ask when the speaker
had finished. And in almost every case the answer was "Work." "Why, I'd
rather work, but how can I get work; or, if I get it, how can I do it?
And where can I sell it, if I work at home without orders?"

These were the difficulties that experience brought to light, and after
many months of close and patient investigation, Bessie at length saw a
way open before her. "Don't work yourself to death," a friend said to
her at this time. "Work to death," she said, with a happy laugh; "I am
working to life."

She saw that some one must come forward to befriend the blind poor, some
one who could supply material, give employment, or dispose of the
articles manufactured.

Why should she not do this?

Her parents warmly approved of the course she proposed to take, and
brothers, sisters, friends encouraged her. They saw that it would bring
occupation and interest, which she sorely needed. They could not foresee
how the little rill was to widen into a broad stream, and what
far-reaching results it would have.

In May 1854 "Bessie's scheme" was started. Seven blind men were employed
at their own homes, material was purchased for and supplied to them at
cost price; the articles manufactured were to be disposed of on their
account, and they were to receive the full selling price, minus the cost
of material.

A cellar was rented in New Turnstile, Holborn, at the cost of eighteen
pence a week, and Levy was engaged as manager, with a salary of half a
crown a week, and a percentage upon the sales. The cellar was to be a
store-room for materials and goods, and as the basket-makers could not
bleach their baskets at home, a binn was fixed so that this part of the
work could be done in the cellar. Levy recommended a young man named
Farrow to put up the bleaching binn. Farrow had lost his sight at eleven
years old in consequence of a gun accident. He had been educated in the
St. John's Wood School, was a very good carpenter and cabinetmaker, and
a man who could readily turn his hand to anything. But like many others
who had left the school, he was without work or prospect of work.

He fixed the bleaching binn and arranged the cellar as a store-room
without any assistance, and from 1854 to the present time he has been
employed by the institution which sprang from that small dark cellar in
Holborn.

Levy's theory was that no man with sight should interfere with the
blind; that an opportunity ought to be afforded them