that
affliction is ascertained to exist, all oral utterances from the
deaf-mute are habitually repressed by the parents.

_GESTURES OF THE BLIND._

The facial expressions and gestures of the congenitally blind are
worthy of attention. The most interesting and conclusive examples
come from the case of Laura Bridgman, who, being also deaf, could not
possibly have derived them by imitation. When a letter from a beloved
friend was communicated to her by gesture-language, she laughed
and clapped her hands. A roguish expression was given to her face,
concomitant with the emotion, by her holding the lower lip by the
teeth. She blushed, shrugged her shoulders, turned in her elbows, and
raised her eye-brows under the same circumstances as other people.
In amazement, she rounded and protruded the lips, opened them, and
breathed strongly. It is remarkable that she constantly accompanied
her "yes" with the common affirmative nod, and her "no" with our
negative shake of the head, as these gestures are by no means
universal and do not seem clearly connected with emotion. This,
possibly, may be explained by the fact that her ancestors for many
generations had used these gestures. A similar curious instance is
mentioned by Cardinal Wiseman (_Essays_, III, 547, _London_, 1853) of
an Italian blind man, the appearance of whose eyes indicated that he
had never enjoyed sight, and who yet made the same elaborate gestures
made by the people with whom he lived, but which had been used by them
immemorially, as correctly as if he had learned them by observation.

_LOSS OF SPEECH BY ISOLATION._

When human beings have been long in solitary confinement, been
abandoned, or otherwise have become isolated from their fellows, they
have lost speech either partially or entirely, and required to have
it renewed through gestures. There are also several recorded cases of
children, born with all their faculties, who, after having been lost
or abandoned, have been afterwards found to have grown up possessed
of acute hearing, but without anything like human speech. One of these
was Peter, "the Wild Boy," who was found in the woods of Hanover in
1726, and taken to England, where vain attempts were made to teach him
language, though he lived to the age of seventy. Another was a boy of
twelve, found in the forest of Aveyron, in France, about the beginning
of this century, who was destitute of speech, and all efforts to teach
him failed. Some of thes