Unto my grief relate--
Pity my misfortune,
For my sufferings are great.
‘I’m bound in dismal darkness--
A prisoner I am led;
Poor and blind, just in prime,
Brought to beg my bread.
‘When in my pleasant youthful days
In learning took delight,
(and when I was in the country I used to say)
And by the small-pox
I lost my precious sight.
(some says by an inflammation)
‘I’ve lost all earthly comforts,
But since it is God’s will,
The more I cannot see the day,
He’ll be my comfort still.
‘In vain I have sought doctors,
Their learned skill did try,
But they could not relieve me,
Nor spare one single eye.
‘So now in dismal darkness
For ever more must be,
To spend my days in silent tears,
Till death doth set me free.
‘But had I all the treasures
That decks an Indian shore,
Was all in my possession,
I’d part with that wealthy store,
‘If I once more could gain my sight,
And when could gladly view
That glorious light to get my bread,
And work once more like you.
‘Return you, tender Christians dear,
And pity my distress;
Relieve a helpless prisoner,
That’s blind and comfortless.
‘I hope that Christ, our great Redeemer,
Your kindness will repay,
And reward you with a blessing
On the judgment day.’
“Some say ‘pity the poor blind,’ but the lamentation is better. It’s
a very feeling thing. Many people stands still and hears it right
through, and gives a halfpenny. I’d give one myself any day to hear it
well said. I’m sure the first time I heard it the very flesh crept on
my bones. I larnt it to one blind man myself last summer.
“Now just to show you the difference of things two year afterwards: I
went to the very same place where I had took 1_l._ by the road side,
as I told, and all I got was 4_s._, so you can see how things was
falling. The day I took the 1_l._, there was only one blind man in the
town beside me; but when I got the 4_s._, there was three men blind
there. But things now is much worse--bless you, a hundred times worse.
If I went now to Braintree fair, I don’t think as I should take 3_s._
You see there’s so many blind men now about that I should’nt wonder if
there’d be eight or ten at that very fair; they don’t know where to run
to now to get a halfpenny; there’s so many blind people that persons
makes game of them. If they see two near one another, they cries out,
there’s opposition! See what things is come to. Twelve year ago I
should have thought the town was completely done, and people quite
tired of me. If I didn’t get my shilling going down only one side of
a street, and now I may go up and down and not get a penny. If I get
3_d._ I am very well satisfied. But mind, I may perhaps sometimes
meet a gentlemen who may give me a shilling, or one who may give me
2_s._ 6_d._; a person the other day tapped me on the shoulder, near
Brook-street, and said, ‘Here’s half-a-crown for you.’ Why, even five
year ago one gentleman gave me 1_l._ twice over within three months,
and Prince Napoleon gave me a sovereign last 23rd June was two year.
I know the date, because that’s the day the blind people goes to the
Cloth Hall to get their quarter’s money, 25_s._, and I thought I was as
good as they.” My informant told me he does better than any of them.
“Not one does better than me,” he said, “because I sticks to it night
and day. It’s 12 o’clock every night before I leave the streets. You
know I leaves home by ten of a morning. I will have it to get a living.
Many says they don’t know how I stand it to keep so long on my legs.
I only has two meals a day--my breakfast, a bit of summat about five
or six at a public-house--my dog though has plenty. I feeds him well,
poor fellow. Many times I sleep as I go, and knock my stick just the
same as if I was awake. I get a comfortable living--always a little
in debt. I’ve got a very good kerackter, thank God--indeed all the
blind men has--they can always get credit; and my dog gets me many a
shilling that I wouldn’t get at all. But then it’s dreadful slavery.
I’ve never no amusement--always out excepting on Sunday. Then I’ve got
5_l._ from Cloth Hall, besides a small pension of 1_s._, and 2_s._
6_d._, and 5_s._ a year from different gentlemen, who allows us poor
blind a small pension yearly. There are many gentleman do this at the
West-end. Some will allow 10_s._ a year, and some only 1_s._ a year,
to a stated number; and they all pay on a particular day that they
may appoint. The Earl of Mansfield allows twenty-four destitute blind
people 10_s._ 6_d._ a year; and his mother gives two blind 1_l._, and
four 10_s._ The Baroness Rothschild gives to between seventy and eighty
5_s._ a piece once a year.” (“Bless her,” said my informant, most
heartily, “she is a good woman.”) “The Earl Stanhope gives to between
forty and fifty the same sum every year, and he’s a fine kind-hearted
gentleman. The Earl of Cork’s brother gives eight or nine of us a
shilling a piece once a year. Lady Otway Cave, she is very good to us;
she gives seventy or eighty of us 1_s._ each every fust of May; but
the butler, like a many more, I am told, takes advantage of the blind,
and puts them off with 6_d._, and takes a receipt from them for 1_s._
The Earl of Normanton gives 2_s._ 6_d._ to ten of us. Mrs. Managan, of
May-fair, gives three 2_s._ 6_d._ a piece. The Hon. Miss Brande 1_s._
a piece to eight. Lady Clements, Grosvenor-square, 2_s._ a piece to
fifteen. The Marchioness of Aylesbury, 5_s._ a piece to about thirty.
The Earl of Harrowby gives twelve 5_s._ a piece. Lord Dudley Stuart
gives to seven or eight 5_s._ a piece. Mr. Gurney, 1_s._ a piece to
forty. Mr. Ellis, Arlington-street, 2_s._ 6_d._ a piece to fourteen.
The Marquis of Bute used to give 5_s._ a piece to sixty or seventy; but
the Marchioness, since his death, has discontinued his allowance. The
Dean of Westminster gives 1_s._ a piece to thirty on Boxing-day. Mr.
Spottiswoode, 1_s._ a piece to about fourteen. Archbishop of Oxford,
5_s._ a piece to twelve. Rev. Sir Samuel Jarvis, 2_s._ 6_d._ a piece
to five. Lady Dundas, 1_s._ a piece to about fourteen or fifteen. The
Earl of Besborough, 1_s._ each to ten. Lord Stafford, 1_s._ each to
about twenty; he used to give 2_s._ 6_d._, but, owing to his servant,
I am told the sum has been reduced to 1_s._ Lady Isabella Thynne,
1_s._ to ten. The Countess of Carlisle, 2_s._ 6_d._ each to sixteen.
Earl Fitzwilliam used to give 5_s._ to some, and 2_s._ 6_d._ to
others, to about twenty. The Countess of Essex, 2_s._ 6_d._ each to
three. Lord Hatherton, 2_s._ 6_d._ each to twelve. John Ashley Warr,
Esq., 5_s._ each to twenty-four. Lord Tynemouth, 2_s._ 6_d._ each to
forty. Miss Vaughan, 2_s._ 6_d._ each to forty (this is bequeathed
for ever). Lord Saltoun, 5_s._ each to three. Mr. Hope, 1_s._ each
to fifty. Mr. Warren (Bryanstone-square), 1_s._ each to twenty-five.
Miss Howard (York-place), 1_s._ each to every blind person that calls
on Boxing-day. Sir John Curtis, 1_s._ each to eighty (this is also a
bequest). Lady Beresford, 1_s._ each to forty. Lord Robert Grosvenor
gives 1_l._ each to some few. The Countess of Andover, 2_s._ 6_d._ a
piece to ten. Lord Stanley used to give 3_s._ to about twelve; but
two years ago the allowance was discontinued. The Marquis of Bristol
gives 10_s._ to eighteen. The Bishop of London, 5_s._ to every one that
can obtain a minister’s signature. Mr. Mackenzie (Devonshire-place),
2_s._ 6_d._ to ten. Mr. Deacon, 2_s._ 6_d._ to ten. Miss Sheriff
(Manchester-square), 1_s._ to twenty. Miss Morrison (Cadogan-place),
1_s._ each to ten. Mrs. Kittoye (Wilton-crescent), 1_s._ to twenty.
Mrs. Ferguson, 2_s._ 6_d._ each to seven. The Earl of Haddington,
10_s._ each to twelve.” I am assured that these are only half of the
donors to the blind, and that, with the exception of Lady Liddledam,
there is not one person living eastward of Tottenham Court-road, who
allows the smallest pension to the blind. My informant told me that he
knew of no attorneys, barristers, surgeons, physicians, soldiers or
sailors, who distributed any money to the blind, nor one tradesman. “I
think I get 10_s._ a week regular,” he said. “While the quality’s in
town I’m safe. For other times I can’t count above 5_s._ a week at the
outside--if it’s the least damp in the world, the quality will not come
out. The musicians, you see, have got the chance of a damp day, for
then all the best people’s at home; but such as me does well only when
they’re out. If it wasn’t for the pensions that the quality gives to
the blind during the winter, they couldn’t do at all. The blind people
who have guides pay them no wages, they find them their victuals and
clothes; but the guides are mostly children, and the blind are very
good to them; many that I know spoils them.”
The blind people are mostly all of a religious turn of mind. They all
make a point of attending divine service; and the majority of them
are Catholics. My informant knew only five among his blind neighbours
who were Protestants--and two of these were Presbyterians, one a
Methodist, and two Churchmen; and on the other hand he numbered up
fourteen Catholics, all going to the same chapel, and living within a
short distance of himself. They are peculiarly distinguished by a love
of music. “It’s a sure bit of bread to the most; besides, it makes
them independent, you see, and that’s a great thing to people like
us.” There is not one teetotaller, I am told, among the street blind,
but they are not distinguished by a love of drink. The blind musicians
often, when playing at public-houses, are treated to drink, and,
indeed, when performing in the streets, are taken by drunken men to
play at taverns, and there supplied with liquor; but they do not any of
them make a habit of drinking. There is, however, one now in prison who
is repeatedly intoxicated; and this, the blind say, is a great injury
to them; for people who see one of them drunk in the streets, believe
that they are all alike; and there is one peculiarity among them
all--being continually mistaken for one another. However different they
may be in features, still, from the circumstance of their being blind,
and being mostly accompanied by a dog, or a guide, few persons can
distinguish one from another. They are mostly very jealous, they tell
me, because they say every one takes advantage of their affliction,
even their own children, and their own wives. “Some of the wives dress
themselves very gaily, because they know their husbands can’t see
their fine clothes, particularly those that have got no children--then
there’s none to tell. But, pray mind I only speaking of some of
them--don’t blame the whole. People never took no money out of my dog’s
basket--two gals of the town once did try to steal a shilling out of
it, that some gentleman had dropped in, but the dog barked, and they
gave a scream, and run away. Many of the blind men have married blind
women--they say that they don’t like seeing women. If seeing men find
it a hard job to take care of seeing women, how are blind men to do
it?” My informant knows six blind men who have married blind wives--the
blind wives, I am told, stick closer to home--and do not want to go to
plays, or dances, or shows, and have no love of dress--and they are
generally more sober than those who can see. “A blind person,” says
one, “has no reason to be as wicked as those that can see--there’s not
half the temptation, you know. The women do all their household duties
as well as if they had their eyesight. They make puddings and pies, and
boil them, or send them to the oven, as well, as quick, and as handy
as a woman that can see. They sweep the floor without leaving a speck;
and tidy the room, and black-lead the grate, and whiten the hearth,
and dress the chimney-piece off quite handsome, I can tell you. They
take great pride in their chimney-piece--they like other people to see
it--and they take great pride in having their house quite clean and
neat. Where I live it’s the remark of all, that they who can’t see have
their houses the cleanest. I don’t know of any blind person that has a
looking-glass over the mantelpiece, though. I’m sure that many would,
if they had the money, just to please their friends. And, what’s more
strange, the blind wives will wash their husbands’ shirts quite clean.”
“The blind are very fond of their children, you see, sir,” said one;
“we owe so much to them, they’re such helps to us, even from their very
infancy. You’ll see a little thing that can hardly walk, leading her
blind father about, and then, may be, our affliction makes them loves
us the more. The blind people are more comfortable at home--they are
more together, and more dependent on one another, and don’t like going
out into company as others do. With women a love of company is mostly
of a love of seeing others, and being seen themselves, so the blind
wives is happy and contented at home. No man that could see, unless
he was a profligate, would think of marrying a blind woman; and the
blind women knows this, and that’s why they love their blind husbands
the more--they pity one another, and so can’t help liking each other.”
Now, it’s strange, that with so many blind couples living together, no
one ever heard of any accident from fire with blind people--the fact
is, their blindness makes them so careful, that there’s no chance of
it: besides, when there’s two blind people together, they never hardly
light a candle at all, except when a stranger comes in, and then they
always ask him, before he leaves, to put the light out.
The blind people generally are persons of great feeling; they are
very kind and charitable to persons who are in any way afflicted, or
even to poor persons. Many of those who live on charity themselves
are, I am assured, very generous to those that want. One told me that
“a beggar had come to his house, and he had made him cry with his
story; my heart” he said, “was that full I was ashamed.” They’re not
particularly proud, though they like to be well-dressed, and they say
that no one can get a wife so soon as a blind man. One assured me that
he’d go into any lodging-house in the country and get two or three if
he wanted--only they’d fight, he said. “You see in the lodging-houses
there are many woman whose husbands (but they’re not married, you know)
have told them to go on and said they would follow them, which of
course they don’t; or there’s many in such places as wants a companion.
When a blind man goes into one of these houses, a woman is sure to say
to him, ‘Can I fetch you anything, master?’ Half an ounce of tea may
be, and when they’ve got it, of course, they’re invited to have a cup,
and that does the business. She becomes the blind man’s guide after
that. The next morning, after telling one another where to meet--‘I’m
going such a road,’ they whisper to each other,--away they starts. I’ve
known many a blind man run away with a seeing man’s wife. The women, I
think, does it for a living, and that’s all.
“I can’t see the least light in the world--not the brightest sun that
ever shone. I have pressed my eye-balls--they are quite decayed, you
see; but I have pushed them in, and they have merely hurt me, and
the water has run from them faster than ever. I have never seen any
colours when I did so.” (This question was asked to discover whether
the illusion called “peacock’s feathers” could still be produced by
pressure on the nerve). “I have been struck on the eye since I have
been blind, and then I have seen a flash of fire like lightning. I know
it’s been like that, because I’ve seen the lightning sometimes, when
it’s been very vivid, even since I was stone blind. It was terrible
pain when I was struck on the eye. A man one day was carrying some
chairs along the street, and struck me right in the eye-ball with the
end of the leg of one of the chairs; and I fell to the ground with
the pain. I thought my heart was coming out of my mouth; then I saw
the brightest flash that ever I saw, either before or since I was
blind.” (I irritated the ball of the eye with the object of discovering
whether the nerve was decayed, but found it impossible to produce any
luminous impression--though I suspect this arose principally from the
difficulty of getting him to direct his eye in the proper direction).
“I know the difference of colours, because I remember them; but I
can’t distinguish them by my touch, nor do I think that any blind
man in the world ever could. I have heard of blind people playing at
cards, but it’s impossible they can do so any other way than by having
them marked. I know many that plays cards that way.” He was given two
similar substances, but of different colours, to feel, but could not
distinguish between them--both were the same to him, he said, “with
the exception that one felt stiffer than the other. I know hundreds of
people myself--and they know hundreds more--and none of us has ever
heard of one that could tell colours by the feel. There’s blind people
in the school can tell the colours of their rods; but they do so by
putting their tongue to them, and so they can distinguish them that’s
been dipped in copperas from them that hasn’t. I know blind people
can take a clock to pieces, and put it together again, as well as any
person that can see. Blind people gets angry when they hear people
talk of persons seeing with their fingers. A man has told me that a
blind person in St. James’s workhouse could read the newspaper with his
fingers, but that, the blind know, is quite impossible.”
Many blind men can, I am told, distinguish between the several kinds
of wood by touch alone. Mahogany, oak, ash, elm, deal, they say, have
all a different feel. They declare it is quite ridiculous, the common
report, that blind people can discern colours by the touch. One of my
informants, who assured me that he was considered to be one of the
cleverest of blind people, told me that he had made several experiments
on this subject, and never could distinguish the least difference
between black or red, or white, or yellow, or blue, or, indeed, any of
the mixed colours. “My wife,” said one, “went blind so young, that she
doesn’t never remember having seen the light; and I am often sorry for
her that she has no idea of what a beautiful thing light or colours
is. We often talk about it together, and then she goes a little bit
melancholy, because I can’t make her understand what the daylight is
like, or the great delight that there is in seeing it. I’ve often asked
whether she knows that the daylight and the candlelight is of different
colours, and she has told me she thinks they are the same; but then
she has no notion of colours at all. Now, it’s such people as these
I pities.” I told the blind man of Sanderson’s wonderful effect of
imagination in conceiving that the art of seeing was similar to that of
a series of threads being drawn from the distant object to the eye; and
he was delighted with the explanation, saying, “he could hardly tell
how a born blind man could come at such an idea.” On talking with this
man, he told me he remembered having seen a looking-glass once--his
mother was standing putting her cap on before it, and he thought he
never saw anything so pretty as the reflection of the half-mourning
gown she had on, and the white feathery pattern upon it (he was five
years old then). He also remembered having seen his shadow, and
following it across the street; these were the only two objects he can
call to mind. He told me that he knew many blind men who could not
comprehend how things could be seen, round or square, _all at once_;
they are obliged, they say, to pass their fingers all over them; and
how it is that the shape of a thing can be known in an instant, they
cannot possibly imagine. I found out that this blind man fancied the
looking-glass reflected only one object at once--only the object that
was immediately in front of it; and when I told him that, looking in
the glass, I could see everything in the room, and even himself, with
my back turned towards him, he smiled with agreeable astonishment. He
said, “You see how little I have thought about the matter.” There was
a blind woman of his acquaintance, he informed me, who could thread
the smallest needle with the finest hair in a minute, and never miss
once. “She’ll do it in a second. Many blind women thread their needles
with their tongues; the woman who stitches by the Polytechnic always
does so.” My informant was very fond of music. One of the blind makes
his own teeth, he told me; his front ones have all been replaced by
one long bit of bone which he has fastened to the stumps of his two
eye teeth: he makes them out of any old bit of bone he can pick up.
He files them and drills a hole through them to fasten them into his
head, and eats his food with them. He is obliged to have teeth because
he plays the clarionet in the street. “Music,” he said, “is our only
enjoyment, we all like to listen to it and learn it.” It affects them
greatly, they tell me, and if a lively tune is played, they can hardly
help dancing. “Many a tune I’ve danced to so that I could hardly walk
the next day,” said one. Almost all of the blind men are clever at
reckoning. It seems to come natural to them after the loss of their
sight. By counting they say they spend many a dull hour--it appears
to be all mental arithmetic with them, for they never aid their
calculations by their fingers or any signs whatever. My informant knew
a blind man who could reckon on what day it was new moon for a hundred
years back, or when it will be new moon a century to come--he had
never had a book read to him on the subject in his life--he was one
of the blind wandering musicians. My informant told me he often sits
for hours and calculates how many quarters of ounces there are in a
ship-load of tea, and such like things. Many of the blind are very
partial to the smell of flowers. My informant knew one blind man about
the streets who always would have some kind of smelling flowers in his
room.
“The blind are very ingenious; oh, very!” said one to me, “they can do
anything that they can feel. One blind man who kept a lodging-house
at Manchester and had a wife fond of drink, made a little chest of
drawers (about two feet high), in which he used to put his money, and
so cleverly did he arrange it that neither his wife nor any one else
could get at the money without breaking the drawers all to pieces. Once
while her blind husband was on his travels, she opened every drawer by
means of false keys, and though she took each one out, she could find
no means to get at the money, which she could hear jingling inside when
she shook it. At last she got so excited over it that she sent for a
carpenter, and even he was obliged to confess that he could not get to
it without taking the drawers to pieces. The same blind man had a great
fancy for white mice, and made a little house for them out of pieces
of wood cut into the shape of bricks: there were doors, windows, and
all,” said my informant. The blind are remarkable for the quickness of
their hearing--one man assured me he could hear the lamp-posts in the
streets, and, indeed, any _substance_ (any solid thing he said) that
he passed in the street, provided it be as high as his ear; if it were
below that he could not _hear_ it so well.