The account given by the _Illustrated News_ called attention to Bessie's work. It was followed by letters in _The Times_, _Daily News_, and other journals, and by an article in _Household Words_, believed to be by Charles Dickens, entitled "At Work in the Dark." Many subscriptions, donations, and promises of help were received in consequence of these notices in the Press. Mr. Walker, who invented a life-belt, offered the benefit of its manufacture to the Association, and a new trade, corkcutting, was set on foot. In the course of the year the "Association of Blind Musicians" applied, through Mr. Swanson, blind organist of Blackheath Park Church, to be admitted to union with Bessie's influential society. She was warmly interested in the appeal, and willing to grant such help, pecuniary and other, as the greater Association could render to the less. The aim of Mr. Levy, Mr. James Lea Summers, Mr. Swanson, and other blind musicians was to give a thorough musical training to, and to obtain employment as organists and teachers for, blind men with a talent for music. The petition was courteously received, and after much discussion by the Committee and consideration by Bessie, the prayer for union, but without pecuniary aid, was granted. The Musical Association, however, had neither sufficient funds nor enough influence for the undertaking. But the promotors acted as pioneers, and a few years later Bessie saw that the efforts of Dr. Campbell and the establishment of the Normal College for the Blind at Norwood, would satisfactorily accomplish all that the Blind Musicians had attempted. The trades hitherto taught to women had been leather and bead work, and the making of nosebags for horses. These were found to be unremunerative, and it was necessary to substitute others for them. There was at that time a great demand for fine baskets imported from France, and it occurred to Bessie that if they could procure the blocks upon which these baskets were made and the tools used, she might learn the art of basket-making and teach the workwomen. But there was a difficulty in the way. The manufacture of these baskets was a monopoly, and the firm to which they were consigned would give no information as to the locality whence they came. Some one must go to France and find out. Who could go except Levy! It was to prepare him for this journey that for more than a year Bessie had been at every spare moment "embossing French words for L.," as the diary informs us, or dictating a vocabulary. In the autumn of 1858 he and his wife set out on their journey of discovery. Bessie had applied for a grant in aid of Levy's expenses, but the Committee did not accede to her request, so that funds were provided from her private purse.