OUR HANDS.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 813, 10 May 1910, Page 5

OUR HANDS.

ARE WE LOSING THEM? j SIR FREDERICK TREVES SAYS j "YES." Sir Frederick Treves writes in th# "Nineteenth Century" for March' ail extremely interesting article under the! '■ above heading. It is the latest, bub by no means the last, palinode sung over the gradual subjection of man. to - tho machine. More and more the nSi- V chine encroaches upon the domain ofi the human, and Sir Frederick Treves points out with much pathos the extent' to which the supremacy of the machineis leading to the decadence of the race. ,'; 1 That men have no longer many physical qualities which were developed in the stress and strain of their savage life, ho'says, is admitted: — The man of to-day is inferior, in certain points, to the savage'who made the flint implements. -It is safe to assume that neolithic man was keener: of sight and hearing and fleeter of foot . than is the presont inhabitant of these ; islands. He surely, too, possessed. v ' greater powers of endurance. And the process of decadenco is stall going on. Sir Frederick Treves saya the marvellous skill of the hand, which was developed by our ancestors, ig': : being lost by their degenerate descendants. "We are compelled to own that the human being is—in one particular, at least —showing signs, not of advance*:.. ment, but of decay." Sir Frederick.' points out that typewriters destroy thoi : V use of fine caligraphy and sewing ma-'; chines destroy fine sewing. In his own" j profession "surgery, as a pure handi- 1 craft, reached a point of perfection ? prior to these great changes, \ to which; ,i point it does not. now attain." ' '

This is due not so much to the machino as to the introduction of ac-f aesthetics, which allows the surgeon* to take. time.

The simpler' crafts are all disappear-.- 1 ing.' Spinning and weaving, for in- i stance, have vanished, and with them have vanished tho nimble sensitiveness / of the hands of thousands of men women in,this country. Tho knitting, machine has destroyed the training for > v the band supplied by the knitting needle. Embroidery has gone the samo ; road, py the Heilmann embroidery ma- ; chine one inartistic person can guide , Irom djglilr to oho hundred and forty, needles, working simultaneously. Lace-i making tells the same storyeven tha .' shoemaker, who is an artist m his way* has gone.the same road:—

The old craftsman may mourn loss of' his finished skill, but ho mniti bs proud to think that even in the* making of the uppers of a boot it needs some' sixteen machines to do what was! V done by his two hands. A great press now cuts.out the.sole piece; heavy rol-' lers take the place of the lapstone. Eye- • let holes are fashioned at the rate o# ■ one hundred a Minute. Buttonholes* are made and finished by one : machine,while, tho buttons are fastened by anW other. "A-final engine actually links to-j gether with a' stitch the two boots of .. a. finished pair. Here, then, as in the; daintier art.of glove-making, is there? an'.'irreparable loss in the use of' thoi__ hands. -

Nnedle-making . used to .be . a final handicraft, needing the deftest use or tlie"'fi'n'gers:" Now' needles are" all madai by machines.:— .

With .regard _to' pins, I need' not say* that' one machine' provides them, com- | plete .with heads and points, ,at tlia - I rate; of about 'two . hundred ' a minute. - IVire enters'■'the : machine at one end i ■" 5 and comes opt ■ r.F pins ■at the other. j A still more ingenious apparatus sticks v ! pins in forma) rows into the paper; So • i here',again, there is no need of hands., I : - So it. is- with-everything else. .-, la--, carpentry, machined havu eimost snpfcr-' ~ - human powers. Paper-making and; lioofc-bindmg, as n raeuris of hand culture, have practically ceased to exLst. ■ Wood engraving. and line engraving . have vanished, and with them have gone thousands of skilled artists. Butt • ; it is not only in the finer uses of tho hands that , the niachinb is doing lta ' devastating work. There are a thou- ! sand and one machines which are tak- " ing the place of human muscles. Haudi- • craftsmanship is not concerned with! -i the. steam navvy or steam shovel, with! the trench-excavating machine or tha ) tree-feller, -with the rock-drill or the 1 pneumatic riveter. It only need ba ; , noted that these machines do not tend to improve the physical development 08 man.

, evidently on the down grade, but Sir®l rederick Treves says that it* ■ may be only for a period, aud the--de* v dine is temporary. The loss is, nozid the less, great and regrettable. t