ANN JOHNSON, THE HOLBORN LACE-WEAVER, A conspicuous blind woman.
Reading edition
Ann Johnson is a poor industrious widow, cleanly, sober, and decent, inoffensive and honest, and quite blind. The engraved portrait of this interesting figure may be depended upon for its faithful representation of the much-to-be-pitied original. She was born at Eaton, in Cheshire, on St. Andrew's day, old style, in the year 1743, was apprenticed to a ribband weaver at the early age of ten years, and was twenty-four years old when she lost her sight, occasioned by a spotted fever.
Sitting exposed to the inclemency of hot and cold, of wet and dry weather, for upwards of six and twenty years, in the open streets of London, might naturally undermine a constitution the most vigorous and healthy. It certainly has considerably affected Ann Johnson, whose regular appearance, even in the bitterest days of winter, has been as uniform as the finest in summer, on Holborn-hill, upon the steps at the corner of Marmaduke and Thomas Langdale's house, the distillers. Here she exhibits the expert manner in which she makes laces, attracting the notice of the considerate passenger: she is rendered additionally interesting, by the cheerfulness of her conversation and the serenity of her countenance, using words, in effect, similar to the following beautiful lines:
"Are not the ravens daily fed by thee? And wilt thou clothe the lilies, and not me? Begone distrust!—I shall have clothes and bread, While lilies flourish, or the birds are fed."
She resides at No. 5, Church-lane, Bloomsbury, and has been an inhabitant of London upwards of thirty-eight years. We particularly recommend her to the considerate attention of every little girl or young woman, and, when they are in want of any laces, to think of Ann Johnson.—Such great industry deserves encouragement.
