To the Editor:
—The following quaint story is of interest to the medical profession, especially the ophthalmologists. It is taken from the Early Life of Thomas Hardy, 1840-1891, by Florence Emily Hardy (New York, Macmillan Company, 1928, p. 200). Hardy and his wife were traveling, in the later part of 1882, in the municipal borough of Dorsetshire, England. On The Cobb they had encountered an old man who had undergone an operation for cataract:"It was like a red-hot needle in yer eye whilst he was doing it. But he wasn't long about it. Oh no. If he had been long I couldn't ha' beared it. He wasn't a minute more than three quarters of an hour at the outside. When he had done one eye, 'a said, 'Now my man, you must make shift with that one, and be thankful you bain't left wi' narn.' So he didn't do