On Thursday the King and Queen visited the National Institute
for the Blind in Great Portland Street. The Institute was formerly known as the British and Foreign Blind Association. If the Institute succeeds, as we have no doubt it will, in developing its work as its officials propose, it will be largely due to the generous energy of Mr. C. A. Pearson. He and Captain Towse (who lost his sight in the South African War) have not merely conquered the dis- advantages of their own afflictions, but have determined to aid in a manner never attempted before the thirty-three thousand totally blind persona and the hundred and fifty thousand persons whose sight is too defective to read ordinary type. The most striking proposal is to cheapen the system of producing Braille type. If this is accomplished the golden gates of literature will be thrown wide open to people against whom they have been closed. 230,000 is needed immediately for the work of the Institute, and 2100,000 as a maintenance fund. A Mansion House Fund has been opened. We never felt more certain that the response to a Mansion House appeal will be prompt and ample. The scheme is to bring one of the best solaces in life to those to whom it means a thousand times more than to ordinary men.
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