DUMB BOY'S SHOUTS.

Mataura Ensign, 27 September 1913, Page 6

DUMB BOY'S SHOUTS.

SPEECH RESTORED AT CRICKET. After being dumb for 10 years, a Leeds youth found the power of speech restored to him during the excit&ment of a ericket match. Not loss remarkable than the occurrence itself was the boy's conduct in concealing the restoration of the gift of speech from all around him until he had written a letter to his mother tolling her the joyful ne,vs.

'The youth, Frederick Dennison, 19, the. son of a .minor, went with some inof the Invalid Children's Soei•■<v of Leeds to join the Boy Scouts' Ma ;;i Hareivcod, near that city. A cricket match was arranged, and Dennison, while batting, in his excitement to "steal" a run, found himself trying to shout, and even thought he heard his own voice. Much piiiM/Jed, he. stole away to some woods when the -match was over, and there in solitude ho found that his voice had really been restored to him. For a long time he remained ta'kino- to hi■». self among the trees, now shouting with delight, and then almos f crying wii■■ the joy of the thought of how pleased his mother would be. "Then," says Dennison, "I went back to camp, and without letting anyone else know what had happened J wrote to 'my mother. I could hardly sleep at night, for thinking that I could speakagain."

s,,l xt day ITiv.nison surprised tb: v Sivnitj:;-;istf'r by suddenly .speak'ng to hiii'. There is no impediment in the lad's .speech, ami tlio voire seems to g-in strength day by day. Dcsi'iisou ');• :n:io dumb after a bad attack of inUiKMi'/a 10 years ago. A doctor predift(,d that lie would probably regain bis .■peech, even after a lapse of years. Several similar cases of recovery of ! -t faculties by shock or excitement '• vo been recorded in recent years. "/is/t February a young man. at Ashi'orrt. Kent, recovered both speech and rearing by the shock of Ins sistcr'.s death. A Birmingham laborer, who lost his speech during a fit, recovered it after another fit six weeks later. A young man in Croydon Workhouse, who had been dumb for seven years, recovered his speech through, the explosion of a soda-water syphon. Five months ago 'The Daily Mail' recorded the case of a Manchester girl who recovered her sight while weeping bitterly at a graveside.