THE EARLY LIFE OF DR. KITTO.

1. On the 4th of December, 1804, a feeble, sickly child was born in an obscure street in Plymouth, known as "Seven Stars Lane." The child's home was a poor and wretched one, and made so by the habitual drunkenness of the father. Money, comfort, character, self-respect, and everything that men should value most, all had been thrown away to gratify his strong craving for drink. The mother's heart was almost broken, her life made miserable, her home dreary, and her poor, sickly firstborn son was left to grow up as best he could amid these scenes of misery and degradation. This child's name was John Kitto.

2. When only four years old, the boy was taken from this wretched home to the garret of his poor, but kind and good grandmother. She nursed and tended her feeble grandson with all a mother's care and tenderness, and deprived herself of many comforts for his sake. In her loved company the little boy strolled through the lanes and fields, gathering flowers and fruit, or wandered along the sea-beach, watching the waves, thus strengthening his feeble constitution.

3. At eight years of age he was sent to school, but his attendance was very irregular. Bad health often prevented his going to school, but the chief cause of absence was his grandmother's inability to pay the few pence required for his fee. He was first at one school, and then at another; and, as usual in such cases, he learnt but little.

4. But his loving grandmother did what she could to teach and interest the boy. She told him all the stories and fairy tales she could think of, and a lively shoemaker, named Roberts, who lived under the same roof,

added to the store of the child's knowledge by giving him an account of Bluebeard, Cinderella and her glass slipper, Jack the Giant - Killer, and Beauty and the Beast. In after years, when grown to manhood, he says, "Assuredly never have I since felt so much respect and admiration of any man's talents and extent of information as those of poor Roberts."

His childish de

5. The young listener was charmed. light was greatly increased by the discovery that these

tales were not only traditions which he could listen to from the lips of his grandmother and the kind-hearted shoemaker, but actual stories to be seen in print in Mrs. Barnicle's shop window in Plymouth, and that they might be purchased for a few pence. This discovery first awakened his love for reading. Every spare penny was gladly devoted to the purchase of books.

6. Then having exhausted his home supply, the eager child began to borrow books from his neighbours, and very speedily all the books in the street in which he lived had passed through his hands.

7. But this brief period of sunshine and joy soon came to an end. When only in his tenth year, his grandmother was obliged, by increasing poverty and infirmity, to break up her small home and live with her youngest daughter, the mother of John Kitto. Sadly, and to his own bitter grief, the poor, sickly, book-loving child had to return to a home darkened and degraded by a drunken father.

8. His work now was to assist his father in his trade as a mason. Such an occupation was ill suited to his health or his tastes. He found his chief pleasure during his scant leisure hours in solitary rambles, and in reading in his wretched bed-chamber at the top of the house all the books he could lay hands on. To this sad and sickly boy, in such a cheerless home, life seemed dreary and desolate indeed.

9. For two long weary years he thus worked with his father, until a shocking accident happened to him which turned the course of his whole life. He had just entered upon his twelfth year, when one afternoon, as the slim and ragged boy was carrying a load of slates to the roof of a house, while stepping from the ladder to the roof, he lost his footing, and fell a distance of thirty-five feet into the court beneath.

10. Life indeed was spared, but only after a long and weary illness. His sense of hearing was entirely extinguished. Never again, during the remaining thirtyeight years of his life, did he hear a single sound. From that eventful day the sound of no human voice ever gladdened his heart.

11.

Could any situation more hopeless than his be conceived? If he could do but little before to help his father, he could do less now. Several means of obtaining a living were attempted, but all failed. He found his one refuge and joy in books. But the gloom was deepening around

him.

His grandmother was compelled to be removed to a distance. His father was growing worse and worse. Neither the misery of his unhappy wife, nor the cries of his young ones for bread, touched his stony heart. For months was the solitary deaf boy a pitiable spectaclepinched with hunger, shivering in rags, and crawling about with exposed and bleeding feet. At last neighbours interfered, and when nearly fifteen years of age he was admitted into the Plymouth workhouse.

12. Happily the forlorn child found a true friend in the governor, Mr. Burnard. In the workhouse he began to keep a journal—a curious record of his sad history: his learning to be a shoemaker; his quarrels with the other boys who teazed him; his deep and bitter sorrow at the death of "the best friend he ever had," his loved grandmother; and his thoughts on passing events.

13. Some of the entries in this journal are very striking. A few specimens are added:

"I was to-day most wrongfully accused of cutting off the tip of a cat's tail. They did not know me who thought me capable of such an act of wanton cruelty."

The following entry shows how the mind of the pauper boy was working out its own destiny, and preparing him for his future work:

"I burnt a tale of which I had written several sheets, which I called 'The Probationary Trial,' but which did not, so far as I wrote, please me.'

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The next one is painfully suggestive:

"February 17, 1821.-The week before last, father wrote on the table with chalk, 'You never gave me anything to drink yet.' I went gravely and emptied out a cup of water, and gave it to him, and said, 'There— drink.' He blushed deep at this pun, and said no more about it."

14. After two years' residence in the workhouse, Kitto was apprenticed to a shoemaker, named John Bowden, to learn his trade more perfectly. He looked upon this as a great step in advance, and thus exultingly he records the fact: "I am no longer a workhouse boy--I am an apprentice."

15. But these bright hopes were soon dashed to the ground. This new position, which he had fondly looked upon as his first upward step in life, proved to be the saddest and bitterest in his career. His master was a cruel tyrant. He had selected the poor deaf boy from the workhouse, because he hoped that his deafness would lisable him from making any complaint, and prevent him from obtaining any redress. His six months' apprenticeship with Bowden formed the most miserable period of Kitto's experience.

16. Bowden threw a shoe at his head because he had made a wry stitch, struck him again and again, until the poor boy wept. He thus writes: "I did all in my power to suppress my inclination to weep till I was almost suffocated; tears of bitter anguish and futile indignation fell upon my work and blinded my eyes. I sobbed convulsively. I was half mad with myself for suffering him to see how much I was affected. Fool that I was! O that

I were again in the workhouse!"

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17. Again: "My head ached, and yet they kept me to work till six o'clock, when they let me come away. could eat nothing." He concludes this journal with this sad and touching entry: "January 16. I held the thread too short instead of telling me to hold it longer, he struck me on the hand with the hammer (the iron part). Mother can bear witness that it is much swelled; not to mention many more indignities I have received—many, many more; again, this morning, I have wept. What's