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.