New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1874-07-24
SUEETER THAN Words.

Have our readers noticed the doings-liter-
ally, the doings--of the Deaf and Dumb Con-
yention held last week at Belleville, Ontario
We present to-day more detailed account
of the proceedings than was supplied by
telegraph; and indeed it would seem somewhat
inappropriate to send these silent speeches by
wire. In an age of babble, we may be pardoned
for luxuriousy dreaming of the digital debate,
and for recalling that quite professional couplet
of o. w. Holmes NJ. d., which tells us that
"Silence like a pOultice came To heal the
"wounds of sound" For in this period of
paper money and pretension, is not silence the
only golden thing which is left us The most
nervous can hardly fail to become little less
so, thinking of the profound peace broodlng
over that hushed, forever hushed assembly
that Quaker meeting saved from tedium by
the digital agitation. Only for that finger
hying, it might have been little too much
like Life in Death. How delicious to have
had motions made, points of order raised, the
previous question put, mistakes corrected, and
right to the floor asserted-all without the
nuisance of noise! The building of the Tenn
ple, when emo hammer fell, must have been
as nothing to it. Here was no audience-only
pure spectatorship and ocular receptivity Did
any one weary of differences and get too
much of discussion for healthy digestion-he
had but to shut his eyes, and he was thou
sand miles away in some cloistral valley of
absolute peace. If ignorant of sign language,
still it must have been comfort to him to know
that the business before the House was making
steady progress without bother. Nor would it
have been strange if there had come to him
sense of the superiority of these deaf mutes
derived of two senses, one so often msem-
Moved and the other so often shamefully inn
posed upon.
The world, foolish enough in many respects,
Is wise in the stigma of disapprobatlon which it
has placed upon garruity. Less chin !" is the
natural cry Of despairing and irrtated hui
manity. 1t is for this reason that men hang
up in their places of business doleful pic
ture of dead face in coffin, with the in
scription "This man was talked to DEATH"
II NAV be doubtful whether any one
ever actually expired under the torture of
talk, but there have been moments in the
lives of many when they have felt even such
supreme relief desirable. The wordy bore
annears to exercise his dreadful art from sheer
love of it. That he has nothing to say is
nothing. If his victim yawns in his face, he
ia enraptured, for that tempered spasm he
regards as evidence of his conversational
ability. Very rich is he in expedients of pro-
longing an interview. Utterly inconsiderate
ia he of the relations OF things, and
misty are his notions of their COM
narrative importance. He struggles in maze
of episode. He shoots wildly through
n tangle of digressiOns Whatever is unim-
portant he impressively repeats, and whatever
ia particularly uninteresting he viciously en-
nbasizes. Because his own mind is in mud
die, he takes it for granted that yours is in
the same condition, and he divides his time
land yours) between misleading you and set
ting YOU right. The chances are that you will
be obliged to do violence to the memory Of
Chesterfield, and ruthlessly insult him out of
the room. But do not be alarmed He will
be ready to forgive whenever you are ready
to listen!
This is an age of political experiment; we
admit that we have sometimes yearned for
the experiments of Deaf and Dumb Con-
gress and the Ontario Convention has re-
minded us of this fond dream. Brevity,
which is wits soul, would be forced upon
those who could only talk ON their fingers,
and SO the printed reports of the debates
would be reduced by many hundred tons.
Between long windedness and long lingering
there might not DO much difference in respect
of that physical exhaustion which is 80 de-
slrable in the performer. And the transition to
isticufa might, under the silent system. DO