iminatory laws have been enacted. Next, the
deaf have been thought to need special consideration or protection on
the part of the state, and laws have been passed for the appointment of
guardians or otherwise for their security or benefit. The third class of
legislation is where the state bases its action upon the supposed
weakness of the deaf, their "physical disability," as it is frequently
termed, and here we have a series of what may be called negative
benefactions, designed to make less hard the way of the deaf. Such
special provision has consisted chiefly in the remission of taxes in
certain instances or of some other form of more or less direct
assistance.

LEGISLATION DISCRIMINATORY RESPECTING THE DEAF

Legislation which may be termed discriminatory in respect to the deaf
has really been of but slight extent.[63] In Georgia we find an
enactment of 1840,[64] in which the deaf were to be regarded _pro tanto_
as idiots, so far as concerned the managing of their estates, though
this was in fact intended for their protection. In New Mexico a law has
been enacted, forbidding those deaf by birth from making wills, unless
their intention is declared in writing;[65] and in Louisiana a deaf man
is incapable of acting as a witness to a testament.[66] In several
states, as New York and Massachusetts, there have been enactments in
regard to deaf-mute immigrants together with other classes who might be
likely to become a public charge, with the exaction of bond as
security.[67] In Georgia[68] there is an enactment in reference to
various itinerant concerns which might leave deaf persons, as well as
others, in the state as public charges.[69]

LEGISLATION IN PROTECTION OF THE DEAF

Legislation of the second class, where the deaf are thought to require
particular consideration or protection, has likewise been infrequent.
The first instance is an enactment of Massachusetts in 1776,[70]
relating to the appointment, on certain occasions, of guardians for the
deaf, especially those deaf "from their nativity," together with other
persons--which is probably the earliest statutory reference to the deaf
in America. A later example is an enactment in Georgia in 1818,[71] and
still in force, providing for the appointment of guardians, on somewhat
the same order as that which we have indicated, for deaf and dumb
persons incapable of managing their estates. In New Jersey in 1838[72] a
law was enacted, forbidding deaf persons under