The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1888-10-20
AMBIDExTROuS.


Some Reasons why the Hands Are Une-
quail in Strength and Dexterity.
There is pretty big word near the
beginning of the dictionary whose
meaning few boys and girls probably
understand. 1t is 0mbideTter, composed
of the Latin words dnab0, both, and
dcTter, right, and is applied to persons
who can use one hand as well as the
other, and whose hands are therefore
both right, or, better still, neither
right nor left, but equal. No record
tells when the hands ceased to be
equally strong and useful. 1t must
have been thousands Of years ago that
one hand began dropping behind the
other, and fell so far back in the race
that it was called 'left." There is a
tradition that Eve used this hand in
plucking the apple which she gave to
Adam to eat, and that its disgrace be-
gan then. This is probably fiction,
but the Old Testament is full of pleas
ant illusions to the right hand, while
the left is rarely mentioned. Moses
speaks of the law as having come from
Gods right hand, and David refers in
the Psalms TO the cunning" or skill OF
His right hand. The same partiality is
shown for the favored right hand in the
New Testament. The superstitious
Greeks and Romans called the left
hand unlucky, just as if custom had not
lready degraded and belittled it suf1i-
ciently. Homer describes the dismay
of Polydamas when in one of the battles
before Troy he saw an eagle with
serpent i'll its clutches, receive bite,
drop its prey, and soar away to the left
of the Trojan host. Among the Romans
the croaking of a raven at the left of a
man going out to battle or on journey
was considered Il very bad omen. But
we need not search ancient and me-
di3val history for evidences of these
superstitions, for they exist to the pres
ent day not only in uncivilized commu-
mites, but also among people called en-
lightened.
1t is very strange, however, that so
strong and unkind a prejudice against
the left hand has lived and increased
for centuries when there is no natural
or physiological reason for it. mean
to say that if you examine the skeleton
of u person who was strong, healthy
and well formed in life, you will find
that the bones of the left hand and arm
are just as many and just as large and
perfect as those of the right The
study Of physiology will show you, too,
that The muscles and ligaments and
carriages that fastened that persons
arms to his body and gave them the
power of motion were made to do their
work just as well on one side of the body
as on the other. If the left side were
the weaker of the two, it was because of
failure TO exercise it as freely as the
other. Monkeys and cats and other
animals, to whom paws are in q certain
sense hands, would smile derisively,
imagine, if you should suggest to them
that paws were rights or lefts, or that
tho paw on one side cou do more than
its mate. When, therefore, a boy or
girl says that he or she can throw a
ball, handle a racket, or do any thing
else, only with the right hand, it is
direct admission that a monkey or cat
is physically better equipped than that
boy or girl. And yet it is the general
belief that human beings are the most
perfectly formed of all creatures.
L do not believe that any bright,
active and vigorous boys and girls wish
to claim that, as far as their bodies are
concerned, they did not have as fair a
start in life as baby monkeys and kit
MS. And if they did begin on an
equal footing with these little animals,
the fact that one very important part
of their bodies-the left hand-has be-
come to large degree useless and
crippled does not speak we'll for their
bringing up. If they had been born in
a jungle or forest, and been allowed
like animals and plants to "come up"
they would probably have been equal
handed, for it is known that wild men
who are found in the unexplored re-
gions of Africa and Asia are Just as
quick in the use of the left as of the
right hand.
The preferring OF the right hand to
the left seems, then, to be habit, and
a bad one, of very long standing. Per-
haps the readers of Harper'S Young
People will think it tremendous task
to try to conquer fault which Moses,
David, Homer, Virgil, Shakespeare,
Sir Walter Scott, Dickens, George
Eliot and thousands Of other great men
and women OF the past never took the
pains to correct. Perhaps they will