THE ADVANTAGES OF SPECTACLES.
[To THE mama or THE "SPECTATOR."] am one of those unfortunate people who are obliged, through shortness of sight, to wear spectacles, and at the same time am extremely fond of such games as cricket, fives, racquets, &c., all of which require accuracy and quickness of vision. The pleasure which. I take in these games, and such slight proficiency as I have attained, date almost entirely from the time when I first began to play in spectacles. The wearing of spectacles, so far from "diminishing the desire for activity," has, in my case, greatly stimulated it, and at the same time made its realisation far more possible. It has twice happened to me to have the glasses broken on my face by a ball,—once at fives and once at cricket, when playing a moderately fast bowler on a bad wicket. In neither case was the damage more serious than a slight loss of nerve, a small cut on the cheek bone (due to the obnoxious frames of which you speak), and of course the annihilation of the spectacles. I venture to think that had I taken part in these games without spectacles to the same extent that I have with my eyes strengthened and protected by a glass shield, the injuries I should have sustained through in- ability to see the ball coming would have been both more numerous and more severe. If only short-sighted people would take for granted that with the help of spectacles they can do almost as much as others who have longer sight, I think your opinion would change as to the dinner-getting capacity of "A SQUIRREL IN SPECTACLES."
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