The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1889-11-28
FOUR NOTED BLIND MEN.
Almost Incredible Are the Accounts OF
What They Did Withou. Eyes.

Almost Incredible Are the Accounts Of
What They Did Withou. Eyes.
John Metcalf, a most wonderful pro-
duction of the last century, was born
at Knaresborough. Yorkshire, England,
in 1777, says the ST. Louis Republic. At
the age of 4 hard attack of the meas
les struck him totally blind-so blind
that the brightest rays of the sun gave
him no perception of light. Yet he
did not give up in despair. A calamity
had overtaken him which would have
benumbed the faculties of less cour-
ageous man forever Not so with
John Metcalf 1t seemed only to
brighten his remaining sense. At first
he learned music, and, at the age of II,
was the most expert violinist in all En-
gland. When he arrived at mans es-
tate he was owner of a house, small
farm. and horse and carriage. At
the age of % he was a well known car
rier, engaged in the occupation of car
rying persons through the crowded
streets to and from places of amuse-
ment Besides his street work he fire.
quently engaged to carry travellers to
York, distance of sixteen miles. In
all this hazardous work he was as
trusty as any man with two eyes, and
got into but few difficulties from which
he could not easily extricate himself
He became a great hunter and follow
ed the hounds with as much pleasure
and as surely as the most keen-eyed
hunter He had his own horse, and
could tell the baying of his own hounds
among hundreds At the age of 40 he
began the study of surveying and
bridge-building. This not for idle
pastime, but for profit. At one time
he was the official surveyor of York
shire. Even to this day there are
dozens of monuments to John Metcalf
in his native shire in the shape of ele-
giant roadbeds and splendid bridges.
At Huddersfield one of the finest and
most substantial bridges is known to
have been constructed by him. What
he could have accomplished with or
gans of sight unimpaired we can only
conjecture.
John Cough, an Englishman by birth,
became quite celebrated as botanist
and writer on subjects pertaining to
natural philosophy. He was totally
blind from the age of 3 years, the sense
of vision being so deadened that he
could not perceive the glare of sunlight
upon the snow on the brightest winter
DAYS. Disabled by this appalling
affiiction he studied botany, his wife,
brothers, and sisters doing his reading,
and collected aud arranged by the
sense C touch alone and without the
least aid from any living being one of
the largest and most valuable collec-
tions of dried herbs and grasses at that
time Q760) known in Britain.
That wonderful invention, the string
alphabet for the blind, was invented by
a man who never saw the queer-loolking
machine, the face of his mother or the
GLAD sunlight of which he so feeling
" wrote David Macbeth was bind
from birth, yet a perfect genius in a
dozen different ways. He was an ac-
complished musician, a perfect pro-
dizzy in mathematics, and an inventor
of no mean order of merit. Besides
his string alphabet, he was the inyen-
tor of one of the earliest known revoly-
ing barrel churns, of a clamp to be
used by book-bindefS in stitching leaves
together. and of a self-oiling attach
ment for wagons and carriages. He
could take his watch to pieces and put
it together almost as quickly as the
man who made it could have done. 1t
was without a crystal, and by gently
touching the hands with the tips of his
fingers he could tell within one second
of the time of day or night. He was
an expert at the national game of
cricket, and was reckoned as being one
of the most valuable men in some parts
of the game. but useless in others.
When he died he had been engaged for
years on the perfection of tire-escape
which has since. with some slight
changes and additions, made a London
firm independent.
Vidal, the blind sculptor, is one of
the wonders of the French capital. He
has been blind since his 2lst year We
can quite easily understand how a
blind farmer would cultivate the ground
with the plow, spade and hoe; how he
would feel around the tender plants
and gently loosen the dirt from their
roots, or how the blind Birmingham
(Ala.) miner tells, with the sense of
touch alone, the direction and to what
depth to drill his holes before putting
III Il DldSl. Dul the WOTk OF ' 1ual Stdlus
out in bold relief, unique, wonderful,
and Incompatible To be a sculptor
it is generally supposed that one must
have the mechanics eye" and the ar
lists taste and perspeculty. The latter
faculties Vidal has to an exceptional
degree-even more acute, he believes,
than if the former were not lost to him
forever. BY slowly passing his hands
over an object he notes its external
proportions, and initiates them in clay
in manner which strikes the beholder
dumb with surprise. A dog, horse,
human face, or anything alive or dead,
he models with as much ease as any OF
the dozens of Partisan sculptorS who
still retain the faculty of sight. From
1885 to 1875 Vidal received more med
ais than any other exhibitor of works
in the Paris art exposition. Many of
his works, made in the solitude of his
perpetual midnight, are now on the
shelf at the great exposition, where the
blind wonder contends in friendly RI
valry with his less unfortunate brother
artists. He never complains, is ALWAYS
genial and festive when among his
friends, who always speak of him and
TO him as though he could see, and
well may they 90 so, for he is one OF
the best art critics in all Paris