How a Blind Girl threads a Needle.

Manawatu Herald, 7 July 1903, Page 2

How a Blind Girl threads a Needle.

In the Quiver for May Mr Raymond BlathWayt describes a visit to the school for the Indigent Blind in its new quarters at Leatherhead, and quotes Mr St. Glare Hill, the Principal of the establishment of saying The whole object of my system here is to inculate self-re-liance. Now co ne in here,’ he went on as we entered a room where some young women were buisly engaged at sewing machines. ‘ Soon after I took up this work, two sewing machines arrived one day, -We shall have to thread their needles for them,’"said the mistress ‘You Will do nothing of the kind,’ I replied They must do it for themselves. Suppose the mistress was out of the room one day is the work to go undone ? ’ So I spoke in my, haste, bravely and boldly. But when it came to how they were to learn to thread their needles themselves, I was for a time fairly nonplussed. For a whole day 1 sat at those machines, closely blindfolded, trying my level best to thread the needles Impossible ! I couldn’t do it! Suddenly, as I was fumbling away, trying to pusl\ the bending cotton into an eye that I could never find, an idea flashed into my mind. I ran out, got a piece of horsehair doubled it, and pushed it through the needle’s eye, then I opened the loop passed the cotton through it, and then drew the horsehair with the cotton in it back through the needle’s eye, and the feat was accomplished. You can see for yourself ‘Nellie,’ he added, turning to a blind girl, ‘ just thread your needle to show this gentleman how its done,’ And far quicker that I, with a fumbling unaccustomed fingers and thoroughly good sight, could have done it, she had threaded her needle.