a parliamentary borough and market-town of England, in the county and 39 miles S. of Lincoln, on a pleasant slope above the Welland, 89 miles N. by W. of London. The river is crossed by an old stone bridge of five, and a modern one of three arches. The town is old and straggling, consisting of houses, substantially built of freestone from the neighbouring quarries, and roofed with slate. There are five parish churches, most of which are old and interesting buildings. All Saints, which was built in 1465, is partly early English and partly perpendicular, and has a fine crocketted spire, and several old monuments. St George's church, rebuilt in 1450, is a plain building, with some portions very ancient; and that of St John the Baptist, which is about the same age, has a fine embattled tower, and some good carving in wood. St Mary's dates as far back as the thirteenth century; and St Michael's has been recently rebuilt on the site of one still older. In the church of St Martin, a fine building in the late perpendicular style, the remains of the great Lord Burleigh lie in the family vault; and a handsome monument has been erected to his memory. Of the Benedictine priory of St Leonards part of the nave is still standing, used now as a barn; and there is also to be seen the west gate of a Carmelite friary to the north-east of the town. Stamford once had, besides these, several other ecclesiastical buildings, of which few or no remains now exist. The grammar-school occupies part of the old church of St Paul, a building in the Norman and early English styles; and near it is a Norman gateway, which anciently belonged to Brasenose College, a monastic school now no longer in existence. The grammar-school, which was founded in 1530, has an endowment of about £1,580 annually. Stamford has also a blue-coat school, two free schools, national schools, and an infant school. There are places of worship for independents, Roman Catholics, Wesleyan and Reformed Methodists. All these, as well as the large town-hall, market-house, and jail, are comparatively modern buildings. The charitable institutions of Stamford are very numerous. There are several hospitals for different classes of the poor; alms-houses, establishments for lending money to tradesmen, and for apprenticing poor boys, and several others. A literary and scientific institution was established here in 1838, with a library, museum, and lecture-room. There are also in Stamford an assembly-room, a theatre, and public baths. The town contains several large breweries, and a manufactory of agricultural implements. Malt is also made to some extent, but on the whole Stamford is not an important manufacturing town. It has an extensive retail trade with the neighbouring country, which is facilitated not only by the connection of the town by railways with all parts of the country, but by its situation on the Welland, which is navigable up to the town for boats and barges. The borough is governed by a mayor, six aldermen, and eighteen councillors, and is represented in Parliament by two members. Stamford is a very old town, and is mentioned in history soon after the departure of the Romans from Britain. The Picts and Scots, who at that time greatly harassed the country by their invasions, were defeated here by the Britons and Saxons in 449. At a later period it was in the possession of the Danes, who lost it in 922 to Edward the Elder; but afterwards recovered it, and remained in possession until 1041, though it was taken from them for a time by Edmund I. in 942. About this time it had risen to be a place of some size, and was a market-town and king's borough. In the twelfth century it was inhabited by many wealthy Jews, who were plundered and maltreated by the Crusaders setting out for the Holy Land. Many of the English sovereigns visited the town, and by some of them parliaments or councils were held here. It was at one time fortified and defended by a castle, but it was much injured by the Lancastrian party, who captured it during the Wars of the Roses, and the castle was demolished by Richard III. In 1572 Lord Burleigh, who was lord of the manor, procured the settlement here of some Flemish Protestant refugees, silk and serge weavers, and thus conferred a great benefit on the town. Pop of the borough (1851) 8933.

STAMMERING is a term which has been loosely employed to denote all kinds of defective utterance; neither is any distinction generally made between the terms stammering and stuttering, but they are used synonymously to designate a difficulty in uttering or in articulating without interruption certain sounds, or an absolute inability to do so. The Greeks designated these affections somewhat indiscriminately by the words—stellismos, faltering; trauismos, lisping; asapheia, indistinctness; isechnophonia, feebleness of voice; and batterismos, stuttering. Among the Romans a stammerer, or any one having an impediment of speech, was called ballus; a lisper, blasus; and Cicero uses the term hesitantia lingua. The terms stammering and stuttering, properly used, designate kinds, and not degrees of the evil. The same confusion exists in the use of these terms as in the use of the words articulation and pronunciation, which also have been erroneously regarded as synonymous.

Stammering and stuttering, as contra-distinguished, may be regarded—the former as mainly an organic or symptomatic, the latter as chiefly an idiopathic or functional affection. Stammering may be defined as a difficulty in enunciating, or an inability to enunciate certain elementary sounds. This difficulty does not, as is frequently asserted, occur only in the pronunciation of consonants, but extends also to the vowels. Stuttering, on the other hand, consists chiefly in the difficulty fluently to enunciate words and sentences. The great variety of defects which constitute stammering arises naturally from as great a variety of causes; which causes may be either organic or merely functional. Among organic causes may be enumerated hare lip, cleft palate, abnormal length of the uvula, inflammation or enlargement of the tonsils (a deficiency or disarrangement of teeth), tumours of the tongue or in the buccal cavity, &c. When the organs are in a normal state, and the person is unable to place them in the proper position for producing the desired effect, the cause is functional. General debility, paralysis and spasms of the tongue, glottis, lips, &c., owing to a general or local affection of the nerves of the vocal organs; bad habit, imitation, &c.; are some of the functional causes of stammering. The cause of the imperfection of the vowel-sounds must be sought in the respiratory organs, the larynx, or the buccal cavity. The sounds may be deficient in timbre, from affection of the vocal ligaments; or the larynx being in a healthy condition, the tone may be altered in the buccal or nasal cavities; while the vowels may be ill formed from misemployment or defective association of the various organs upon which articulation depends. The cause of the defective enunciation of consonants must be sought in the organs of articulation, although it may be found to proceed sometimes from affection or misuse of the respiratory organs or the larynx. The tongue is frequently too large for the buccal cavity, in which case most of the speech-sounds will be affected; while individual muscles often lose their contractility.

Stuttering, as distinguished from stammering, has been described as consisting, in a momentary difficulty, in pronouncing, or inability to pronounce, certain syllables or words. The stoppage of sound may take place at the second or third syllable, but generally occurs at the first. The stammer usually finds no difficulty in articulating the elementary sounds of which speech is composed (in which respect he differs from the stammerer); but his affection becomes apparent when he attempts to form syllables and words. His greatest difficulty is experienced in the pronunciation of the explosives K, T, P, and their medials G, D, B, or M; because in articulating these elements, the buccal cavity requires to be closed, and immediately reopened for the following vowel. Instead of doing so, the stammer allows the respective organs to remain in the same position longer than is necessary, and compresses the cavity in trying to force out the sound. The difficulty of the stammerer is much less when the word begins with a vowel. The opening of the glottis, in the transition from the explosive to the vowel, is in fact the chief and most distressing difficulty of the stammerer; and it is this which causes him to repeat the words or syllables until articulation is effected. Stuttering, however, is not confined to the consonants, but may also affect all vowel sounds. It is a remarkable fact, that most stammerers can sing without difficulty; the reason being, that in singing, the continuous action of the vocal organs is not so frequently interrupted; and consequently singing is less difficult than speech, in which a constant change is demanded in the position of the vocal organs. The causes of stuttering may be distinguished as predisposing, exciting, and proximate. As belonging to the two former may be enumerated—anomalous irritability of the nervous system; mental emotions; affections of the brain and spinal cord; solitary vices; mimicry and involuntary imitation. The proximate cause of stuttering has been asserted by Drs Müller, Arnott, and others, to be the spasmodic closure of the glottis. Such a theory is not however tenable; the glottis is rarely or ever per se at fault, and the cause must be sought for, either in those muscles which regulate the inspiration and expiration of the breath, or in the organs of articulation. If the action were strictly spasmodic, the speaker would be unable to arrest it; whereas all stammerers possess this power. With persons thus affected, expiration is frequently retarded, and all the muscles concerned in vocalization and articulation are thrown into inordinate action. In some cases the tongue may be seen flying about the mouth, and vaguely endeavouring to regulate itself for the articulation of a particular word; while the other organs either sympathise or are in a dormant state. This derangement gradually extends to the larynx and organs of respiration, until the whole of the vocal organs are influenced, and all voluntary control is lost. When a person thus affected attempts to speak, you see the eyes open and close spasmodically, the face reddens, the head jerk backwards and forwards, the veins of the neck swell, the respiratory muscles act spasmodically, the arms and legs even sympathise with the general contortion; while the heart palpitates violently (sometimes intermittently), till, with a violent voluntary effort of the whole muscular system, the word explodes. In less severe cases, the vocal organs are alone affected. In such you may see the lips closing and opening, the under-jaw and tongue working at random; while the air enters the lungs with a croup-like sound, and is immediately expelled again; until at last the stutterer feels that his organs are in the right position, and the word is articulated. In other cases, the facial muscles and all the vocal organs are in a quiescent state, and the ordinary observer could not discover that any effort at articulation was being made; a slight spasm of the eyelid being the only external sign of the great internal struggle. The forms which stuttering assumes are so varied that no two cases are alike. Stutterers may, however, be classed under two heads—the psychical and the physical—a classification which has not often been employed. The psychical or mental stutterer is acted upon by every external influence both mental and physical; while on the physical stutterer external influences have little or no effect. His speech is alike on all occasions, uninfluenced by the places in which, or the persons before whom he is speaking; whereas these circumstances would exercise the greatest possible influence upon the former class. In psychical stuttering the affection is sometimes intermittent, disappearing for various periods of time, and increasing or diminishing according to the mental and physical condition of the sufferer; all pleasurable mental emotions tend to diminish the affection; while those of an opposite character produce a contrary effect. The physical influences liable to increase the stutter are—changeable or damp weather, fatigue, dissipation, tobacco, and alcoholic liquors. These last, however, not unfrequently produce fluency so long as the sufferer is under their influence, but have a corresponding reaction. Cheerful society, healthy mental occupation, athletic sports, and constant observance of the universal law, "To be temperate in all things," are the physical influences which tend to diminish the affection. It may be laid down as a general principle, that everything which tends to lessen the voluntary control increases the stuttering, and vice versa. The statistics respecting the number of persons suffering from impediments of speech are very unsatisfactory. Some writers assume that there is about 1 person in 5000 who stammers; while others believe that there are 2 in 1000. Colombat, who made the former calculation, acknowledged that he only reckoned those who were suffering under a severe impediment. Colombat is possibly right as to the number of bad stammerers, but it is equally true that there are nearly 2 in 1000 who suffer from affections which may be included under the general term stammering. The number of severe cases of stammering in the world would thus be 257,200; and the entire number, 2,572,000; thus would give to Great Britain—of the former cases, 5,498; and a total of 54,978. The number of females who stammer is much less than that of males. Some authors maintain that there are only 5 females out of every 100 stammerers. The writer believes that the average is about 10 per cent: his practice has given a proportion of 12½ per cent. The reason why females should stammer less than males is by no means certain.

To the anomalous forms that stammering assumes may probably be traced the variety of remedies that have been employed for its removal. Amongst other remedies proposed by scientific writers are the following:—Colombat employed rhythm to produce harmony between the nervous action and the organs of articulation. Bertrand recommends motions of the fingers and toes, and the introduction of foreign substances into the mouth. Dr Rullier considers that the cause of all stammering must be sought for in the brain, and his remedies correspond. Professor Hard uses a gold or ivory fork about an inch in length, which is to be applied by its convex surface to the alveolar arch of the lower jaw. Dr Serres advises the patient to shake the words out by movements of the arms. Dr M. Hall advises speaking in a chanting voice. Dr Arnott would prefix the vowel e to every word, and thus connect words together. Mrs Leigh of New York made her patients put the tongue at the top of the palate. This plan was also adopted by M. Malbouche and by Mr John Broster. Professor Dif- fenbach performed upon eighty persons the operation of cutting a transverse wedge out of the tongue. Sometimes one of these remedies was in public favour and sometimes another; but all failed to remove stammering on physiological principles. Such a state of public opinion afforded, however, a harvest to quacks and charlatans, each of whom had some secret panacea. One plan was to enforce talking with the teeth closed; another to place bits of India-rubber under the tongue; another advised chanting; another speaking through the nose; another drawing; another the full inflation of the lungs; while another set of professors cut away tonsils, uvula, and portions of the tongue. The Rev. C. Kingsley, in writing of the various systems says:—

"Meanwhile the true method of cure, or at least its elements, had suggested itself to the late Mr Hunt. He found out by patient comparing of health with unhealth, a fact which seems to have escaped all before him—that the abuse neither of the tongue, nor of any single organ, is the cause of stammering—that the whole malady is so complicated that it is very difficult to perceive what organs are abused at any given moment—quite impossible to discover what organ first went wrong and set the rest wrong. For nature in the perpetual struggle to return to a goal to which she knows not the path, is ever trying to correct one morbid action by another, and to expedite vice by vice; ever trying fresh experiments of mis-speaking, and failing, alas! in all: so that the stammerer may take very different forms from year to year; and the boy who began to stammer with the lips, may go on to stammer with the tongue, then with the larynx, next last, and worst of all, with the breath; and in after-life try to rid himself of an abuse by trying in alternation all the other three. To these four abuses—of the lips, of the tongue, of the jaw, and of the breath—old Mr Hunt reduced his paralysing mass of morbid phenomena; and I, for one, believe his division to be sound and exhaustive."

From this it will be seen that the great object must be first to discover the true cause of the stammer. To do this with any success, much experience and patient labour are necessary. When the cause has been ascertained, we must return to nature through art, and teach the stammerer to do consciously, what the healthy subject does unconsciously; but as the misuse of organs produces weakness, considerable time is often necessary to restore the vocal apparatus to healthy action. Great attention must likewise be paid to the economy of nature, to prevent that waste of nervous energy which generally accompanies pellismus. The art of speaking must be really learned, and the same control gained over the vocal organs as the musician has over his mechanical instrument. The stammerer cannot, however, be treated like a mere machine, for his organs are under the influence of an ever-varying agent—the mind. The physically abnormal condition in pellismus reacts most powerfully on the mind, as is proved by the curious phenomena that most stammerers can read aloud when alone, can talk fluently if in the dark, or if they wear a mask; and can recite or speak in an assumed tone without difficulty. The peculiar disposition of the mind must be studied, and every means used to rouse it into vigilant and vigorous control over the vocal apparatus. The same authority before quoted says:

"Of course the very condition of cure—the conscious use of the organs of speech—makes it depend on the power of self-observation, on the attention, on the determination, on the general intellectual power, in fact, of the patient; and a stupid or volatile lad will give weary work."

The sudden improvement frequently produced on first commencing treatment, induces the belief that the enemy is conquered. A perfect cure, however, can only be effected after much diligent application, and those cases which are quickly cured, are the most liable to relapse. The advice given by Dr J. Mason Warren, the highest authority on this subject in the United States, is most valuable. He says:

"Seek out a person who has experience in the treatment of impediments of speech. Place him under his care, and if he is benefited do not remove him and think to perfect the cure yourself. Three months is a very short time for him to remain under the superintendence of an instructor; six months is better, and where it is practicable, it should remain a year. If this interferes with other studies, it is of no consequence, he will derive benefit enough to compensate for the loss. The age I should fix upon for this trial should be from eight to twelve. At this period the loss of a year's study may be a gain. If he meets there others who are affected as he is, it is all the better; he will no longer look upon his case as a peculiar one; and if he sees others whose impediments are worse than his, it will give him additional courage.

"Whatever method may be employed for the relief of this affection, no permanent advantage will be gained in the majority of cases unless resolutely persevered in for one or two years."

The writer cannot give his unqualified adherence to the last paragraph; but he believes, with Dr Warren, that the longer the treatment is continued, the more likely is the cure to be perfect and permanent.

(J. H.—T.)