THE CAPRICE OF SYMPATHY.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE " SPROTATOR.1
SIR,—Is the selection of objects of relief so capricious as you imagine? May it not be that we select the poor rather than the ruined, because the assistance which would make a poor man comfortable would leave a ruined man as far as ever from his former competence P Is there not reason also in pity bestowed on the blind and withheld from the deaf P "The harvest of a quiet eye" remains almost unimpaired for the deaf, but no poet sings a harvest for the deafened ear. The deaf man misses household gossip, it is true, but the weekly visit of the Spectator is more to him than to the rest. He has his compensation in the thoughts of others, while the blind man is shut up with his own.—I am, Sir, &c,, Didsbury, Manchester, March 16th. HENRY T. HOOFER.
[The blind man hears the thoughts of others. We did not, however, compare the two deprivations, but the ,degrees of sympathy for them.—En. Spectator.]
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