complete hafted implement. The handle is of yew, and is ingeniously carved so as to lie obliquely to the blade, and allow of its use close to the ground. It is a right-handed implement, carefully fashioned so as to adapt it to the grasp of a very small hand; and is more incapable of use by a left-handed shearer than a mower’s scythe. Its peculiar form is shown in an illustration which accompanies Dr. Keller’s account; and in noting that the handle is designed for a right-handed person, he adds: “Even in the Stone Age, it has already been noticed that the implements in use at that time were fitted for the right hand only.” But if so, the same adaptability was available for the left-handed workman, wherever no necessity for co-operation required him to conform to the usage of the majority. Instances of left-handed carpenters who have provided themselves with benches adapted to their special use have come under my notice. I am also told of a scythe fitted to the requirements of a left-handed mower, who must have been content to work alone; and reference has already been made to sets of golfing drivers and clubs for the convenience of left-handed golfers.

Handle of Bronze Sickle, Möringen, Switzerland.

To face [page 138].