460 NATURAL EXPEDIENTS FOE SUPPLYING 
lage-school, as a great obstacle to such a design was his in- 
abihty to make a pen. This impediment, however, the 
boy''s natural genius has since surmounted; and I have 
now the pleasure of communicating to the Society the mode 
in which this process of pen-making is accomplished, as it 
has been described to me in the letter of a medical friend.* 
The lad places the quill between his knees, the barrel up- 
wards ; then, with a knife held between his stumps, cuts 
off the end, and, forcing the blade within the barrel, 
makes the slit. He next cuts away due portions from 
each side of the quill, the direction of the parings being from 
below upwards, until a point is formed. He, lastly, places 
the pen on a flat surface of some hard substance, by which 
means he is enabled to perform with ease the usual finish- 
ing act of snipping off the point. The boy is so proud of 
this latest acquirement of pen-making, that he has sent me 
two specimens of his art, and a letter written with a pen 
made by himself. (See Plate XlV.yor a facsimile of his 
writing.) 
I have at length concluded my account of the Cheshire 
boy, most of the circumstances narrated having been the 
result of a short conference I had with him, during which 
period I induced him to perform, by the means in his 
power, as many manual operations as I could then think 
of, which, in other individuals, were of the most complex 
naturef. Since visiting him, however, a few additional 
trials, which might have been made of his abilities, occur- 
red to me, that would illustrate still farther the expedients 
* Mr Jordan, surgeon, Manchester. 
■|- I was for many days residing at Hale Barns Green, situated within a 
mile of the place where Mark Yarwood lived, but it was only my good 
fortune to see him the day before I left the neighbourhood. 
