FINGERS OF BLIND.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19531, 14 July 1925, Page 11

FINGERS OF BLIND.

I COLOURED WOOL SORTED. ‘ RUG-MAKING MARVELS. t s c A Cambridge audience was incredulous when an inspector of the Ministry of Health i told of a blind rug-maker who could dis- f tinguish the colours of the dyed materials - he used, and could follow accurately pencil I lines on canvas. \ But people who work among the blind [ regard the story merely as commonplace evi- * dence of the unusual development of other c senses when sight is lost. i 2 Miss Witherby, who has trained more than 1 300 St. Dunstan’s men in the art of nig- c making, and is showing some of their work I at the St. Dunstan’s kiosk at Wembley, r would not hear of the faculty of distinguish- 1 ing between different colours, which blind £ rug-makers undoubtedly develop, being re- 1 garded as miraculous. a “The men themselves have told me that ( different dyes shrink the same kind of wool f in different ways, imparting a different J taste and a different smell to the wool,” she } said to a Daily Chronicle representative. "Blind rug-makers keep their coloured s wools carefully sorted. If they have any £ suspicion that the colours have become mixed they sort them out by methods of ■ their own, principally by touch and smell. . “Black-dyed wool, for instance, is much harsher to the touch than wool dyed in other J ■ colours. *■ “It is true to say of some of these men f that their eyes are in their fingers. * “When onr blind men are dancing many of tthem sense a threatened collision ' before :t * occurs, and so avoid it. Similarly, when St. 1 Dunstan’s men are walking in the street they avoid collisions with lamjj-poste. £ “ The secret is that air vibrations are 1 different when a solid body is approached, I and there is. a different echo." t