A LOST WORLD IS RESTORED TO THE BLIND.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18888, 14 October 1929, Page 9

A LOST WORLD IS RESTORED TO THE BLIND.

100 NEW BOOKS MEAN NEW LIFE FOR TWENTY CHRISTCHURCH FOLK

It is no miracle, but blind men and women in Christchurch are reading with ease books selected by them from the shelves of the Public Library. The cost to them is nought. This happy state of affairs is ’ due to the fact that the Library has procured from the Jubilee Institute for the Bilnd at Auckland 40 volumes, on loan, and, from the National Institute for the Blind in England, 60 volumes as a purchase. These books are in Braille—a system of raised or embossed dots which mean nothing, either to the blind or those who can see, unless the Braille alphabet is mastered. A lost world is restored to twenty members of the library even in Christchurch as their fingers eagerly feel their way across the pages of the newly-installed set of 100 volumes. If once the blind have seen faces and forms of the outer world, they now are able still to form vivid mental images described by authors. That is the one great mercy to console them. Even though their eyes are sightless, they are compensated in part through having the inward eye of the imagination stimulated. Tha+ gone, life would be meaningless and worthless. Braille takes up much more space than common print. The result is that in nearly every case—even for small works—from three to five, or more, volumes are necessary in order to divide the works into sizes convenient for reading. The volumes in every case are large. They are composed of stiff and durable Manila paper, for they must be able to bear wear and tear of blind, groping fingers which the .sniversal volumes do not receive. The life of a volume in Braille is much shorter than ordinary ■volumes’ existence.

The twenty blind members in Christchurch have varied topics to choose from in the 100 volumes at prebent in stock. There are fiction, technical and musical subjects in Braille, as well as a few books in “moon” system--or raised type. Moon books are slowly disappearing, for that system takes up much more room than Braille and is more expensive. Only one blind mem ber of the Library in Christchurch reads in the moon system. The time taken to read one work to the end varies considerably. It depends generally upon the time the person has been without sight. Those who have been blind for twenty years, say, would read the five volumes which comprise ‘‘Beau Geste” in about one month. Those who have been blind since the war would take, probably, twice as long to do that. Ever increasing has been the work of the National Institute for the Blind in England in transcribing wo ks from ordinary print into Braille. In 1908 there were in existence only 500 works, multiplied, of course, in each t ase to thousands of copies. By 1927-1928 the works in Braille numbered 14,206.

Catalogues are issued at frequent intervals and a feature of the service is that, although the cost of producing Braille books is much greater than common printing, even to foreign people the cost of a volume rarelv ex-

ceeds 5s 9d. To British subjects there is given a reduction of three-quarters of the cost price.

The written word has assumed a newer and greater power through, firstly, the invention of Louis Braille of the system when he was stricken with blindness, and secondly, the present increasing efforts of the National Institute in interpreting sight into touch. Books now in stock at the Public

Library and which may be borrowed by any blind person, are:— General Works.—“ Lessons in Truth” (Cady), two volumes: ‘‘All About Your Wireless Set” (Captain Eckersley), two volumes; “Openme Up Africa” (Sir 11. Johnston), tsvo volumes; “With Lawrence In Arabia” (L. Thomas), four volumes; “Tre Old Lady Shows Her Medals,” a play (Barrie), one volume; “France and the French” (Huddleston), four volumes; “Comedy ol Errors” (Shakespeare), one volume; ‘‘To Lhasa in Disguise” (M’Govern), four volumes; “Memories and Opinions” ißarry), two volumes; “Dickens and Other Victorians” (Couch), two volumes. Fiction, etc.—“ The Human Boy” (Phillpotts), two volumes; “Beau Geste” (Wren), five volumes; “Servant of the Mightiest” (Wingate), volumes; “Trent’s Last Case” (Bentley), three volumes; “Justice of the Duke” (Sabatini), three volumes; “Martin of Old London” (Strang), two volumes; “Sussex Gorse” (Smith), five volumes; “Miss Esperance and Mr Wycherly” (ITarker), two volumes; “The Four Men” (Belloc), two volumes: “The Card” (A. Bennett), three volumes; “Black Magic” (M. Boweri), three volumes; “Nigger of Narcissus” (Conrad), two volumes; “Rodney Stone” (Doyle), three volumes; “Middle of the Read” (Gibbs), five volumes; “She” (Haggard), four volumes; “Typee” (Melville), four volumes; “Ghost Ship etc.” (Middleton), five volumes; “Beau Brocade” (Orczy), three volumes* “By Gods Beloved” (Orczy), three vobmes: “Gate of the Desert” (Oxenham), three volumes; “Red Lacquer Case” (Wentworth), two volumes; “Sone of the State” (Ridge), two volumes: “Told By An Idiot” (Macaulay), three volumes.