READING THE HAND.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 2928, 25 July 1911, Page 7

READING THE HAND.

j LONDONER CAN TELL OCCUPATION OF ANY GIVEN MAN.

I As in the cass of Dr. Joseph Bell, ! the prototype of Sherlock Holmes, it is to an experienced doctor in the ; ont-patients' department of a big < London hospital that you must g» to learn the trade-marks of the different 1 occupations. I A medical man recently said that a i railway porter's left hand is always several sizes larger than the right. , Tfie porter shuts hundreds of carriage doors in a hurry, and it is the left hand he uses, for ninety-nine trains ! out of a hundred leave the plat-

form from right to left. ®As the porter stands facing the train he finds the left hand the natural hand for shutting with, and the constant turning of heavy handles overdevelopes the left at the expense of the other. A sailor is batrayed by his hands, though his gait may betray him. They are permanently half shut. Walking, talking, or sleeping, the sailor has his hands half shut, and could not open them flat if he tried. This is the result of years of climbing and pulling ropes. And this second Sherlock Holmes assures us lie has not read ter. novels in his life !— l"Chronicle."