The Archbishop of York presided at the annual meeting in 1866, and the balance-sheet for that year shows receipts amounting to £7632. She found herself engaged in a large commercial as well as a philanthropic undertaking; and the success of her industrial work began to tell, not only in Great Britain, but in the United States of America. She was much gratified by the report of the Principal of the Pennsylvania Institution for the Instruction of the Blind, 1866, in which the following passage occurs:
We are gratified to report the successful working of the literary and musical branches of the Institution, and also the favourable progress of our manufacturing department, in teaching and employing blind persons in useful trades; experience every year confirms the necessity of a house of industry for the regular employment of pupils whose term of instruction has terminated, and of the adult blind.
The education of the blind is a simple matter; nor is it susceptible of much improvement in the way of securing their future welfare. The great idea which encourages the establishment and support of all such institutions by the several States is the preparation of the blind for future usefulness and happiness, by self-dependence. Their misfortune unfits them for the large number of industrial and professional pursuits open to the seeing; but there are mechanical arts in which they become good, if not rapid workers. The difficulty with many, especially those without friends and homes, is in securing employment, and in earning fully enough for their support. Without this, the failure, idleness, and demoralisation which too often follow prove how imperfect is their previous instruction in this direction.
The "Association for Promoting the General Welfare of the Blind," founded in London by Miss E. Gilbert, is an example of a very practical organisation for the employment of the blind, which has been alluded to in our former reports. It gives work, in various ways, to about 170 adult blind persons, many of whom were previously begging in the streets. The deficiency of their earnings is supplied by annual subscriptions and legacies, the usual sources of support in Great Britain for the benevolent institutions.
Such institutions will never be self-sustaining. But the support of an industrial association which enables every blind person to earn 100, 200, or 300 dollars a year, is certainly better than to throw such persons upon the charities of the wayside, or to consign them to pensioned idleness.
In the autumn of this year Bessie was at Chichester, and in addition to the difficulty of walking, which she experienced after any time of hard work, she began to discover that vibration from any great or sudden noise affected her painfully. She drove with her father and a sister from Chichester to Kingly Bottom, a vale in the South Downs, for the last day's shooting of the rifle volunteer corps in September 1866. The sharp crack of the rifles tried her greatly, and brought on so much pain that she was glad to accept a seat in the carriage of a friend and go home, instead of waiting, as the Bishop wished to do, for the end of the match. The noise seemed to exhaust her.
During the autumn of 1866 Mr. F. Green, who for many years had rendered great service by his work on the Committee, presented to the Association five shares of £100 in the Marine Insurance Company, of which he was a director. They yielded at that time £40 a year, and the gift was a source of much gratification to Bessie.
She was at Chichester in December, and wrote thence on the 21st to her widowed sister, Mrs. Elliot, dwelling on the service she could render to others:
"Having you must make all the difference," she says, when alluding to a succession of troubles which had fallen upon Lady Minto, with whom Mrs. Elliot was staying. "Really there is not and will not be any lack of work for you. You have had, I should think, quite as much as you could do for some time past.... There is a chance of Tom's coming in January.... I suppose you know all about him and his doings. I can't think how he would have got on without you."
Then she gives news from home:
I am expecting them in after the ordination every moment. This time it is in the cathedral; twelve candidates I think. Papa came down to breakfast this morning, and was to go in time for the whole service. Only think, one of the priests has been in agonies of toothache all through the examination; but in spite of it Mr. Browne was delighted with all he did. The poor man had two teeth taken out, and happily to-day was flourishing.... I do hope you will like the little paper knife which I am so very glad to send you. I was quite taken with the little bells of the lilies.... Nora to-day is quite in her element and full of work, putting up a number of parcels to send off in different directions.... Ever your loving sister,
Bessie Gilbert.
"Tom," of whom she speaks, had recently been appointed Vicar of Heversham, near Milnthorpe; and Mrs. Elliot had visited him at the vicarage, and superintended the domestic arrangements of her bachelor brother.
Bessie received no Christmas box which gave her more pleasure than the following poem, which appeared in Punch on the 29th of December: