had triumphed, and that I was certainly wrong. However, after a whole evening had been spent over the case, without the anticipated result, the detective took him in charge, took him to the railway station, a considerable distance, waited for the train, got into it; and not until the end of the journey was nearly reached, and the terminus was at hand, did the pseudo-dumb fellow find his tongue, and beg to be "let off," as he would certainly never do the like again. The policeman came to me and said-" he has found his tongue at last, sir;" and surely enough, when he found the bridewell and magistrate before him, and no escape, he required no surgical operation to make him speak. Yet, strange to say, even after this, when the evidence of competent witnesses was forthcoming to the fact of his having spoken, the gentleman who had desired to befriend him asserted that, unless he did with his own ears hear him speak, he could not believe that he was not dumb. He had his wish. When the lad was brought up before the magistrate, and confronted with those whom he had so persistently deceived, and those who had seen the issue of the struggle between his obstinacy and his selfishness, my friend's incredulity was not of long continuance, though I believe in my heart that he was sorry to find himself undeceived.

I have, however, dwelt upon this topic longer, perhaps, than befits the present occasion and audience, except that I have done so with a view to the correction of a public evil; and this brings me to say again that the bona fide deaf and dumb beggar is an extremely rare personage. Persons of this class will work when they can get work; and when they cannot, they will endure-uncomplainingly-but they will not beg. In the first place they cannot be apt beggars there is nothing in their appearance which pleads for help, and there is much in their deprivation which disqualifies them from seeking it. To the blind, in this respect, as in so many others,

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they are a complete and perfect contrast. The appearance of the blind is itself a piteous plea in their behalf; and besides that, they hear the expressions of sympathy which their condition excites, and they have powers of thought and speech as perfect as ourselves, and can therefore make their wants and wishes known to every one, which the deaf and dumb can never do. They are, moreover, far more dependent upon others than the deaf and dumb are; and this makes them seek for help. Blindness, again, is often an accompaniment of general feebleness and old age; and this additionally swells the ranks of pauperism and mendicancy, so that while we regret, we can hardly wonder at the following results :

These figures are taken from the Irish returns, and apply to that country only; but the inference to be drawn as regards Ireland would doubtless apply still more strongly to our own deaf mute population. In saying this, I am speaking of the adult deaf and dumb only. Most of the 'deaf and dumb children in these kingdoms are receiving, or have received, a certain amount of education; of the rest, some are disqualified for attendance at school by physical or mental weakness; and perhaps it may be true that some are sometimes found begging, and others may even be found thieving; and for this reason:-they may be trained to do that, as they may be trained to do anything—what is bad, as well as what is good-to violate the law, as well as to keep it.

* Of the 296 in workhouses in 1951, seventy-six were of the proper age for being at school; of 223 in 1861, only fourteen were so.

They simply, and in simplicity, do what others set them to do. With minds which cannot be addressed, and which therefore, previously to education, are inaccessible to counsel, threat or warning, they do wrong without meaning to do wrong, or knowing that it is wrong, at the instance of those who know better; and (the innocent offenders are in such cases often made the scapegoats of the culpable ones. When we can get such children away from associations like these, and gather them into our schools, they are rescued, temporarily and permanently; because when they are educated and grown up, they, knowing better, do better. It is the uneducated deaf and dumb who "get into trouble." Only one out of the 500 pupils who have passed through our school has become identified with the criminal class, and him we had been obliged to exclude. Indeed the number of deaf and dumb offenders altogether is very small indeed, as will be seen when I mention that at the request of Mr. Raffles, the present stipendiary magistrate, I made enquiry three or four years ago, as to the practicability of putting a juvenile deaf and dumb delinquent into a reformatory, when I found, after receiving answers from correspondents in various parts of the country, that there were no deaf and dumb criminals requiring a reformatory, or even the establishment of a deaf and dumb ward in any existing reformatory.

This shews in a very peculiar, but still a very conclusive way, the utility of our institutions as preventive agencies. A class which, if merely harmless, would be a burden, is made by education self-supporting, enterprising, and prosperous; but if it were ill-disposed, it would be a nuisance; yet, by this same agency, these deaf mutes become too proud to be beggars, and too honest and full of self-respect to be thieves. Surely to have done this is to have done something: to keep them out of the workhouse and the prison. But we do more than this; for we send them into the world competent for

life's duties, in the workshop, in their families, and in society, and to "walk in the house of God as friends."

And there are other ways in which this work of beneficence has been improved, consolidated and rendered lasting. Large sums have been raised and expended in the erection of new buildings, and in the enlargement of those previously erected. There is scarcely one of them which is now what it was in 1851-as regards extent and accommodations, merely. The institutions at Newcastle and Swansea and the infant school at Manchester have been built during this decade. Those in Liverpool, Birmingham, Exeter, Brighton, Doncaster have been, or are in process of being, largely extended and improved. Besides this, new developements of the work have taken place. I have just mentioned the infant school in Manchester-an experiment rendered more appropriate and necessary in Manchester, where mothers are frequently factory workers, than in any other place. This scheme owes its existence to the persevering advocacy of an eminent member of the medical profession in that city, Thomas Turner Esq., and the institution is under the management of one of our own members, Mr. William Stainer. Then, if we commence earlier than formerly, we do not leave off where we did. What sort of a scholar would he be who never opened a Greek or Latin book after he left school? What would any. one be, intellectually or religiously, if intellectual culture and religious instruction were limited to the time he spent at school, and were then suddenly arrested by his removal, and never continued afterwards? The experience of every one amongst us will enable him to see how dwarfed, inadequate, and poor this result would be, compared with that which is attained through the beneficial influence of society, books, study, and the opportunities of public worship. By these means our own stores of knowledge are constantly freshened and renewed, and further acquisitions are constantly made.

Picture to yourselves the mind in which this does not take place where the physical deprivation of deafness makes intercommunication on almost all but the most familiar and practical subjects nearly impossible, except with a few persons. Of course there are exceptions to this. I need not be reminded of that. I do not for a moment forget it. But we must not be diverted by these exceptions from trying to fix our attention upon what must be the general, ordinary, and inevitable condition of the great bulk of this large class of our fellow citizens. It is more agreeable to dwell upon these exceptions; but we must not look upon the few until we overlook the many. The few can take care of themselves; and whatever is done for the welfare of the many is for their advantage also, though their necessity is not so great. Of the mass it is the simple truth to say that they are in humble circumstances, of moderate capacity, with moderate attainments, and could only spend a limited time at school, where they had to learn all that they ever have learned. How little did we learn at school to what we learned thereafter ! The living voice is our teacher, speaking from the lips of all around us, and in the pages of the finest minds in all ages; but this voice can never break that silence in which the deaf mute is entombed; and it is spoken language alone which makes a written language vivid and vital. A language which is unspoken is, in more senses than the literal one, a dead letter. For the words we read only represent to us the words we spoke, long before we could read at all, and which we know are in familiar use by thousands of persons who cannot read a syllable: but to those who never spoke them, what can they have of that wonderful power of which we speak when we quote Gray's descriptive line

'Thoughts that breathe, and words that burn?"

From all this instruction by the living voice, and from almost all but the mere outskirts of the world of letters, the vast