It is popularly supposed that it is particularly difficult for the blind to keep order or to compel attention. This idea has often been used as an objection to the blind as teachers or lecturers. As many things are true in the same degree of the blind person as of the seeing person. The practical question which should be asked in such cases is irrespective of blindness, and is: ‘Has the man sufficient personality to be interesting and to command attention and respect?’ Fawcett had. Both his blindness and his disregard of it compelled admiration, even reverence, while they added interest to what he said, and brought out the latent chivalrous, gracious qualities of his audience. It was probably far easier for him to preside at a meeting than it would have been for a sighted person of average calibre. He was not forced to keep order by himself, for most of the men at the meeting unconsciously helped the blind chairman by their sympathy and attention. Fawcett’s natural quickness, keyed to high pitch by his blindness, made him swift to detect the slightest movement or half-murmured objection, and to catch the change of mood in the tones of a speaker who was, even unknown to himself, being turned from his original point. No breach of procedure escaped this chairman, whose unseeing eyes seemed to watch the expression of each debater. To see Fawcett in the chair, dominating the other strong men with whom he worked, was a sight not to be forgotten. Rising to his great height, and looking around with his genial smile, he would open the meeting with a few words. If their quiet authority left no doubt but that there would be order, there was a pleasant marginal sense that it would be order not necessarily dreary or even unmixed with fun. A striking proof of his popularity occurred at the National Conference in the following December. Gladstone was chief orator, but Fawcett, who was on the platform, was called for from the audience to add his words as well. But the first popular indignation became overcast by a jealousy of Russian action, and when the House met its mood was hesitating and uncertain. But not Fawcett. In March he moved independently a resolution demanding that the European Powers should insist on adequate reforms, and led an attack on the Government, that claimed to have a spirited foreign policy which was really a do-nothing policy. The Conservatives cried, horror-stricken, that Fawcett wanted a ‘bloody war.’ The Liberal front bench said that the resolution was inopportune, and they suggested it should be withdrawn. To this Fawcett felt obliged to consent, as a weak following from his own party would have made a most discouraging vote.