t improvements have been made in some of the
progressive workshops for the blind. At the conference in London in 1902
Mr T. Stoddart gave the following information in regard to the work in
Glasgow:--"We are building very extensive additions to our workshops,
which will enable us to accommodate 600 blind people. We mean to employ
the most up-to-date methods, and are introducing electric power to drive
the machinery and light the workshops. We have to do with the average
blind adult recently deprived of sight after he has attained an age of
from 25 to 40 or even 50 years. In Glasgow we have developed an industry
eminently suitable for the employment of the blind, namely, the
manufacture of new and the remaking of old bedding. There are industries
which are purely local, where certain articles of manufacture largely
used in one district are useless, or nearly so, in another; but the
field in which this industry may be promoted is practically without
limit. It is perhaps the employment _par excellence_ for the blind, and
among other advantages it has the following to recommend it: employment
is provided for the blind of both sexes and of all ages; there is no
accumulation nor deterioration of stock; it yields an excellent profit,
and its use is universal. We have been pushing this industry for years,
our annual turnover in this particular department having exceeded L7000,
and as we find it so suited to the capabilities of all grades of blind
people, it is our intention to provide facilities for doing a turnover
of three times that amount. Instead of the thirty sewing-machines which
we have at present running by power, we hope to employ 100 blind women.
At cork-fender-making, also an industry of the most suitable kind, we
are at present employing about thirty workers. It is also our intention
to greatly develop and extend our mat-making department."

In the United States many blind persons are engaged in agricultural
pursuits, and some are very successful in commercial pursuits. When a
man loses his sight in adult life, if he can possibly follow the
business in which he has previously been engaged, it is the best course
for him. In the present day, work in manufactories is subdivided to such
an extent that often some one portion can be done by a blind person; but
it needs the interest of some enthusiastic believer in the capabilities
of the blind to persuade the seeing manager that blind people can be
safely employed in facto