BLINDED BY THE WAR

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2717, 11 March 1916, Page 13

BLINDED BY THE WAR

THE HOSTEL OF HEROES U

(By Twells Brex, in the "Daily Mail.") . He was tall and straight. Thick, curly hair crispened above his handsome young face.. Muscles of lusty youth rippled in his stalwart limbs. The flush of ardent young life was in his cheeks. All the choirs of his mom sliould be. singing to him of adventure, enterprise, and achievement; beforo liiin were ail the groat visions and horizons of twenty—and lie has been blindoa in battle. At the 'Blinded Soldiers' and Sailors' Hostel, St. Dunstan's,' Regent's Park, he sat at his first halting lesson at tho.. typewriter. Click, click—a _ fumbling mis-stroke—click, click, click—slowly ana uncertainly—click, click again. Winter sunshine speared into the room and lit up his brave, young, sightless face and shone oh his bright hair. I had to. turn away. I was not inured to this sight of men blinded by war. I had hot yet understood what I was to learn at the hostel of that other light that comes to those who walk in darkness. . But someone was -rallying the novice typist on a comic mistake he had mado. I looked again at his sightless face. He was laughing as gladly as ever peoplo laugh who can look on the world. His race, as he laughed, was strangely raaiant. It was the serene radiance of tne> light that comes from within. The .flash of that/blind young hero's smile was a photograph, instantaneous - and vivid, of the great work and achievement of St. Dunstan's. The unnecessary sentimentality that every visitor first <£akes into the hostel fell away from me. Typewriters, o whole battery of the busy' little machines that are such godsends to the, man that is blind. At every machine sits a blind! warrior with a voluntary helper 'vyho has ( come to teach him. We writers .have often thought of the tribute we could write to our typewriters, of the toil they have lifted and the inspiration that .floats above the keyboard. What sort of a tribute might these blind men write? Without tho typewriter the power of writing would leave them. But liere'l haye a whole bundle ofletters that have been written by blinded 6oldiers and sailors who have left St Dunstan's and restarted useful lives with crafts and husbandry they have learnt at the hostel. To quote from letters to Mr. Arthur'.Pearson: t "Last July I went to your happy hostel a miserable, heart-broken crea-' ture, and was no longer capable of earning a living for my wife and family; but thanks to you, things t are now quite • different with me. I am now , delighted to eay, sir, that I was never better olf 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-rearing.' He describes the little farm and its arrangement of guiding wires and nettings—a mightily ingenious invention of St. Dunstan's. He discusses his breeds and 1 varieties of birds just as a,sighted man might—an art ho 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 taught 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 oity oflice would type it. "Your happy hostel." There, in three words, is the picture of this brave place. Approach the long workrooms that hum and stir with the basketmakers, the matmakers, the cobblers, and the carpenters, and you hear men who are finding happiness more happy because none of tlidm expected to know it agSin. 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 theso blind workers were trilling. They had reason for the outburst—it was pride of workmanship, man's keenest joy. Here was a dinir.g-table. smooth-angled as human hand could trim it. Here was a lordly rabbit-hutch that will plunge seme 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 oyesiglit. Here was an, honest, covetable bookcase. Here was this morning's first attempt of a man who had never done woodwork 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 liglitless windows of these workers' brains. In the poultry farm a young blinded soldier hold 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 of touch. Wheu the blind poultry-rearer goes out equipped from' St. Dunstan's ho will catch you his fowls and tell you their variety. The management of his incubator will bo a familiar accomplishment. That he can run down and catch tho agile fowl you find it hard to believe? I have seen him do it at St. Dunstan's. ' Quickness and accuraoy: thoy are two of tlie .gifts that coma to the blind in this hostel. These newly blind men already move quickly. They walk unafraid down loii" corridors and about the twisting garden patljs of St. Dunstan's. Turnings and 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 tho path with little knobs that a "turning opposite." That is all. You and I would want more guidance on one of our nights whose darkness is luminous compared to the rayless days of tho h'.inded. ".We have no use for the word 'afflicted' nor .any liking for it,'? is the stout challenge you hear at St. Dunstan's. "We are 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' Care Committee and its chairman, Mr'..C. Arthur Pearson, concerning whose extreme devotion and toil to bring light to blind people it were almost an impertinence to pass common words of tribute. There are now 125 inmates of tho hostel, and, large as the house is, some thousands of pounds have had to bo spent in the erection of workshops and dormitories, in the grounds. The blinded men come here'steeped and wrapped in what they believe to- be their ever-hopeless tragedy. x hey leave here hopeful, ordinary working citizens. If a ream were written of St. Dunstan's work it could say nothing more significant than this. The, blinded heroes come here thinking Hiat thev will never move among other men again, never play with them, never competo in work with them. In a few days they are moving with confidence: they are soon- playing push-ball and rowing on the'lake; before they leave the hostel there are some livelihoods in which they can not only compete with tlie 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 tho blind is that of tho diver. The ordinary O'vor goes down into his .murky depths handicapped, the blind diver turns on the light that is within him of his sharpened other senses.