CONGRESS OF DEAF MUTES

Evening Star, Issue 21820, 8 September 1934, Page 3

CONGRESS OF DEAF MUTES

SPEECHES BUT KO WORDS NEW YORK, July 25. Although 2,001) people were conversing vigorously in the ballroom of the Hotel Pennsylvania here to-day, not a sound was to be heard except the occasional burst of hearty lanughter. To attend the convention of the National Association of the Deaf is to discover an oasis of quiet amid the clatter of New York. Many of the delegates were smartly dressed girls. Though stone-deaf, they all seemed perfectly happy, as with flying fingers'they gesticulated at one another. On the platform, seventy-year-old Dr Thomas Fox, who has been deaf for fifty years, was making an evidently eloquent speech. Blazing arc lights illuminated his hands, which moved with incredible rapidity. . • It was not long before I discovered the deaf audience’s principal advantage—the people can “ talk ” as much as they like without disturbing the orator.

Mayor La' Guardia, who addressed them,* said he was glad to find an audience which, could understand, but could not hear. He spent most of his days addressing people who could hear but did not understand. Later the audience “ sang ’’ the National Anthem, ‘The Star-spangled Banner, ’ by waving their arms rhythmically. Among the recreations of the deaf is dancing. They can feel the vibration of drums and other .percussion instruments along the floor. in playing bridge, they bid by means of a sign language. They give special performances of plays in the same medium. , The latest play was ‘ Cyrano de Bergerac.’ . One girl with whom I 1 talked with pencil and paper said she pitied the English deaf, as their sign language needed both hands, whereas the American 1 system uses only one. “How do they talk when carrying a parcel? she inquired. She then told me of a movement afoot to convert Britain to the one-handed system. .