truly he has enough yet to do before such a desirable end be reached.

AUSTRALASIA AND POLYNESIA.

If we estimate the total population of the numerous islands included in the above heading at 3,000,000, and assume that the average proportion of the blind is 1 in 800, we shall find that the total number of persons without sight amounts to 3750.

In many parts of Australia the inhabitants are particularly liable to diseases of the eyes, caused by the frequent sand showers which prevail when the wind blows from the interior of the country. These showers are not only directly injurious to sight, by penetrating and injuring the organs of vision, but they also produce a kind of epidemic, which causes one person afflicted with eye disease to be the means of transmitting the contagion to others, and in consequence we find that blindness is unusually frequent in the Australian colonies. Cases are by no means rare in which persons who have gone to the southern hemisphere to seek gold, have returned to England in a few months hopelessly blind; and we are credibly informed that in a day-school in Victoria several children have been known to lose their sight in a single morning. Sightless mendicants are very numerous in Australia, and at Sydney blind vendors of newspapers are common in the streets.

About the year 1863, a school for persons without sight was opened at Melbourne, with which enterprise we believe a blind lady had much to do. In 1868 a commodious building was erected for the accommodation of the pupils, who were then thirty in number, and it may be mentioned that reading on the plans of Lucas and Moon is practised, and that basket-making and knitting are also taught.

At Sydney, in 1869, a department for the education of the blind was commenced at the institution for the deaf and dumb established in that city nine years earlier. This school now contains seven blind pupils, including girls and boys, No adults are admitted, but the institution is open to the indigent blind children of New South Wales, provided their parents supply them with clothes. The friends of the pupils who are able, pay £20 per annum for children under seven years, and £25 for those above that age. The blind are also admitted on similar terms from the neighbouring Australian colonies, and from New Zealand. Persons of all sects are admitted to the institution, and the wishes of the parents of the pupils with regard to their religious training seem to be strictly carried out. Only the elementary branches of education, viz. reading, writing, and arithmetic have as yet been introduced, but no doubt the practice of music and instruction in simple handicraft trades will soon be added; and it is hoped that this advance will be followed by higher intellectual culture and a development of the institution to meet the wants of blind adults, who in the colony, it is probable, are twenty to one as compared with children. A blind assistant teacher is employed, and the systems of reading in use are those of Moon and Lucas; and here it may be mentioned that in addition to the seven blind inmates, there are thirtythree deaf and dumb. An annual grant of £450 is received from the legislature of New South Wales, and the governor of the colony is the patron of the institution. It is also believed that the provincial parliament has just voted a sum of £2000, and assigned five acres of land near Sydney as a site for a new institution, and the public contributions for this special object amounted in 1870 to more than £1300, including a donation of £100 from the Earl of Belmore, the governor of the colony. The first stone of this building was to have been laid in 1870, and it is probable that the under

taking is now rapidly advancing toward completion. During the past year the donations and subscriptions from benevolent individuals for the ordinary purposes of the establishment amounted to £556. 17s. 6d., while a sum of £182. 14s. 4d. was received as fees for pupils.

THE UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND.

England and Wales.

According to the census of 1861, the total number of the blind in England and Wales was 19,352, being a ratio of one in every 1037 of the population.

As compared with the previous census, the proportion of persons without sight had somewhat decreased, for in 1851 it was one in every 979. Owing, however, to the increase of population, a considerable addition was also made to the number of the blind.

Ages of Males and Females returned as Blind in England and Wales at the Census of 1861.