239 
Strangers were amazed at seeing a smile on her face at the veiy instant that 
b6inS ^ ThC — ^ H 
1 have made this long quotation from Mr. Tonna’s letter 
because I thought that, apart from the general purposes of this 
address, many persons present might feel an interest in narti 
culars, not generally known, respecting Charlotte Elizabeth 
>ut my special object, in this extract, is to draw your attention 
to a passage in it further confirmatory of the fact I have already 
mentioned,- namely, that people who lose their hearing- aro 
content to lose their speech too. The passage is this — « We 
ZsTbfe to former ' \ U h T U 0n th<5 l6tterS aS fest aS ^ 
Lined the h ° n h f &u S ers - Now this lady still re- 
shonld si U ,° s P eeob : Instead of employing it why 
tiallv nseVT T convers ®g with her own husbfnd, habb 
tually use the finger-language of the deaf and dumb ? 
pothesf 1 1 i°at aC th 0 e a f S for f t L S re P u ? nance to speak on the hy- 
pothesis that the loss of hearing is attended with injurious 
effects upon the organs of speech, from some mysterious sym 
pathy between the two sets of organs,-the auditory and ^ 
vocal; the destruction of the former ’set occasioning a func! 
am ai der d 1 \ ge n * he ktter > ° r of some of them. And I 
“ amazed to find that so distinguished a physiologist as Pro 
iessor Huxley, m his recent work on Man’s Place in Nature 
avours the same view. It is a mistaken view. There is no 
necessity to resort to anatomical or physiological considera 
Pons to settle the doubt. Deaf-mutes, whethef their deafness' 
mnZfhe) 1 0 nf e re ^ It: ° f disease or acci( 3ent in after-life 
their nr 6 1 9 t ‘ t0 Sp r ak ’ Unless there be a malformation of 
en oigans of speech entirely independent of their deafness 
have witnessed hundreds of such persons taught to speak’ 
-to pronounce all the vocal articulations that we utter and 
chddreTl neverT’ ° f ^ th ® Se , hundreds of deaf and dumb 
cm.dren, I never knew even one who had the shortest defect 
he dLT °i rg n DS ', Th c re cords of the Royal Institution fol 
sam „ D f , and Uu “ b , at Paris als o abundantly testify to the 
oreans of\ nam p y ’ hat al . thou g h tbe ear is paralyzed, the 
organs of speech remain unimpaired. 3 
I he propensity to silence on the part of those who after 
long familiarity with the exercise of speech, have Wome deaf 
arises 1 an, convinced, not from any functional impediment’ 
it entirely from the changed character which, to thl ntterer’ 
t 2 
