SILENT FOR TEN YEARS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20508, 8 March 1930, Page 3 (Supplement)

SILENT FOR TEN YEARS.

TALK THAT CAUSED A TRAGEDY.

•At Brighton, England, a woman who has kept a vow not to speak for ten years, broke her long silence in January. The woman is Mrs. Annie Pearson, the widow of a soldier who was killed during the war, For ten years she: has not ottered a single word. Everything she has wanted to say she has written down on a tablet which she always carried about with her. So strictly has' she kept to her vow that when she fell seriously ill some time ago she still continued to use her writing tablet to convey her symptoms to the doctor. Behind her self-imposed years of silence, it is stated, lies a remarkable story of her desire to do penance for - gossiping which indirectly resulted in a tragedy. "Ten years ago," Mrs. Pearson said, "I was foolish enough to repeat some scandal about a young girl who was then a neighbour of mine. She took the tales that were being spread about her seriously to.heqr't, aud not long afterwards left the district. A short time later I heard that she had committed suicide. "I could have cut ray tongue out to think that I might have been instrumental in causing her distress, and I swore that for a penance I would not speak for ten years. Despite all the pleading of my friends I have kept it." Mrs. Pearson found speech difficult at first, and could not. utter more than a word or two.) ' »