agents, acting in concert with the parochial clergy, a personal acquaintance is maintained with the deaf and dumb scattered over London, and a most marked improvement in their character, conduct, and intelligence is the result of the supervision exercised. The society is also engaged in promoting the erection of a church for the deaf and dumb. For this purpose 550l. have already been subscribed. In the Old Kent Road there is a Deaf and Dumb Asylum, and in other parts of the metropolis there are societies for their special benefit. Of course no mere outsider can give an account of a service with the deaf and dumb. It is easy to realize songs without words, but not so easy to realize public prayer and preaching in which no audible sound is heard, in which the service is conducted as it were by pantomime. As much as possible the rubric is observed, the deaf and dumb obey the instructions of the Prayer-book, and stand where standing is prescribed, and “sign” the response to the Lord’s Prayer, Creed, Confession, &c. As to the sermon, all that can be said is that it comes up to the Demosthenic standard for eloquence—action, action, action. Among the deaf and dumb the best preacher must be the best actor. Not merely are the fingers in constant requisition, but every
part of the preacher’s face, as much as possible, is speaking all the time, either in the way of exhortation or entreaty. Great use, as we may imagine, is also made of the arms, and the body sways backward and forward as if to lend expression to such ideas as it may be the design of the teacher to convey. The great aim of these services is educational. They are intended to afford such an insight into the meaning and use of the Book of Prayer, that the deaf and dumb may be enabled to join intelligently in the public worship of the Church of England, and undoubtedly it is desirable that the terrible sense of isolation so natural under the circumstances should be got rid of, that the deaf and dumb should feel that they are part and parcel of the universal Church. Nevertheless there must be a deaf and dumb pulpit from which may flow the ever fructifying stream of Christian truth—a pulpit which the deaf and dumb may feel exists especially for them. Of this pulpit at present the Rev. Samuel Smith is the most distinguished orator, and as you watch him, though you cannot understand him, you cannot but wonder at his marvellous skill. Evidently his heart is in his work; equally evident is it that he has to complain of no wandering eyes. Every hearer is intent, many seem really
devout and find the privilege one not lightly to be esteemed. The deep strain of the organ is not there, you miss the song of praise, you hear no penitential chant. From no living tongue falls the sweet promise of salvation and eternal life, from those sealed and silent lips escapes no audible prayer. Yet we know that
“God reveals Himself in many ways,”
and that He may be met with even among the deaf and dumb.
A SUNDAY IN JAIL.
Most travellers by the Great Northern Railway must have been struck with a feudal castle apparently, just what you might expect to see on the Rhine, but certainly not such a building as you would look for in the immediate vicinity of the Cattle Market and of Mr. Mark Wilks’s overflowing congregation. As you approach it, all around you are genteel villas and desirable residences; the neighbourhood has an air of comfort and respectability; the inhabitants seem substantial and well to do—in short, to belong to the upper strata of that middle class which in our land, at any rate since the last of the Barons fell on Barnet Common, has been a powerful influence for good in England and all over the world. You would scarce fancy that feudal castle, with its “jutty, frieze, and
coigne of vantage,” was a jail, or that inside it there were shut up between three and four hundred rogues and vagabonds, old and young, male and female, who have outraged the laws of their country, and have been sent there, if possible, to receive punishment for their offences, and to learn to do better for the future. Yet such in reality is the case. You are standing outside the City House of Correction, which was built some few years ago at a cost of 100,000l. Into this place it is rare for good characters to obtain an admission. They may knock at the door, but it will not be opened unless they are furnished with an order from the Secretary of State, or one of the visiting magistrates, who are aldermen of London city.
In this necessarily short paper it is not our intention to describe the general arrangements of a place which we fear to too many of its inmates can have but few terrors. There are homes outside of filth, and want, and degradation; where, morning, noon, and night all that is decent, that is tender, or true, or pure is crushed out of man, woman, and child; where you can scarce believe man was made in the image of his Maker, that he is a little lower than the angels; where you feel that rather than have company with such you would associate with the beasts of the field,
or dwell in some lonely isle “far off amid the melancholy main.” To such, such a place as Holloway, with its cleanliness, and fresh air, and wholesome food, educational advantages, and considerate attendance, must be simply—in spite of its drawbacks of the treadmill, &c.—a millennium; and the question arises whether we have hit on the most effectual mode of making the dread of jail an incentive to the criminal class to keep out. Another question also suggests itself: Is it right thus to tenderly treat dishonesty, when honest poverty in our midst undoubtedly fares so bad? Here, however, that subject cannot be discussed, neither can we touch on that other question, at this time strongly agitating the aldermanic mind, as to the propriety of allowing prisoners to have a religion of their own, and to be attended by their own religious ministers—a question the majority of the court evidently think absurd, for, as Alderman Cotton observed—and our readers must remember Alderman Cotton aspired to the honour of a seat in Parliament,—“if every dissenting sect were to apply for facilities for the celebration of their religious services, what would become of them? They should have to give the Baptists a pool to bathe in, the Mormons a harem, and the Shakers a circle in which they might make