The Sun.
London, England, 1837-12-28 00:00:00

TABLIS

PRINTING E
THE BLIND.

.31ENTS FOR

There are at present five different printing establishments
ts
for printing for the blind. The first of these, which is
Paris, was established upwards
common of forty ears ago. The
alphabet used there is theletters, capital and
lower case—but in a written form. There is a great waste
of space, and no improvement has taken place since its

ef-arm-wricernP,ut .
in Edinburgh, wt ere. the art bas been revived within the
last ten years, Mr. Gall has introduced great improvements,
both in the form of the letters and the method of mt
prinr.r•
The alphabet used is also the common letters, both capitals
and Lwer case ; but modified so as to be very easily dis-
tinguished by the touch. To such perfection has he
brought their forms, that while the alphabet retains its
original appearance, so as to be distinctly legible to thef
_
eye, the honks can he read through eight or twelve plies o
silk, or the letters can he made so 5m.,11 that the blind can
read from thirty to forty letters in one square inch of paper!
The uso of a modified alphabet, and of fretted types, and
producing by the common printing press, impressions upon
both sides of the paper, have all originated in Edinburgh.
The value of the discoveries may be estimated by the fact
that the whole New Testament may now be printed in one
quarto volume, at the expense of about 12s. per copy.
In America Dr. Howe, after having examined the Paris
and Edinburgh printing establishments, founded another in
Boston. The same alphabet is used there which is used
in Edinburgh, namely the common letters, angularly di-
modi-
fied. The only difference is that (like Mr. Gall's first mg*
fication), the capitals are excluded with the exception of the
G. which has been substituted for the small letter.
Since the establishment of those three institutions, other
two have arisen in Britain, neither of which use the corn-
mon alphabet. One in Glasgow uses only capitals ; the
other, in Bristol, uses an entirely new character, like short-
hand. Neither of these have been found to succeed
eso
well as the common alphabet used in Edinburgh and Am'
rice . The capital letters have been found so like each
other in their external forms, being, with a few exceptions,
either square or round, and being all of the same height, the
blind feel great difficulty in reading the books. Printing for
the blind is about to be commenced in Belgium upon the
Edinburgh plan. Thus the French books printed there
will be read by the blind in Britain and America, while the
French and Belgian blind will be supplied with books from
Edinburgh and America.
The Belgian Government sent Abbe Carton (Director
for the Bruges Institution for the Deaf and Dumb nod
Blind) to this country, to obtain information regarding the
printing for the blind. After visiting the Paris, Edit'
burgh, and Glasgow Institutions, and making a very va-
luable collection of books and apparatus, le has found that
the common alphabet with the capitals, where they arc re
quired, which is the Edinburgh method of printing, is de-
cidedly the best.
To assist him in ascertaining the comparative ease with
which the blind can read the Glasgow and the Edinburgh
books, ldr. Alston, in Glasgow, made one of the children
read thirteen verses of the New Testament, which she 0-
complished in six minutes. On returning to Edinburgh,
Abbe Carton performed a similar experiment with the,
children there. One boy, eight years of age, who bad
been five months at school, read 13 verses of equal length to
four minutes ten seconds. A girl, seven years of age, who
had been sixteen months at school did the same to
four minutes three seconds. Another girl, nine years of -
age, who had been nine months at school, read thirteen
verses of greater length in three minutes and five seconds
on reading them over a second time she didsoin two minutes
and forty-two see,,nds. She was then desired to read the
whole chapter (containing forty-two verses) ; this she so'
complished easily irt nine minutes eleven seconds, which
was considerably less than half the time occupied by the
girl in Glasgow.
Abbe Carton, finding that when a handkerchief is laid
upon the book the blind cannot read so quickly through it,
was anxious to ascertain how many plies of silk would be
required to reduce the tangibility of the Edinburgh printing*
to an equality with that of the Glasgow books. He made
several experiments for the purpose, and found that the
time occupied in reading the Edinburgh printing through
eight plies of silk was the same as required to read the
Glasgow printing with the naked finger.

A considerable degree of excitement prevailed yes'
terday evening in the vicinity of the Regent's-park, in conse-
quence of a report which had been freely circulated to the
effect that on the previous =ming a young man, named Las'
card, an Italian, had been taken into custody at Devizes, on
su,picion of having been the murderer of Eliza Davis, late
barmaid to Mr. Wadley, of the King's Arms, Frederick-street,
Regent's-park, Between 600 and 700 persons assembled in
the neighbourhood of Mr. Wadley's house between six and
seven o'clock, and it was not until the arrival of a man who
had been dispatched to the White Horse Cellar, Piccadilly,
that the assembled multitude dispersed. From inquiries made
it appears that, on Friday evening last, a man, having the
appearance of an Italian, got off the Bath coach at the Liver-
pool Inn, Devizes, and set himself down in the parlour, where
he called for a rump-steak and potatoes, which were brolight
to him. While partaking of this repast the conversation
turned upon the subject of the Frederick-street murder, when
the stranger suddenly left the inn, and has not since been
heard of. He left behind him a hat in a box, marked " Per'
ring, Strand," and a handkerchief, with the initials, I. fl.“
Two active policemen are on the look-out for the fugitive,
whose desoription answers to that of the supposed murderer.
In the reign of Edward IV. an Act was passed re'
stricting burgesses, artificers, and others, from dressing in a
style unbecoming their station in society. By this Act the
Lord Mayor of London and his wife were allowed, if they s°
pleased, to wear velvet or figured satin, a privilege allowed to
them in common with the nobility of the realm. The recorder,
aldermen, and sheriffs were not allowed to dress so splendidlY;
and were put on a footing with knights and esquires, an',
might wear damask or satin, but no velvet, under a penalty °'
one hundred pence to the king. It was also ordained that
any man wearing shoes with beaks or pikes above two inches/
in length should pay a fine of one noble to the king, another
to the cordwainers, and a third to the chamber of London.-"
Mackay's History of London.
SILK.—It is a remarkable fact, that the first per"
sons who brought wrought silk into Europe were the Greek'
of Alexander's army, which conquered the Persian empire, in
which Babylon was then included. In other words, nb°tit
240 years after Ezekiel. silk is known to have been used i°
the dress of the Persians. Jahn even conjectures that Of
famous robe which the Persians adopted from the Med.es
a dress of honour, was of silk; and if so, as the luxury °
the Modes was contemporary with that of the Babylonian%
we should find silk on the frontiers of Babylonia even ab°llo
the time of Ezekiel. Now what was known to the Persinitio
and possibly to the Medes, was not likely to be unknown
the still more luxurious Babylonians, who moreover be
access to the shores of the country where silk might ,ad
found ; and should it be alleged that the Persians Pue
greater facilities of obtaining silk by the land route from t"
frontiers of China, the effect will be the same, for we '13„1(11
be sure that the results of Persian, as well as of Arabiao,s-of
Phoenician commerce, found their way to the great nla"tbe
Babylon. As the Medes and Babylonians (or at least
latter, were luxurious and wealthy, and fond of rich dresirg
ea
it may be well supposed that they absorbed all the intcat
supply which reached them; and as the nations snore ao
were less rich and of plainer manners, the merchants hake,
motive to carry the commodity to a more western nonrab-y-
This will show that silk may long have been in use in ',ore
lonia before it was known in Europe and on the n'°'
silk
shores of Asia. It is a remarkable circumstance that to it i 5
came to the west manufactured in cloth half silk ; ankh h was
said the plan was devised of unravelling the stuff, 10" c a-
rewoven into cloth of entire silk. The only proper silkorere
nufactures that we can find to have existed in the
whichseed,
_de io
to show that the Phcenicians not only possessed the t!';'ef,llll
silk, but the process of manufacture, which they
kept secret

▪ l.
T. COX V.VORY, Goldsmith, &c., 47, C:r-
ri:tk`rl
London, informs the Public, that he has a considerable o 7„
SECOND-HAND GOLD WATCHES, any of whiebeloiy
at EIGHT GUINEAS each. They have all been etotre•
amined, and are warranted.—Watches purchased in er>---

On the 27th iist., of hooppin inflareins'
tion of the lungs, I as.
of M aged 2% years, Elizabeth Sarah, t, Y en. , gi.EetDugh and subsequennt ;atter
r. W. C. Evans, Grand Hotel, King-street, Covent- „ion. ol
On the 19th inst., at Harrogate, Airs• Van Mildert, Aid
the Lord Bishop of Durham.
On the 25th inst., in Adelphi-terrace, Edward Richardson, licl.'
aged 38.
On the 24th inst., at Edmonton, Robert Ray, Esq., sk.ecial.,{ov
On the 23d inst., in Manchester-square, John Leckie, 8,
merly of Bombay, aged 62.conegie'
G
At Brussels, on the 20th inst., aged 30,
George James , nhe
Esq., only son of the Hon. Lieut.-Colonel Carnegie,
an
.
to the late Earl of Northesk.
In September last, Caroline Rosa, lady of E. C. Monsc.tonnod.rei:
Bengal Civil Service and youngest daughter of Charle iv
Esq., Park-crescent. lir•
In London, on the 25th inst., Elizabeth Jane, wife of J_aressact.
White, Esq., and eldest daughter of J. Parkinson. K., '
ville-street.
On the 22d of October lest, at Geneva, in the Islaiidroefra—Voii
nice, James Potter Lockhart, Esq., many years Senior
in
the Council, and late President of the Island. ,rhos. Lobster
On the 25th inst., Marv, youngest daughter of
Esq., of Beaconsfield, Bucks.

/rto
London :Printed published by AIVIT---DO YOl/146' °-foll0;
112, Strand, at The Sun Office, No. 112, Strand, in thq
of Middlesex.—Thursday, December 284 107.