SILENT FOR TEN YEARS

Manawatu Herald, Volume LI, Issue 4428, 18 March 1930, Page 1

SILENT FOR TEN YEARS

TALK THAT CAUSED A TRAGEDY.

At Brighton, England, a woman who has kept a vow not to speak i.'qr ton years, broke her long silence in January.

The woman is Mrs. Annie Pearson, the widow of a soldier who was killed during the war. For ten years she has not uttered a single word: Everything she has wanted to say she has written down on a tablet which she always carried about with her.

So strictly has she kept to her sow that when she fell seriously ill some time ago she still continued to her writing tablet to convey her symptoms to the doctor. Mrs. Pearson found speech difficult at iirst, and could not utter more than a word or two.

Behind her self-imposed years of silence, it is stated, lies a remarkable story of her desire to do penance for gossiping which indirectly resulted in a tragedy. “Ten years ago,” Mrs. Pearson r,nid, “1 was foolish enough to repeat some scandal about a young girl who was then a neighbour of mine. She took the tales that were spread about her seriously to heart, and not long afterwards left the district. A short time later I heard that she had committed suicide.

“I could have cut my tongue out to think that 1 might have been instrumental in causing her distress, and I swore that for a penance I would not speak for ten years. Despite all the pleading of my friends I have kept it.”