THE MOSES OF THE BLIND.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3149, 25 December 1922, Page 8

THE MOSES OF THE BLIND.

All good bdiograpbics are an incentive to youth, l)iit I cannot offhand think of one quite so definitely calculated to .stimulate the young to high endeavor aw Mr Sidney Dark's "Life of Sir Arthur Pearson." It is us splendid a tribute to a. splendid man as ever .1 read. Hon- Sir Arthur Pearson achieved success is as clear as< daylight. He wa« in love with life. Think first of thin eighteen-year-old miii o-f a country parson, chafing at the thought of the bank clerkship that, was to be his lot. riding thirty miles' to the Bedford' Free' Library three, times a week in order to find solutions to 1.30 qaestioiiß of the "When were trade marks first used?" type. It is worth dwelling oil this picture of a hoy. fresh from Winrlioster, pedalling ISO miles every week For thirteen weeks on a high bicycle in order to win, if possible, a situation in the offices of "TitBits" at I'loo a year. He won the prize easily with eightysix correct answers. It is little wonder thai at the age of nineteen Pearsor had become George Newnes' right-hand man. He stayed for five years on the staff of TitBits, till his salary grew to L"JoO n year.

He had no capital, few friends, }a, wife, and two daughters, "but this splendidly adventurous man then came out and started on bis own with "Pearson's Weekly," of the first number of which 260,000 copies were sold. A missing word competition, combined with ingenious advertising, kept the circulation up, and in seven years he became a wealthy man launching out ever more and more boldly. He became one of the world's most successful beggars, beginning with his Fresh Air Fund and ending with the no'ver-to-be-forgotten St. Dunstaii's. Sir Arthur Pearson founded the Daily Express on April 24, 1900, as a paper which was to be neither highbrow nor dull. "We will tell you," it announced; "the comedy of life." He interested himself in Tariff Reform and was a Protectionist before Mr Chamberlain. He also bought the Standard, his only failure. k Then came the^tragedy which was to make bis name world-famous. Before the days] of St. Dunstaii's blind l men were objects of pity, hopeless, pathetic. Tt is due to Sir Arthur Pearson that we shall never again regard the blind as Milton did. "After a visit to St. Dimstan's." said Mr Charles Marriott, "I am inclined to gay that only the Wind can see." Sir Arthur talks in this strain:— "First among the advantages of blindness 1 will place the unquestionably improved' mentality which is quite .sure' to result." "First among the advantages of blindness!" These surely are among the bravest words ever spoken. The material success of his work was prodigious, but the spiritual success i.s not callable of calculation. "I was eyes to the blind" is an epitaph (suggested in Mr Dark's book: it would be hard to imagine any sentence so exactly and truthfully summing up his greatest achievement.