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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume IX, Issue 150, 25 June 1874, Page 2

A very remarkable exhibition recently took place in New York, at a festival given to celebrate the 87th anniversary of Thomas Hopkins Gallandef, the initiator of the system of deaf mute instruction. The participants were deaf mutes, and orations were made without a sound being uttered, and were loudly applauded by an audience who could neither hear nor speak. The speeches were followed by dancing, the dancers keeping excellent time, though for them tbe music of Godfrey and Strauss had no charms. The New York World, in describing the entertainment, says : — '« Waltz followed waltz, quadrille followed quadrille, and a programme containing some twenty-eight dances was put through before " Home, sweet Home," sounded on ears that could not hear its strains. It waß a curious sight to see, during the pauses in the music, tho army of dancers falling in quadrille phalanxes, every one freely gesticulating, and yet no speech falling from their lips, and the only sound heard being the ecuftiing of the feet on the floor, which, as might have been expected, was rather louder than in the ball-room where the dancers were not deaf. But more curious still was it to reflect, when half a hundred or more couples were whirling around in almost perfect accord to one of Strauss's waltzeß, tbat hardly one of them heard a single strain of the music, to which they were capering so nimbly There was some hesitation perceptible at starting, but few mistakes were made after the time had once been obtained by watching the others, and tbe vibration of the floor, had been caught. Flirtations went on, too, as at ordinary balls ; but the demoisell&Q.jised their fingers to talk with. From trteirjbeing absorbed in watching each other's motions, and not bearing the noise of the footsteps of those approaching, collisions constantly occurred, but no more perhaps than at the balls where the average uwkard man is present. Altogether the affair was as successful as it was unique."