BLIND BEGGAR AND BRIDE

Evening Star, Issue 19772, 24 January 1928, Page 10

BLIND BEGGAR AND BRIDE

Mrs Frances Johnson, eighteen years old. a pretty and happy bride of three weeks, was filled with compassion when, while shopping in Chicago, she saw a. deformed, blue-goggled beggar propped against a wall and extending a tin cup for charity. A sign hung from his neck; “ f am blind.” _ _ , She paused to drop a silver coin in the cup. There seemed something strangely familiar about the mendicant’s lace. She spoke to him sympathetically. He mumbled in reply. Chancing to glance hack after she had passed on. she saw the man remove his goggles to rub Ids eye, and was astonished at his resemblance to her husband. She walked hack, hut “the blind man saw her coining,” and hobbled off. With a wild surmise she ran after him. and tore liis goggles off. His decrepitude dropped from him. He stood straight up and faced her boldly, revealed as the smiling, good-looking husband as she had believed to ho a •prosperous Salesman. He pleaded; With.- her; but she fled weeping to her parents. Now she has just told her story to a judge in the Matrimonial Court, who has granted her the decree for which she petitioned.