TRAGIC MIRACLE

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 655, 6 May 1929, Page 13

TRAGIC MIRACLE

Blind Singer’s Sight Restored SURGEON’S SAD TALE The hitter Arctic wind was sweeping the West End when, walking with a surgeon from a London hospital, we stopped for a moment to watch a burly, stoutly-built man who, with hands cupped over his mouth, was singing into the saloon bar of a welllighted restaurant, writes Vincent Wray in the “Sunday News.” My companion touched the singer on the shoulder and at the same time offered a silver coin. The man stopped singing, recognised the donor, thanked him and then re-started his song. As we hurried away, for the intense cold was intolerably perpetrating, the surgeon told me one of the strangest stories I have ever listened to. He prefaced his narrative by reminding me that his father had been a surgeon of eminence and was at one time a consultant at the London Hospital. “The singer is George Burnett.” he said, “and once he was known as the Man Born Blind. It is obvious from the skill with which he produced the opening notes of the old-time ‘Salty in Our Alley’ that he has had some training and still retains the relics of what was once a w’onderful voice. There was a time, indeed, when he had visions of Covent Garden and the opera houses of Paris, Berlin and Vienna. Heaven knows what he might have accomplished had it not been for a shock, a thundering blow of a sort which can only be thoroughly understood and appreciated by the psychologist. But I must tell in my own words the surgeon’s touching tale of science, passion and sacrifice: Everybody who knows the East End of London is familiar with Old Wapping stairs—which run sharply down into the murky waters of the Thames, and 'which always look sinister and tragic. Edith—and Her Baby It was here that Edith Ckeyney ended her life, taking with her when she made the plunge into the unknown her two-year-old infant. She left behind her a letter which the coroner’s officer showed me, aud which contained the only explanation of the double i crime—murder and suicide. The let- | ter ran: “X have borne as much as I can. . . . i My heart has broken. ... I was not ! good enough for him. ... I did wrong, ! and I am punished terribly. ... I could bear my cross no longer, and I have handed it back to God. . . . May He bless George and keep him. Goodbye.” She had worked as a packer in some match works in the East End. Her father and mother had died while she was yet a child, and she had fought her battle with a heroism that only the very poor understand. Burnett had had a strange history. He was said to be the son of a tradesman in the Potteries; and it was further asserted—though with what truth my friend the surgeon could not say that he had been “farmed out” "when quite young because of his affliction, i He was blind. j Anyway he drifted to London, and a woman who got charge of him, rei cognising that he had a voice of unI common merit, sent him into the streets singing, the while she haunted ! the bars of public houses. She had . a strain of natural cruelty, which re-

vealed itself in taunts, upbraidings and even blows. George Burnett was powerless in her large, filthy, greedy hands. Edith Gheyuey rescued him. She had often watched the blind man as he groped along near the kerbstones, and an intense pity for him filled her womanly heart. .She spoke to him, heard of his unhappy life at home, and snatched him away from the harida-i who tortured and sponged on him. There was many a battle before she achieved the victory; but win she did, and took the blind man into her lonely home. Her Beautiful Angel She would take him out in the morning, leave him to sing while she went to her work, meet him for a few moments in the afternoon, and then take him to their ill-furnished but scrupulously clean apartment for the remainder of the day. Marriage was never mentioned. In this she was undoubtedly wrong, and she paid the penalty. George Burnett, in his imagination, painted her as beautiful. He would run his fingers over her face and touch lines which stood for him as the hall-marks of perfect loveliness. Edith did not undeceive him. In truth she was extremely plain, and there was no charm about her save a gentle brooding of grey eyes which redeemed somew hat her blurred, ordinary features. George was knocked down and so injured that he had to be carried to the hospital, and there my friend s father became interested. He made j a detailed examination, w-ith the re-1 suit that he expressed the opinion ! that the blind man’s eyes could be opened. Edith came often to inquire j how the patient was progressing, and showed an anxiety about him that j was both pathetic and commendable. “I will not trouble you with the details.” said the surgeon, "but after a lengthy period it was evident that Burnett's sight could be given to him by skilled treatment. My father had him removed to a nursing home, where he was carefully looked after. He often talked about Edith Cbeyney. and to a nurse who had him in her special care he painted her as supremely lovely and irresistibly attractive. Nurse Beatrice knew better. She had seen Edith when the girl called to inquire after the patient. “The quality of the man’s voice was soon observed, and it was suggested I that, when he was better he should be : trained for the concert platform. My | father offered to bear the expense—- ; and did so. But that is scarcely a ! part of the story. Terrible Disillusionment ! “There came a day when George could see—not like you and I, but with a certain clearness that made to j him all the difference between light ; and darkness. When he met Cbeyney j the scene was intensely dramatic. I ! do not suppose that ever playwright I invented a situation so fraught with sad sentiment. "Edith came. She was dressed shabbily; a gaudy ribbon, of which in her innocence she was inordinately proud, shone in contrast to her hopeless hat and clothes. “Her countenance was criss-crossed by wrinkles and her hands were coarse and the nails unclean. “George, who had been so long in association with the real Nurse Beatrice—had been visited by other i women interested in bis case—looked ! aghast. “In a moment his cherished visions | of beauty were dispelled. There must ; have been something of revolt in his I soul because he offered no words of

affection. There was no response in his newly opened eyes to the flash of love that sparkled in the eyes of the daughter of the slums. “‘Edith,’” he said, with a note of agony in his voice; and she replied with infinite grief, ‘George.’ “The woman knew instantly. The man’s new sense revolted against the disillusion. “Nor did Edith Cheyney wait; she fled from the room and none who was there ever sa w her more. “George Burnett took lessons in singing. His voice gave great promise. And he seemed to have forgotten his terrible privations and even Edith Cheyney, too. He became engaged to a girl of beauty and of wealth. And it was whilst he was in her company that the blow felL He / was to sing at a social gathering, and just before his ‘number’ a messenger arrived. He was wanted by a policeman. "When he returned he was as a person stunned. He tried to sing, but he broke down utterly. "The news that came to him was the tragedy of Wapping Stairs, of Edith and her baby. “After that he lost grip. His conduct at times approached madness. His marriage engagement was broken off. Despite everything that could be done for him, he went to wrack and ruin. And you have just seen him.” Is there anyone bold enough to sit I'he surgeon and I declined to morin judgment on George—or Edith? alise?