“I happen to be in some degree enabled to reply to the inquiries you have done me the honour to make, respecting the person who asserts that she can distinguish colours by the touch; having seen her myself about three months since, and examined her pretensions as accurately as it was in my power. She is a young woman about eighteen years of age, and much indisposed by a complaint, supposed to be water on the brain, and which is said to have deprived her of sight. Her friends and connections are decent and respectable Roman Catholics; neither she, nor they, intrude themselves on the notice of the public. When her health will permit, they allow visitors to see her, but they do not accept of any compensation whatever.
“When I saw her, she was seated by the fireside; seemed
in tolerable spirits, and expressed her willingness to make the experiments
required. The only persons present, besides my friend Mr. George
Walker, and myself, were a
| LIFE OF WILLIAM ROSCOE. | 171 |
“These, however, though frequently correct, were not uniformly so; and we were at considerable pains to find out the reason of this variation. After some time, we discovered, that when any opake object was interposed between the direct line of her eyes and her hands,—for instance, when I held my hat silently before her,—she seemed reduced to guess at the colour, and was frequently wrong. And when she found this repeated, she insinuated that there must be no interruption between her breath and her hands; supposing, as we understood her, that her breath was necessary to add to the delicacy of her touch.
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“Upon the whole, I was by no means convinced of the existence of so extraordinary a faculty, and am still much more inclined to believe that she by some means obtained a glance below the hood-winks than to give her credit for her pretensions. What occurred afterwards rather confirmed than removed my doubts. She undertook to read by the touch a printed paper, in which she made out some words; and her friends assured us she could frequently read as much as half a page in a small type. Her mother then went out of the room and brought in a small bottle with a blue powder within, and giving it into her hand asked her what was the colour of it; to which she replied, ‘blue smalt.’ This answer proved too much for my credulity, and I have not since repeated my visit.
“I am greatly confirmed in my unbelief by the very
decided opinions of my friend, Dr.
Traill and Dr. Vose, who
have examined her with great accuracy, and found, that when the possibility of
vision was interrupted by stopping the space between the hood-winks and the
nose with cotton, her faculty was gone. There are, however, I am told, many
scientific and well-informed persons here who fully believe in her pretensions,
and I, therefore, beg you will have the goodness to understand me, as only
speaking of my own impressions, and not presuming to judge of others,
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