BLINDED BY THE WAR.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XLI, Issue 12810, 30 March 1916, Page 8

BLINDED BY THE WAR.

, .. . I :Dy T-v Cr ::: -h' ' TMr:... ; ; rib :r.or:i" .-h-nild -.jn-iu.: y. hiw «■>£ 2dvc::-.-jr-.'_. •-ntcTpii;.". r:r i :ir:-.u yc-ar.-r.t: before iiini re all t!l*j -i--'-*. viriona and horizons of twenty —and h;v-? been blinded in battle. At the Blinded Soldiers' and Sailors Hoitei. St. Dunstan's, Regent's Park, he sat at his first halting lesson at the typewriter. Click, click—a fumbling misitroke—click, dick, click—slowhr and uncertainly—click, Click again. Winter sunshine speared.into the.room and lit up his brave,ryoung, sightless face and shone'on Bis/bright hair. I had to turn away. I was not inured to this sight of men Clinded bywar." I had'not yet understood- what"! was to learn, at the hostel of that other light' that comes to those who -walk Bat someone ■ was rallying: the novice tvpist. on a 'coniic mistake .he'had ' made, l' looked again athis sightless face.— He was laughing as- gladly as -ever people laugh who can look on the world. His face, as ha laughed, was strangely radiant.. It mas the serene radiance of-the light that comes from' within; The • flash -of that blind young.hero'ssmile was a photo- " graph, instantaneous: andvivid,' of "the great work and achievement of St. . Dun-.. Stan's. • -The unnecessary, sentimentality that every visuor first takes'into the' hostel fell awavfrom inc. - Typewriters, a whole battery of the, busy little machines that are such, godsends to the man that is blindT* At every

machint: sits a blind'Svarrior with a voluntary helper who ha? cpme t6"teach him.t We wnlew liave. r.flen thought of the tribute'we could write to our.typewriters.' of the toil thev have lifted and the in-, spiratiun that, floats above the keyboard. What sort of a tribute 'might. these blind men write? Without the typewriter the power of writing, would leave them. But here I have a whole bundle of letters that have been, written by blinded soldiers and sailors who have left-St. Dnnstah's and restarted - useful lives with .crafts and husbandry they have learnt af the hostel. To quote from letters to lit Arthur Pearson : "Last July* 1 went to your happy bostel a miserable* heart-hroken dreature, and was no longer capabale of earning a living for my wife and family; but, thanks to you, things are now quite different with me. lam now delighted to say, sir, that 1 was never better off in my life before. I have a nice home, well furnished, and am able to earn good money." Another letter is happy over the man's venture in poultry-raising. He describes the little farm' and its arrangement of guiding wires and nettings—a mightily ingenious invention of St. Dunstan's. He discusser bis breeds and varieties of birds just as a sighted man might—an art he has been taught at St. Dunstan's. He has caught and killed his first birds for the table, trussed them and dressed them —another work he has been tanght at St. Dunstan's. "I am sending you now," he finishes, "a dozen of my eggs as a little thank-offering." The letter is typed as neatly as a typist in a city office would type it. "Your nappy hostel." There, in three words, is the "picture of this brave place. Approach the long workrooms that hum and stir with the bosketmakers, the matmakers, the cobblers, and the carpenters, and you hear men who are finding happiness more happy because none of them expected to know it again. A naturalist once told me that birds will whistle whether they are happy or not. It is certain that no unhappy man ever whistles. * Half-a-dozen of these blind

workers were trilling. They had reason for the outburst—it was pride of workmanship, man's keenest joy. Here was a dining-table, smooth-angled as human band could trim it. Here was a lordly rabbit-hutch that will plunge some boy into a rapture of possession. Here* was a boot soled as, alas' the war-time citizen cannot get his boots soled by cobblers who have eyesight. Here was an honest, coveiable bookcase. Here was this morning's first attempt of a man who . had never done woowork before (as. indeed, none of them has), a stationery rack, trim and tight-jointed. And here was basketwork that made you look narrowly again at the lightless windows of these workers' brains. In the poultry farm a young blinded soldier held an indignant fowl while an instructor, himself blind (as most of them are here), taught him the indignant one's breed and" points by the sense cf touch. When the blind poultry-rearer goes out equipped from St. Dunstan's he will catch you his fowls and tell you their variety. The management* of his incubator will be a familiar accomplishment. That he can run down and catch the agile fowl you find it hard to believe? I have seen him do it. at St. Dunstan's. Quickness and accuracy: thqy are two of the gifts that come to the blind in this hostel. These newly blind men already move quickly. They walk unafraid down long corridors and about the twisting garden paths of St. Dunstan's. Turnings ana corners they take without hesitation. What are* their only guides?. Strips of carpet in the corridors, wooden boards in gardens and on the terraces that denote steps up or down; handrails along the path with little knobs that mean a "turning opposite." That is all. You and I would want more guidance on one of our nights whose darkness is luminous compared to th? rayless days of the blinded. "We have no use for the word 'afflicted' nor any liking for it," is the stout challenge you hear at St. Dunstan's. "We aje merely handicapped—and we have our compensations. We develop other senses that you own no less than us." Nine months ago Mr Otto Kahn lent this delightful country house and gardens in the centre of London to the Blinded Soldiers' and Sailors' Cars Committee and its chairman, Mr C. Arthur Pearson, concerning whose extreme devotion and toil to bring light td -blind people it were almost an impertinence to pass common words of tribute. There are now 125 inmates of the hostel, and, large as the honse is, some thousands of pounds have had to be spent in the ercc--tion of workshops and dormitories in the grounds. The blinded men come here steeped and wrapped in what they believc to be their* ever-hopeless tragedy. They leave here hopeful, .ordinary working citizens. If a ream were written of St. Dnnstan's work it could say nothing more significant than this. Tfie blinded heroes come here thinking that they will never, move among other men again, never play with them, never compete in work with them. In a few days they are moving with confidence; thev are* soon playing push-ball and rowing on the lake; before they lea v e the hostel there- are some livelihoods in which thev can not only compete with the sighted man but beat- him. One of those occupations is massage; the developed sense of touch of a blind man makes him a splendid masseur. Another surprising occupation for the blind is that of the diver. The ordinary diver goes down into his murky depths handicapped, the - blind diver turns on the light that is within him of nis sharpened other senses.