The Sun.
London, England, 1862-12-30 00:00:00

SIGHTLESS.

(From the Examiner.)

Sight-seeing is now the word in every towns-
man's mouth, and as we write curtains are rising
on the costly glitter of a crowd of pantomimes. A
great feast is prepared for the eyes, yet there sit
at our social table some who are sightless, and who
have a claim to be remembered now because
(through nobody's il:-doing, be it said at once),
they happen to have been deprived of some of their
bread for the convenience and pleasure of the town.

At 127 Euston-road there is a little brush and
basket and matmaker's shop, at which are sold the
goods of all descriptions made by free blind
workpeople of London. It is the shop of an
" Association for the Welfare of the Blind,"
established and sustained in a great measure
by the beneficent energies of a blind lady, the
daughter of the Bishop of Chichester, and sup-
ported in part by a subscription list, in part by
customers, A blind workman cannot possibly
compete in speed of workmanship with one
who sees, and for this reason alone the
bind men's shop, if it is to feed the workers
who supply it, cannot be absolutely self-supporting.
But there is more done at the little house than mere
shopkeeping. Everything that can be devised for
the aid of the blind poor, not only by leading them
out of enforced idleness into ways of honest indus-
try, but by circulation among them of books printed
for use of the blind, by social gatherings, by friendly
counsel, it is within the scheme of this Association
to work out. An active superintendent, blind him-
self, is placed there, who gives his thought to the
introduction of as many trades and forms of work
as are within reach of blind labour. Some fifty
varieties of industry, we believe, this gentleman
has introduced, and these—mat, brush, and basket
work being, of course, the chief—are taught to
blind uninstructed men and women on the premises.
So it is that, by the agency of this institution, blind
men and women have been sought out and with-
drawn even from hopeless beggary upon the street,
taught to work, and supplied with their share of
public support to their industry. The shop in the
Euston-road is in fact a sort of co-operative store,
wisely and generously managed, of which the
whole profit, with something added from a sub-
scription list to make up for the abatement made by
physical infirmity in rate of work, goes to the
worker. The advantage of what trade there is all
the blind operatives share in fair proportion. When
the trade fails all suffer.

Now it happens that, for the great convenience
of London in the construction of the new Under-
ground Railway, the traffic of the Euston-road has,
during the last year, been seriously impeded, and
for a long time this little shop of the blind workers,
a fflicted, as in a different and much more terrible
way Lancashire is, by conditions not of its
own making, lost its trade to the very serious
amount of twenty pounds a week. The mana-
gers of the association faced and struggled with
the difficulty as they could, and they are
indeed now endeavouring to form a West-end
settlement. But the sightless labourers, whose
power of earning their bread was thus under-
mined, are now actually being supported through
the winter by a generous sacrifice of the
capital of the Association, not in gifts, but in ad-
vances on the profits of the better days that may
return next summer. If any of our Christmas sight-
seers should pay a visit to the little shop, they will
be shown through the instruction room,the library,
containing every book and appliance printed or
manufactured in this country for blind readers and
writers, and see much more of the good work that
certainly ought not to thrive the less because we
have the railroad the more. A return of customers,
a few more annual subscriptions, above all, a little
personal attention and interest where that can be
spared, will very soon undo the hurt that has acci-
dentally been done to this honest, unostentatious,
and hitherto successful institution for the aid of
those who would account, in these Christmas holi-
days, no sight so precious as the simple power of
seeing, on its way to their mouths, the bread that is
now being lent to them.