DUMB FOR TWO YEARS.
Two years ago, says the Auburn Advertizer, George Scott, one of a gang of desperadoes in New York City, committed a robbery, for which he ought to have received ten years in prison. When he was arrested he feigned to be deaf and dumb. Upon his trial he made much of his infirmity, and the result was that he succeeded in escaping with a sentence of two years. Being transferred from Sing Sing to Auburn prison, he still kept up appearances, by means of which he escaped from doing heavy work, but was assigned to duty in shoe shop No. 1 as waiter, being supposed to be fit for no more valuable service. He was sharp, ready and intelligent, and generally well behaved, though hot tempered. Keeper Bacon, under whom he was placed, had him always under strict surveillance, but never was led to suspect by anything in his conduct that he was not deaf and dumb. Indeed, he says that he once saw Scott, who always went in the shop by the name of "Dummy," so roused up and maddened by something that had occurred, that he thought he would go crazy, yet he gave no sign that he was otherwise in respect to hearing and speaking than he seemed. About two months ago Dummy's time was up, and he was discharged. To give him a start in life again, keeper Bacon hired him to do some gardening. Principal keeper Gallup did the same thing. He worked in this way for two or three weeks. While at his work children would talk to him and play round him, yet he was always apparently oblivious to their presence. But Dummy had a tongue and could use it, and his hearing was as keen as anybody's. One day he fell in with a fellow convict who had just been discharged from prison, and they went off up the street together, talking gaily. Captain Russell, foreman in one of the departments of the prison shoe shop, who was in the street, overheard their conversation; and on another occasion it happened that one of the keepers met Dummy at Louis Schuch's and talked with him for a long time.
THE BACHELOR OF SCIENCE.
A fact without precedent has just happened at the Sorbonne. A young deaf mute, M. Dusuzeau, underwent recently with success the examinations for the degree of "Bachelor of Science." This distinguished pupil has answered by writing all the questions which have been put to him. This success, unexpected a few years ago, greatly honours the Imperial Institution in Paris, and is due to the high standard which its learned director, M. Vaisse, maintains in the studies, and to the devotedness of the censor, M. Valade Reoni, head master of the instruction, and who has been the affectionate master of M. Dusuzeau.
M. Dusuzeau was married on the third of March last, at the church of St. Germain, l'Auxerrois, Paris, to Miss Matilda Freeman, daughter of James B. Freeman, Esq., of Philadelphia, in the presence of a distinguished circle of friends. Miss Freeman stayed in England some months in 1882, and is therefore well known to many of our deaf and dumb friends.