I was astonished one day recently (writes a correspondent) to discover an old man living the life of a recluse in Howth, who told me that he had made a life study of palmistry, and proceeded to demonstrate his powers to me. In the course of a remarkable delineation of my character, he instanced several points on which he disagreed with the majority of palmists. Small hands, he informed me, on big people are not, as is popularly supposed, characteristic of meanness. Instead they indicate artistic talent, provided that they are rounded in appearance - almost inclined to be stubby - that the fingers equal the palm in length, and that the fingers are not spatulate. I mentioned the accepted idea - that long, slender fingers are a sign of artistic ability. To this he replied that, unless the thumb happened to curve back in a semicircle from the fingers, such would not be the case. Murderers, he said - quite irrelevantly, I assure you - never possess big hands.
The Irish Times, May 8th, 1931.