Henshaw's Asylum/Institution for the Blind, Manchester, Lancashire

An idea of the value of the training thus imparted may gained from a remark by the Superintendent (Mr. W. H. Illingworth) to an "evening News" reporter this morning, after a tour of inspection the asylum. It was that practically every boy who has completed his training here in the course of the last five years and has then gone out the world is now self-supporting.

The boys, it should be said, are trained in music, basket work, mat-work, and boot repairing, and the girls in shorthand (by means of a specially-devised machine), typewriting, weaving, hand and machine knitting, light basket work, chair caning, and upholstery. The last-named industry is particularly favourable to the girls from a wage-earning point of view, and as a matter of fact there are blind women now employed upon it at the asylum earning as much as £1 a week, and in no case less than 12s.

On the opposite side of Chester Road the fine old mansion Throstle Nest has been acquired on lease for the purposes of the music school. Here blind youths who show the necessary aptitude are trained to become professional musicians — organists, pianists, or tuners. The house is capitally adapted to the purpose, and its equipment for the work done there leaves, one would imagine, nothing to be desired. The pupils are taught about the mechanism of their instruments and how to repair them, well as to play upon and to tune them, and great things are hoped from the development of this department of the asylum's work.

Further along the road and on the same side in the direction of Stretford is Oak Bank, the fine house and grounds given to the asylum by the late Mr. James Gresham. It is intended to erect new workshops at the rear of the house, which itself will probably be used for office purposes.

Another important branch of the asylum is the Mary Ann Scott Memorial Home and Workshops on the Hayesleigh estate, near Warwick Road, given by the late Mr. C. H. Scott, of this city, in memory of his wife. The idea in the first instance was to use the house and adjoining three acres of charming grounds as a school, but the establishment of the White City in the Botanical Gardens close by made this impracticable; and so the scheme now successfully in operation was decided upon. One part the institution is set apart as a home for the aged and infirm blind who are unable to work, and the other is given up for the training in various trades of those who have become blind after they have passed their youth. The trades taught are those already mentioned, and it is really astonishing how soon both men and women become proficient in them.

In this connection Mr. Illingworth called the reporter's attention to three men busily engaged brush-making. each of them, he said, was now earning from 20s. to 255. a week, and was living in his own home some distance from the asylum, and supporting his wife and family. Three years ago when these men entered the asylum, one a blacksmith, 58 years old, one a painter, 48 years old, and the other a compositor, years old, their cases would have appeared hopeless, and all this wonderful change had been wrought in the meantime. Some of the Industries. The customers for the asylum's brushes include the Lighting and Cleansing Committee of the Salford Corporation, the Irlam and Prestwich District Councils, the Withington Committee of the Manchester Corporation, the Manchester Ship Canal Company, and the Westinghouse works. well-paid industry for the blind is mat making, and inn particular motor mats, for which there is just now tremendous demand These are all made by asylum inmates. All sorts of basket work, too, is done there such, for instance, packing skips, doffing skips for mills, invalids' chairs, invalids' carriages, and flower baskets.