103. THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES o. SAFER LAWYER TEXAS THOMAS ALLEN REED LEAVES THE NOTE-BOOK THOMAS ALLEN REED. Printed in tlte Reporting Style of Phonography. VOLTJME I. LONDON : ISAAC PITMAN & SONS, 1 AMEN CORNER, PATERNOSTER ROW BATH : ISAAC PITMAN, PHONETIC INSTITUTE. -8 ENTERED AT STATIONERS' HALL. . 2 CONTEXTS, t PAGE. DC How I Learned Shorthand ... ... ... ... 5 Early Recollections ... ... ... ... 26 How I Taught Simon Phonography ... ... ... 51 In Search of a Reporter ... ... ... ... 72 Is Reporting a Desirable Profession ? ... ... ... 86 My Reporting Pen ... ... ... ... 126 Government Shorthand Writing .. ... .. 136 II Transcribing and Transcribers ... ... ... 156 Scrawling and Scrawl ers ... ... ... ... 166 . 448418 LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF T. A. REED. HOW I LEARNED SHORTHAND. ; \ It is more than a quarter of a century ago. I was not quite in my teens. I was, of course, at school, and had received about the usual amount of a schoolboy's education. I was a little ambitious in the acquisition of knowledge, and one of the objects of my ambition, I distinctly remember, was to learn shorthand. I had occasionally read the speeches of public men in the newspapers, and heard that they were taken down in strange abalistic characters by a race of men called " reporters," whose ability to atch the torrent of eloquence as it flowed inspired me with the wannest dmiration. My schoolmaster, too, was rather fond of talking of " steno- grophy;'" he never called it^shorthand; the Greek designation was more cholarly. From the familiar way in which he alluded to the art I, of ourse, believed him to be an adept in its rjractice : he had probably Leaves from the Note-Book of T. A. Reed. [/ 4 " -T- ^ 1, > ^ learned some shorthand alphabet and forgotten it ; I am sure he could not have written half-a-dozen words. No opportunity for acquiring a knowledge of shorthand presented itself to me till one day the walls of the town in which I was residing were placarded with the announcement that Professor had arrived, and was ready to devote himself to the general enlightenment of the public, and especially to their improvement in the arts of writing, arithmetic, and shorthand. I lost no time in making ray way to the address given in the public an- nouncements. It was a stationer s shop, with a side entrance leading to the floor above, where the public educator had established hi:, examined very attentively a large case hanging outside, displaying a num- ber of slips of paper showing the wonderful transformation that had been effected in the handwriting of John Wilson, "\Viiliam Brown, Emma Thomson, cum multis aliis, "after taking six lessons." In almost every case the first specimen appeared to have been written in an omnibus rat- tling over an ill -paved road ; while the second was a specimen of caligra- phy that could only have been written under the most favorable circum- stances, and if the upstrokes had not required a magnifying glass to be How I Learned Shorthand. 7 \cr - -j ^V^-* ^ T- * ^ ^ K-.4- Vv- :9- X ^ v 1 ^ ^ ^ x } c^^ ' r -y- ' ^> U? v. p / ^~^^\ ar ~\. v i \ ^ ~^~ \ s^^ L- t /" ) ._.> n v^^, ) Y i r^ -fl -s-^^ -o % I >'N ^ l^~""\ ^r "^^ ii": cTTT^ ^ ^ ^^4. \ X V V soon, tho execution would have been faultless. I was struck with the remarkable resemblance of style in the different specimens, but I was too unsophisticated to entertain any ungenerous suspicion as to their genuine- ness, and could only feel an unbounded admiration for a man who could convert such clumsy scribes into penmen so accomplished. There was a long rulc-of-three sum, too, exhibited in another case, from the top to the bottom of a sheet of foolscap ; which was most unfavorably contrasted with the same sum worked by the " new method" in about a dozen figures. My sentiments with regard to arithmetical rules (which I had conceived to bo as unchangeable as the ten commandments) received a severe shuck, and I began to think that I had been the victim of a cruel personal injury in having been made to cover my slate with unending rows of figures to bring about a result which might be accomplished in three lines. I longed for a knowledge of the "new method." At length my eye rested on a third case which absolutely transfixed me. It was filled \\ithnumberless ITS, dashes, dots, loops and circles, rushing wildly about in every direction. Surely it must be shorthand. Every letter seemed in a hurry, Leaves from the Note-Book of T. A. Reed. ~v ; C Vf . i v ^i x - T x ^ ( ">> ^1> J^ N >P .t -M_^~^ & >v>; , r) and on a closer inspection I could distinctly see all these weird-looking characters scampering off after a rapid speaker, who was vainly trying to escape them. Some ran in company; others pursued the chase alone, but seemed in serious danger of running over one another. A motley group ; I longed to have it under my control. I feared that my capacity was inadequate to the task of enlisting those eccentric creatures in my service ; but I was reassured by the gratifying announcement that met my eye : " The art of shorthand taught in six lessons. Terms, 10/6." Straight- way I forgot all about the new rule-of-three ; it was a thing of the past, and the prevailing, absorbing sentiment that animated me was a determin- ation to take the " six lessons." AVhen I reached home I was breathless ; I must have rnu all the way, but I did not know it. I immediately sought the maternal presence, and gasped out the information I had obtained, and the desire that had taken possession of me. Permission was no sooner asked than granted, and it was arranged that I was to commence my new study after school hours on the following day. How I Learned Shorthand. I believe I clrearned all night of these strange s}*mbols, and imagined I was mysrlf c.ireorinff about among them, but totally unable to regulate their movements. The next day I got into terrible disgrace at school. The strokes of my copy exhibited a preternatural tendency to slope the wrong way ; my arithmetic became confused ; I think I made Aulus Plautius invade liritain in the reign of Henry VIII. ; and I had " twenty lines, you dunce," for calling " virtue " an indefinite article. My school- master, a kind-hearted man, must have thought I was ill, for at the close of the d:iv he excused my "lines," and recommended me to go home at once, and retire to bed early. In the course of the evening I made my way to the Professor's, and having made known my errand, I was ushered, all trembling, into his pres- ence. 1 was a little disappointed with his appearance. 1 had . to see an imposing looking personage, surrounded with dozens of diligent students, eagerly drinking in instruction from his lips. There was nothing of the kind visible. He was a man of very ordinary type, and 1 was rather Leaves from the Note-Book of T. A. Reed. shocked with the eagerness with which he took my fee. There wore tnvo pupils seated at a table laboriously writing copies very much alter the approved school-boy fashion. I was desired to join them, which I did, and in a few minutes a shorthand alphabet was set before me, with a sheet of ruled paper on which I was to copy it. It was Lewis's system (as I afterwards discovered) with some slight modifications introduced by my in- structor, who on this account called it his own. I copied the alphabet several times, and very soon had the letters firmly fixed on my memory. Having practised them for about half-an-hour, during which two or three other persons dropped in to take writing lessons (I was the only short- hand pupil), I was dismissed, and desired to call again another evening. My second lesson was devoted to the practice of joinings on a large sheet of paper, on which the letters of the alphabet were displayed along the top, and also down the left-hand side, the joinings being arranged ;ifter the fashion of a multiplication table. This presented little or no difficulty, and I was surprised how easy everything appeared. The third e\ think, consisted chiefly in committing to memory the arbitrary characters, How I Learned Shorthand. )_ ignifications when I met the characters in a sentence. The letter t of course, felt great respect for the " context," which was to do such won- ders, but heartily wished that I had not been consigned to its tender mercies, which I strongly suspected, and aftenvards found, would often fail me in the hour of need. However, I persevered, and when the "six lessons" Leaves from the Note-Book of T. A. Reed. with a little practice I should be able to achieve the object of my ambition. I practised a little every day, and if it had not been for that terrible " con- text " I think I should have been encouraged to continue till I had attained a moderate speed. But what could be expected of a boy of twelve floun- dering 1 about in a sea of stenographic consonants, told to " omit all vowels," and referred only to "context" to help him out of every difficulty? I remember once meeting with the letters f, /, and puzzling my brains for half-an-hour to discover whether they meant fall, foal, fill, feel, fell, fool. full, file, fowl, or foil. I appealed to the "context," but the worst of it was that this was equally in need of elucidation, and I gave up the passage in blank despair. I did not, however, relinquish my practice, and in a few weeks I resolved on making a grand attempt to take down the Sunday ser- mon. I rose earl}- in the morning with the sense of a weight v responsibility resting upon me. I sharpened my pencil with the gravity of a senator, and folded several sheets of paper together in the profound conviction that I was undertaking a serious, if not a formidable duty. I did my best to How I Learned Shorthand. \> X conceal my emotions, but my heart was beating all the way to the church. As to the preliminary service, I understood as little of it as if it had been read in Cherokee. I stood when I ought to have knelt, and knelt when I should have sat or stood, and demeaned myself like a youth whose religious education had been sadly neglected. At length the clergyman entered the pulpit, and I took my sheets of paper from the Bible in which I had concealed them, and my pencil from my pocket. If I did not feel like Bonaparte's soldiers, tkat the eyes of posterity were upon me, I devoutly believed that every eye in the church was directed to my note-book. The color mounted to my cheeks (as it very often did at that period of my life) and my whole frame trembled. I had a strong impulse 'to abandon my project, but I summoned all my energy to the task, and awaited the com- mencement of the sermon. "The i2th chapter of Isaiah, and the 3rd verse," said the minister in solemn tones. This presented no great diffi- culty. I am sorry to say that, stenographically speaking, I burked Isaiah, and contented myself with the longhand abbreviation, Is., and as to the text itself, I thought the first three words would suffice. And now for the ser- 14 Leaves from the Note-Book of T. A. Reed. U* , ^- > _^ N *1 J nidti. "The remarkable words, my brethren, of this important prophecy." Laboriously I foll\\vd the deliberate utterances of the speaker, but when ' d the "prophecy " I floundered about in a mazeot dire contusion. I thought it beif.in with fh, and I accordingly started, as I had been in- i. with the stenographic ecjuivalent, f, but finding that this would I crossed it nut : then I tried/, r, and getting .. <>nfused, plunged madly inN.> the alphabet, the result being a combination of char- acters altogether beyond description. .But where was the preacher? Away in the distance., almost out of sight or hearing. I was fairly but not quite disheartened. AVhen another sentence was begun I made a fresh start : this time I was pulled up by the word "synonymous." I knew there were some ;/'s and m s in it, but not how many. I must have written lour ot each, and while I was jerking out these segments of circles (their forms were the same as in Phonography,) the clergyman was re- morselessly pursuing the intricacies of a long sentence which I was com- pelled wholly to abandon. I made several other efforts with the like result. At length I secured an entire sentence of about twenty words, and felt How I Learned Shorthand. \ V\ ven-proud of the achievement. Some half-dozen such sentences rewarded my labor during the sermon. How I racked my brain in the afternoon in poring over these fragments ! My memory (not then a bad one) was ut- terly useless. I had not the slightest conception of the dritt of the sermon, but I was determined to make some kind of a transcript, and it was made. I presented it to my mother as my first attempt, and I believe she kept it carefully locked up in a drawer among her treasures. It was fortunate for my reputation that it never afterwards saw the light. My first experiment in sermon reporting was not very encouraging, but I repeated the effort on several successive Sunday mornings, and in the afternoons was laboriously occupied in transcribing some half-a-dozen i my spasmodic-looking shorthand. Whether the preacher would il his words as I rendered them I cannot say: sure I am that he would have been astonished at the selection I had made, and would il to see the principle which guided me in my omissions. I strongly *n -prct that if his orthodoxy was in any way dependent upon my reports he 16 Leaves from the Note-Book of T. A. Reed. { \ a, > e- N "^ v-r S>nh o /V ^ ^ 39 / t- c V ' c v would have been speedily summoned to the Court of Arches to reconcile (a difficult task) his reported utterances with the 39 Articles. I once knew a clergyman who was particularly irate with a reporter who, in transcribing his sermon, substituted the word " sanctification " for "regeneration," thereby, as he complained, spoiling his theology, and attributing opinions to him from which he shrank with horror. What this preacher would have thought of my juvenile productions I shudder to think. My reports, how- ever, were confined to a very limited circle of readers, who were not dis- posed to be hypercritical. My experience is that people in general are ily satisfied in the way of reports. Not having sufficiently good memorie* to remember what has been omitted, if that which they read is tolerably correct, they have a notion that everything has been satisfactorily reported, even in cases in which the shorthand writer is conscious of man- ifold deficiencies in his transcript. I have often heard reports pronounced by readers to be verbatim which, to my own knowledge, have not contained a third of the speakers' utterances. It must have been to this circumstance that I was indebted for the leni- How I Learned Shorthand. s ency with which my omissions were regarded, and the compliments that were undeservedly passed on some of my productions by those of my friends and relations who took the trouble to examine them. About this time, I remember, a gentleman was engaged, at the school that I was attending, to deliver a course of lectures on astronomy. Before the commencement of the first lecture we were all requested to make notes of what we heard, and to present fair copies of them to the lecturer for inspection at his next visit. From that moment I was the object of inex- pressible envy to all my schoolfellows, who knew that I could write short- hand, and who enormously exaggerated my powers. I am sorry to say that I sharpened my pencil, not in fear and trembling', as I had done on the occasion of my first essay at church, but with a sense of self-satisfac- tion, and almost of conscious superiority. Though convinced of my inability to take anything like a -verbatim report, 1 knew that I could far outstrip all my schoolfellows in following the lecturer. I strove hard to take down as much as possible, and succeeded in getting the " substance " a conveniently elastic word of the lecture. My spare hours during two i S Leaves from tkt Note-Book of T. A. Reed. V -V Ir-x k. k ' ^ . ^ - ^ '^c v * VN >\^ i in v ^s to me. It was a printed circular enclosing a sheet full of shorthand char- acters, a complete system. The schoolmaster was politely requested by the sender to examine the system, and, if he approved it, to adopt and teach it in his school ; or, if unable to give attention to the subject, to hand the paper to any person of his acquaintance who might be likely to take an interest in it. The paper was no other than what old phonographers will remember as the original " Penny Sheet," which must have tried the eyes and puzzled the understandings of early phonographic students more than any half-a-dozen other publications. How I pored over those beautifully engraved but totally incomprehensible characters ! There was the Iliad in a nut-shell, the entire system of Phonography comprised in a sheet barely six inches square, with illustrations in English and I think in one or two foreign languages. The reader will hardly be surprised to hear that after sundry futile attempts to understand Phonography on this my first introduction to its mysteries, I gave up the task in despair. Thi- author, I had no doubt, was a lunatic, and it was absurd to strain one's intellectual faculties in deciphering characters that would have staggered a Grotefendand bewildered a Rawlinson. A specimen of cuniform symbols 20 . Leaves from the Note-Book of T. A. Reed. * , /-" : *-s -\-- c * > 4- ; would have been nothing 1 to this phonographic arcanum. I have met with many phonographers who have seen this early compendium, but with never a one who learned the system by its means alone. Some twelve months after this occurrence I left school, and entered a mercantile office, where my shorthand remained practically in abeyance, partly owing, I think, to my taking up with one or two other bobbies. It so happened, however, that some phonographic publications of a more intel- ligible character than the " Sheet " fell into my hands, and I made the acquaintance of an accomplished phonographer, my late partner. Mr F. E. Woodward, who offered to instruct me in the new art if I felt disposed to abandon my old system in its favor. I had read in the phonographic pamphlets a number of letters from enthusiastic ardent disciples of the " cause," who with the enthusiasm usually generated by a nascent move- ment, praised the svstem to the skies, and prophesied its speedy universal adoption. Some of the- writers had, like myself, experienced the difficulty of deciphering other systems, and bore testimony to the ease with which How I Learned Shorthand. Phonogfraphy could be both written and read. JNIy friend also convinced me of the legibility of the system by reading from his notes with apparent ease a portion of a sermon which he had taken down some months pre- viously. I caught the infection, and resolved to join the ranks of the new brotherhood, for such it appeared to be. As expounded by my friend and illustrated by intelligible books, the system proved to be easy enough, and I had little difficulty in acquiring its elements. The chief obstacle to my progress was an occasional conflict between the old and the new systems, and it was some weeks before I could overcome the habit of writing the letter / this was the bete notr of the alphabet with a horizontal instead of a perpendicular stroke. The short vowels and those of the w and y scries were a little troublesome perhaps ; the half-sized consonants, which did not then, as now, take the uniform addition of i or d, seemed now and then a trifle perverse ; and hooks and circles, in spite of cautious treat- ment, would occasionally insist on getting misplaced. But if there had been no obstacles in the way, half the satisfaction of acquiring the art would have been lost. The difficulties, however, as I have said, were 22 Leaves from tlie Note-Book of T. A. Reed. -88 "~~^> R L ^\ c "T trifling, and the practice of a couple of months brought me in point of speed on a level with my former attainments, and in point of legibility in writing, carried me considerably beyond them. Having with my old sys tern so often gone hopelessly adrift for the want of a definite vowel expres- sion, I reveled in the clearness of the phonographic notation, and even made use of the new characters when pursuing my studies in French and German. I believe I religiously wrote a few pages of Phonography every day, and I was in the habit of setting myself some definite task to accom- plish, spreading the work over so many days or weeks. To this habit, ferseveringly followed, I attribute some portion, at any rate, of the success was able subsequently to achieve in facility of writing. One of my first labors in this direction was the writing of the Psalms from dictation. For the purpose I secured the services of the office-boy who read well, and was willing (for a consideration) to exercise his vocal powers for my behoof. It was dreary work at first, and two or throe Psalms a day was all that we could accomplish. To a listener our exercises would have been anything but edifying. My reader knew my pace, and regulated his How I Learned Shorthand. accordingly, without the slightest referenceto commas or semicolons ; and f fear that the poetry and the spirituality of the Psalms were altogether lost by our fragmentary mode of procedure. But we soon progressed, and by the time we reached the last psalm ray juvenile dictator was able to read in a deliberate, impressive manner, without being stopped more than once or twice in a page. This task ended, I was a little puzzled to know what next to undertake. I thought of writing out the New Testa- ment, but, to tell the truth, my reader was getting a little tired of theology and was evidently anxious for a change. Wishing to interest him in the work, so that he would not be likely to shirk it, I determined to procure as exciting a tale as I could find, and write it out from his dictation. I was fortunate in my selection ; it was a three-volume novel, the main incidents of which were located in the backwoods of America, and were highly sea soned with terrible conflicts, narrow escapes, murder, love, treachery suicide, and the like. I never had the slightest occasion to seek the ser vices of Henry that was his name who, whenever a leisure hour presentee itself, invariably came to my side with the book opened at the place when 24 Leaves from the Note-Book of T. A. Reed. S,.. 1 -I ^5, we left off. We must have killed two or three Indian chiefs every day. We were constantly getting into the most horrid complications, from which there seemed no hope of escape, and had often to leave off at those tan- talising places where in our popular periodicals we are now accustomed to read, "To be continued in our next." Nothing could have been more fortunate for myself. In a month or two we had actually got through the three volumes. It was difficult to get Henry to read sufficiently slowly, especially when we got among tomahawks and scalps, and not wishing to be perpetually checking him, I had many a hard chase after the words as they fell from his lips. I wrote every word of the book in Phonography, and now and then devoted an hour or two to the reading of my notes, and correcting whatever errors I could discover. Of so much value did I find this mode of practice that I have constantly recommended it to others. There is nothing- so conducive to satisfactory progress as the undertaking a definite task which is likely to extend over some considerable time, and going through with it resolutely. Effort put forth in a fragmentary way will always be more How I Learned Shorthand. X ^i c \_^ y / ^ c ^ \ N ' r -^ j... \^* v v < c ^ -/- ^ ^rv. ^-i 9 I "S or less wasted : the methodical, persistent pursuit of a well marked out course will never fail of success. I strongly recommend, then, every beginner to choose some book likely to be interesting to himself and the reader, and firmly resolve to write every syllable of it from dictation. It may be slow and wearisome work at first, but every day, or at any rate every week, will make a sensible difference, and a considerable increase of speed will ultimately reward the patient toil. I had been stimulated in my efforts by reading in the phonographic publications that some diligent students and practitioners had been able to accomplis'.i the marvelous feat of writing 120 words in a minute. I hardly dared to hope that I should attain this extraordinary facility of execution, but I resolved to do my best to approach it. The truth is, I attained that speed long before I was conscious of the fact. I had not tested my rate of writing, but took it for granted that I had not reached the object of my ambition ; and when I was daily writing from dictation at least 130 or 140 words a minute, I was laboring hard to accomplish 120. 26 Leaves from the Note-Book of T. A. Reed. 120 x A ' ^ ( :L - f V EARLY RECOLLECTIONS. How I discovered tTiat I had really achieved success in my exertions, and how a field gradually opened itself to me for the application of the newly acquired power, I may tell hereafter. In a very early number of the Shorthand Magazine I narrated how in my school -days I managed to acquire a knowledge of shorthand not Phonography, which under this name was not then known to the world but a modification of Lewis's system of stenography which then fell in my way. I was about twelve years old, I think, when a peripatetic stenogra- pher took up his abode for a few weeks or months in the town in which my parents resided, and being desirous of acquiring what seemed to me, as it has seemed to many, aver)* enviable accomplishment I took the orthodox "six lessons" and with a little practice attained a certain amount of proficiency in the art. A few years later, as I mentioned in my previous communication, when occupied in a mercantile office (my first employment after leaving school) Phonography was brought to my notice. I think I did not say how, but I will do so here. At the school which I had just left I learned from a younger brother who still continued his studies there, that a new master had arrived who reckoned among 1 his scholastic ac- ?uisitions a knowledge of a new system of shorthand of surpassing merit, t was not long before I paid him a visit, and after listening to his explana- tion of the system, and seeing the ease with which he was able both to write and read it, I resolved by his help to abandon my old method and take up with the new. How I practised at every spare moment and how I was rewarded by attaining a speed in writing which I never acquired with the old system I have already recorded. What I have not stated, however, and what I now desire to add is that the phonographic teacher who first initiated me into the mysteries of Phonography was my old friend and partner, Mr Woodward, as to whom I shall want here a rather long parenthesis to say a few words in memoriam. My first acquaintance with him was under the circumstances I have stated. He was a young man Leaves from the Note-Book of T. A. Reed. -1 ^ S / ' - >- =*-'"*-"** ? -!- r" v, _L_ _ t ' <[; ' 1 ^ ( ' > >o -. ; A^ v ^_ scarcely twenty years of age, and some three years my senior. He had learned Phonography at a school I think in Dover, and was a swift though not a very neat writer. He gave me a few lessons, and after I had made a certain progress we used to meet occasionally for practice. About a twelvemonth afterwards, being inspired with a warm desire to take part in the then nascent movement for " phonographizing" the country (I am not responsible for this verb) we both quitted our more prosaic avo- cations, and embarked in the new enterprise with all the fervor and hope- fulness of youth. Partly by himself and partly in conjunction with a friend Mr Woodward lectured on and taught Phonography in different parts of the country, and it was during one of these tours in the North that he in- troduced the subject to Mr Robert Chambers of Edinburgh, who brought it before the public in the widely-spread Journal that still bears his name. Having pursued this career for a year or two he accepted a situation as reporter in connection with a journal at Cheltenham, and was subse- quently engaged in a similar capacity at Ipswich, where for twelve or Early Recollections. ) W . 7 thirteen years he reported for the Suffolk Chronicle, the proprietor of which was an ardent phonographer. So efficiently did he discharge his duties during these years that when at my invitation he came to join me in my business in London some of the leading men of the town, with whom, of course, he had often been brought in contact, presented him with a handsome testimonial of their appreciation of his services. For some fourteen years he was my partner and during the whole of that time we worked together in entire accord. Ineverknewhim guilty of a dishonora- ble action. Socially and professionally he acted with a due regard to the interests of others, and I had the satisfaction of feeling that whatever work he might be engaged in was safe in his hands. I write so soon after his death [this was written in 1874] that I find it difficult to believe that he is no longer associated with me in my profession. To all who know him, as I did, intimately, his memory will be a pleasant one. As a newspaper reporter he possessed very high qualifications; and he acquired a fair reputation as a professional shorthand writer. It was, however, a labor to him to take full notes for many hours together. Though he wrote a remarkably clear and neat longhand his shorthand was large and some- 30 Leaves from the Note-Book of T. A. Reed. Z ' r '"V^ ; " C X what " sprawling ;" and this I think was one reason for his finding a long spell at note-taking laborious. I could not mention his name in connec- tion with my early life without paying this feeble tribute to his memory. And now to return to myself. Reading one day in the little Phonetic Journal, then published I believe monthly, a glowing account of Mr Joseph Pitman's doings at Birmingham, where he was lecturing and form- ing large classes, together with an invitation to any young man of fair ability and energy to join him in his work, I put myself in communication with that gentleman ; and the result was that I arranged to leave my situa- tion as junior clerk in a shipping office and assist him in his enterprise. I was only seventeen when I left home for this purpose. I entered heartily into the work of teaching, and after a few weeks ventured on givingpublic expositions of the system. My first experiences in this way were not a little painful. Naturally retiring and bashful, I found it no easy task to face a public audience of several hundred persons. I well remember the tremor that came over me on the first occasion of this kind, and the Early Recollections. 3 1 " o -j ^ * z_. <* i "^L| -o L v xi v ^^-^ choking sensation that accompanied it. I could not recognise my own voice as I read from the manuscript I had prepared, not having sufficient confidence to attempt an extemporaneous address. With practice much of this feeling, of course, wore off, and at length I was able to lecture to large and crowded audiences without much difficulty. Looking back upon the past I am often amused, not to say amazed, at the notion of a stripling like myself assuming so public a position. In truth it seems absurd enough, but I cannot say that I regret it. My audiences were not very critical and my task was not difficult. To pull to pieces the English al- Ehabet, to fall foul of the common spelling and show its absurdity, was no iborious effort, or one requiring much scholarship ; and to expound the principles and the details of Phonography was a very simple matter tc one who had thoroughly mastered them. Part of my time was occupied in writing for practice from dictation. Shortly after joining Mr Joseph Pitman 1 nindr the discovery, which was, of course, an agreeable one, that I had attained a facility in writing which was rather unusual in those 32 Leaves from the Note-Book of T. A. Reed. ^ ^--x \- /<~^ * y-rl days. I had practised diligently before leaving home, but I had never tested my speed ; and when this was done by Mr Pitman and some of his friends they congratulated me on my proficiency. To write 120 or 130 words a minute was then accounted as little short of a feat, and as I often exceeded this rate of speed I was regarded as a young prodigy. The truth is, at that early perioiin the history of Phonography very few of its students had devoted themselves to its practice with sufficient assiduity to be able to follow a fluent speaker verbatim. It was my good fortune to be one of the earliest to acquire this facility, and to this cause I attribute in a great degree the circumstance that my name has been so often associated with the sys- tem. After staying a month or two with Mr Joseph Pitman, to get a little insight into his modes of teaching and lecturing, I embarked on a like ven- ture on my own account, first in conjunct ion with my old friend Mr Withers (who is still patiently carrying on the work of propagandism in the North), and subsequently by myself. During this period I delivered many lectures and taught many hundred pupils, both privately and in class. At the con- clusion of each lecture I was accustomed to give practical illustrations of \, ) A 1 1 4. the value of the system for reporting purposes by writing from dictation. A book or newspaper was provided by one among the audience, and as a passage was read I took it down in Phonography and afterwards re-read it, generally to the boundless delight of those present. Nor were these experiments confined to English. Passages slowly dictated in any foreign language were written and reproduced in the same way. I took down Hebrew. Greek, Latin, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Russian, Polish, Hungarian, Arabic, Hindustani, Chinese, various African dialects, and many others, and rarely failed to render the words to the entire satisfac- tion and often to the great surprise of those who dictatet! them. I was blest with a rather quick ear for spoken sounds, and this enabled me to use the phonographic symbols with advantage. I made no effort to write the words quickly, but only to render them accurately, and some know- ledge of one or two languages assisted me materially in this part of my work. On one occasion after thus writing and reading a passage in Welsh the gentleman who read it said I had reproduced it quite correctly : " And now, ' said he, " will you be good enough to read it in English ? " 34 Leaves from the Note-Book of T. A. Reed. \ - The roar of laughter that greeted his innocent request I shall never forget. It was during the time when I was engaged in this work of lecturing and teaching that 1 first employed my pun in the work of actual reporting. It was in Bolton. Dr (afterwards Sir Johni Howring then represented the town in Parliament, and it was announced that on a given day he would address his constituents at a public meeting and give an account of his stewardship. His speech was to be delivered on the eve of the day of publication of the Bolton newspapers, and the editor of one of them ap- j plied to me to assist in reporting it. He proposed that I should take the farst (juarter-of-an-hour or twenty minutes, his own reporters taking the remainder, so that the printers might be speedilv supplied with " copy." I assented to his proposal and promised to hand him the manuscript by a given hour. 1 was a little nervous in undertaking this duty, but not more so than was natural under the circumstances. I had a seat on the plat- form with the other reporters and could therefore bear well ; and as Dr Howring was not rapid in his utterance, no special difficulty presented it- Early Recollections. V, 4- ^ -v x v U 35' /'v i H: I - .1 :-** . 4L t C V] self in regard to speed. Having taken my appointed " turn," I was "relieved" by another reporter; but I nevertheless continued to take notes till the speech was ended ; for what reason I do not know perhaps as a matter of practice. My transcript was confined to the first part of the address according to arrangement, and it was duly deposited with the editor at the appointed hour. It so happened that just as my "slips" were left at the office, Dr Bowring himself called to see the editor; and the manuscript was accordingly placed in his hands to revise before being handed over to the printers. The Doctor expressed the highest satisfac- tion with the report so far as it went and a hope that the remainder was coming from the same source. The editor explained the nature of the arrangement that had been made, but added that I had taken notes of the entire speech. At Dr Bowring's suggestion he called upon me and in- quired it I could supply a complete transcript of the address. I replied in the affirmative, and in a few hours the work was accomplished. Before I had finished it I had another application from the other Bolton paper to supply a reportfor its columns, and I agreed to do so ; I had not, however, Leaves from the Note-Book of T. A. Reed. the trouble of writing out a second copy, but arranged with the editor of the first paper for the delivery of an early " proof" to his rival ; so that both journals had the same report. Under these encouraging circum- stances I did my first piece of professional reporting ; and now, after the lapse of more than a quarter of a century, I look back upon it with much the same feeling of interest as that with which a barrister recalls the cir- cumstances attending his first brief, or a surgeon brings to mind his first operation. My next professional reporting engagement soon followed, and I was not 18 when I undertook it. It was in Hury, in Lancashire, where I was lecturing and conducting phonographic classes, records of which may be found in the early numbers of the Fhonotypic Journal, as it was then called. Another lecturer was in the town at the same time (a Mrs Martin if I remember rightly), a secularist of a very advanced type; and I was engaged by a local solicitor to take notes of one or two of her addresses with a view to a prosecution of the lady for blasphemy. My notes were duly transcribed, and a copy of them was sent to London for counsel's Early Recollections. 37 opinion as^to whether a prosecution couldbe sustained. The opinion was that it could not, and the matter dropped. The lectures were attended by crowded audiences, largely composed of operatives, and a good deal of public excitement was occasioned by their delivery, so much indeed that it was thought desirable, atone of the meetings I had to attend, to provide me with an escort. There was no reporters' table, and I sat on a front form between two policemen in plain clothes, who were told off to look after me and see 'hat I was not molested. Political as well as religious excitement ran high, and both these topics were very freely handled by the lecturer, whose supporters, it was thought, might resent any attempt to interfere with her liberty of speech, and do their best to prevent any com- plete record being made of her utterances. Another of my early professional engagements was in connection with the ami-o!Hi law agitation, which was then almost at its height. The oc- casion was a ] ub! : c dinner, at which several distinguished persons, inclu- ding I, <>i\^. X ^ : \ . r~* ^ J- r" Vo ' _ x . -o , i ( _ v- ^ ^j "u x ) \ S *-^ c vi>f ^ -v.^V _ V 43- and was applied to to take the report. I willingly accepted the engage- ment ; and I had reason to know that the report, which occupied about four columns, was regarded as creditable to myself and to the newspaper. The speech was reproduced from the Norfolk A'ews in some of the London newspapers, and was, after Air Knibb's death, published in his biography as the best specimen of his public oratory. He was a rather rapid speaker but his style was not otherwise difficult. About the same time (this was in 1845) I find from my diary my recollection is a complete blank on the subject that I reported some speeches for the same paper at a greai Maynpoth meeting, and that a part of the report was set up from " phono- graphic copy." I do not know whether this means that the original notes were sent to the printers, or that the transcript was made in Phonography probably the latter. Some of the compositors had learned Phonograpnv in our classes, but I think they could hardly have been sufficiently advancec to set up from notes written, as they necessarily would be, in a brief re- porting stvle. Before leaving these early days, 1843-6, I may be forgiven for saying that I think the lectures delivered and the classes conducted by Mr Josepl 4 o Leaves from the Note-Book of T. A . Reed. \ A X, -V \> V, JL h. \rt : ''-wY' "^ Pitman and myself during those years contributed not a little to the favor- able reception of Phonography by the public. Our lectures were often crowded: I have seen large halls literally crammed with intelligent audiences desiring- to know something of the new method of writing ; and entering with evident interest into the onslaught we nightly made on Eng- lish orthography, and into our advocacy of the phonetic principle. Our classes were often numbered by hundreds, and in some cases the interest excited among our pupils almost amounted to enthusiasm. How many of the thousands whom we taught continued the practice of the system I can- not even guess. It is vory certain that many of them, from indolence and other causes, abandoned it altogether; but not a few became staunch phonographers, and to this day I occasionally meet with middle-aged or elderly people who remind me of the days when, perhaps in some distant northern town, they joined our classes, and who, even if they have ceased to make any practical use of the system, still retain their interest in it, and value the training which its study and practice involved. The seed sown, I have no doubt, sometimes fell on barren soil ; but I know that it often fructified and produced a plentiful harvest. We had the advantage ^ N 46 ^ \ Q_o ( v\ . | \ SQ 5 / /^< t- v^>. ") . _r -^\ r ^V_.x . ^^ V v x ^\o ) J \ / V->. ( of a comparatively novel subject ; and if our zeal in the advocacy of the new method did now and then outrun discretion, I suppose that is a phen- omenon which has accompanied every propagandist effort that the world has ever witnessed. In 1846 Mr Joseph Pitman, for considerations of health and other reasons, gave up his public work in connection with Phonography, which indeed was often of a very trying and arduous character ; and after con- tinuing it a few months by myself I resolved on following his example, and seeking a more certain and less peripatetic occupation. I soon found that my old friends of the Norfolk News had not forgotten me ; for as soon as they knew that I was bent on associating myself with the press, they offered me the post of reporter on that journal, which I at once accepted, and, in the summer of 1846, entered upon my duties, 'they \vrri' by no rfieans arduous, but occasionally involved a good deal of night- work. The heaviest part of my labors was at public meetings, which the Nevis often reported at great length, and I had to do them single-handed. Leaves from the Note-Book of T. A. Reed. *\ ^ Most newspaper offices of any importance now employ several reporters, and when a long report is required it is usual to divide the labor ; in those days a single reporter often found himself with his note-book full of short- hand notes to be transcribed for the next week's paper; and if the pub- lishing day was close at hand his work extended far into the night, and even beyond the early morning hours. It was not an unusual occurrence for me to sit down at ten o'clock at night to transcribe the notes of an evening meeting, and to continue without interruption till eight or nine the next morning. This was fatiguing work, and it generally put me hors Je combat for the greater part of the following day. I have known reporters who could sit up several nights in succession, with scarcely any interval of sleep ; but only an iron constitution is capable of such a strain, and I never attempted it. Some of the hardest work I had during my tenure of office was in connection with a general election that took place at that time. Several meetings were held daily, and special editions of the paper were published in anticipation of the regular weekly issue: and having little or no assistance I ne<"d hardly say that the work was very laborious. Early Recollections. A_ ) fc But at other times the labor was very light. For weeks together the siderable length. Held, as they generally were, in the country, and some- times at a considerable distance, and there being at that time very little 44 Leaves from the Note-Book of T. A. Reed. \ ' startled by a runaway horse which I met on the road, and which dashed past me at a furious pace, trailing something- at its heels. A little further on I saw by the light of my lamp an overturned butcher's cart on one side of the road, and a gig in a similar condition on the other. The latter had been driven by the reporters of two other local papers, who had left shortly before I did ; 'being unprovided with a lamp, they had come into collision with the butcher, and a general "spill" was the result. The horse at- tached to the gig broke its traces, and bolted. The two reporters were, when I arrived, standing in the middle of the road sadly contemplating the disjecta membra of the unfortunate vehicles. One of them came on with me ; the other remained behind, and went in search of the fugitive horse, which he found, at six o'clock in the morning, careering about in a plantation. I remained in Norwich a year and a half, and have many pleasant recol- lections, professional and personal, of this my first regular engagement in connection with the press. Among the prominent public characters with Early Recollections, 45 whom I was occasionally brought into contact was the Bishop of the dio- cese, Bishop Stanley, whose wide toleration and generous sympathy with every good work were no less conspicuous than were the same qualities in his son, the late Dean ofWestminster. The more punctilious members of the Church were often scandalized by his frank and cordial co-operation with dissenters, and the hospitality he extended to persons outside the walls of the Establishment. His reception at his residence of Father Matthew, the early apostle of temperance and a Roman Catholic, (an event that occurred a year or two before the time of which I speak,) gave great offence to many of the clergy of the diocese ; and when a few years afterwards he had the courage to receive as an honored guest at the Palace Jenny Lind, the " Swedish Nightingale," then in the height of her popu- larity as a vocalist, he braved a storm of opposition, not to say of indigna- tion, on the part of those who could see nothing but incongruity and mischief from the friendly relations subsisting between the Bishop and the Singer. I have often seen them walking the streets together like father and daughter. Indeed, I have reason to know that he regarded her with 46 Leaves from tlie Note-Book of T. A. Reed. \ 7 ) T something like paternal affection ; and in speaking of herto a near relative of my own he once described her as " an angel." Another instance that came- under my own observation of the wideness of his S5'mpathies was his frequent co-operation in benevolent and religious efforts with the well- known Quaker banker, Joseph John Gurney. I once saw them visiting in company a school connected with a Baptist or an Independent Chapel, and taking an evident and deep interest in the work carried on within those schismatic walls. When the good Quaker died the Bishop again shocked the proprieties of many worthy members of the Establishment by actually preaching his funeral sermon in the Cathedral. I did not hear the sermon delivered, but I reported it. This is no paradox to the "craft," who will at once understand that I borrowed the 15ishop's manuscript. I have often heard and reported the utterances of the late 1 )ean Stanley, and have been delighted to see how thoroughly the spirit of the father has been reflected in the son. My heaviest piece of reporting in Norwich was, I think, in connection Early Recollections. 47 with a. cause celebre, namely, the trial of the notorious murderer Rush, in 1849. This was a year or so after I had left Norwich and settled in Lon- don. I was specially engaged to report the trial for my old paper, and I have a very distinct recollection of its chief incidents. The trial lasted six days. It was presided over by Mr Baron Rolfe, afterwards Lord Cranworth. Sergeant Hyles, afterwards Mr Justice Byles, prosecuted ; and the prisoner defended himself. The excitement attendant on the trial was intense, and applications were received from the principal newspapers throughout the kingdom for accommodation for their representatives. The number of reporters present was very large, and a portion of the dock was partitioned oft for their use, in addition to other parts of the Court. Kvery available spot was occupied. The trial began at eight o'clock in the morning, and the reporters were required to be in their seats at seven. My own seat was next to the prisoner in the dock, so that I had abundant opportunity of watching him it I had so desired. He was in a very excited state on entering the Court on the first day of the trial. This, however, soon passed off, and he manifested comparatively little feeling throughout the Leaves from the Note-Book of T. A. Reed. VD S~ V . ..}_. ^^\ x . ^ c I u> I "-" v/ 3 kv ~\ U xv ^- N Vx -T> A _S=5 (; c^Q ! . y / L Vs* x '^ \j, u, ^x ; -- ^t ^ ^r "t ,_T /V . -Vo ^ ^ > ^ ^ ...)_ v_ y- - ^ J-^ >< s i>Xv^- ^^^>-t\ V ^ \ 5 remainder of the proceedings. The most extraordinary precautions were taken to prevent any violence on the part of the prisoner to himself or others. The spikes round the dock were covered with wood, lest he might throw himself upon them : and at the close of the first day, the governor of the prison, who was intensely anxious as to his charge, asked me not to place my pen-knife in front of me on the desk (as I had done), since it was there within the prisoner's reach. " You must remember," he said to me, " we have not a man to deal with, but a fiend." Rush, as I have said, defended himself. He cross-examined the wit- nesses at great length, especially Emily Sandford, who had occasionally to leave the witness box to give nourishment to the child against whose father she was giving her testimony. Her distress was obvious to everyone in Court, and her whole demeanor was most befitting the position in which she stood. The trial was full of incident, and will not be easily forgotten by any- one who was present. The appearance in Court of the witness Eliza Chest- ney, stretched on a couch, pale and weak, from the effects of the pistol- Early Recollections. 49 . % v^y > > X ^ "V l "^ *^. > t -r '*-*?-+' I shot, was of itself peculiarly impressive. Asked who was the masked person who fired the shot which killed Mr Jermy^and his son, she pointed her lean white finger to the prisoner, and said in a low, but firm tone, " That is the man ! " The effect was electrical ; and many felt that Rush's fate was scaled from that moment. His defence, of himself to the jury, which occupied many hours, was most rambling and incoherent, and gave us no little trouble to put into a readable and intelligent shape. The dif- ficulty was to understand what he really meant. In the course of his speech a relative of Mr Jenny's, with whom I was well acquainted, sug- gested to me that it would be interesting to the public to have an exact rendering of some portion of his address, with all its faults of style and grammar. I accepted the hint, and gave a verbatim report of a part of his defence. It was an extraordinary jumble of words, from which it was not easy to extract a meaning. If the prisoner had been acquitted, and had read my report, he would probably have been as surprised as many clumsy speakers at the present day would be if they could see a literal j 50 Leaves from the Njte-Book of T. A. Reed. ' ) > t v ^ / (r / * / yl Q X> r Og_n . / > o > /*- ' \> \ N ) ^-x >x-^ 7 m ) ^ ( i^ux* V. - ) - 3^^ x ^ - o-^\ ^ ' n -x- ^^^ ^ -^ s ^ /- ) - P ^^/ i ^ (T^^l-)- ( ) ^ x - -A i " 'L ") ^ x ) ^i/ 7 "1 - ] / <^ ") ^ ~ \ f^ ^ ^ . ^ I ..?. / (' 3 i ^ . " -T| \ ~ . ^ -<^> rendering of their speeches without the friendly re\"ision which they com- monly undergo at the hands of the reporter. Towards the close of the sixth day, the judge summed up the case to the jury, who then retired to consider their verdict. The room to which they were conducted was one that had been temporarily occupied by some of us in transcribing our notes, and the scramble we made in getting our Eapers together as soon as we heard that the jury was coming would have een amusing but for the solemnity of the issue that was pending. The jury was not long in considering their verdict. On their return into Court, there was a sudden hush, and all eyes were intent upon the jury-box. Rush himself scrutinized every man who entered it, as though he would extract the fearful secret from his looks. " What do you say, gentlemen," said the officer of the Court, " is the prisoner guilty, or not guilty ? " Every heart beat with emotion, as, amid the solemn stillness of the Court, the Foreman of the Jury uttered the words, " We say that he is guilty" It was but a needless formality for the Court Usher to proclaim silence How I Taught Simon Phonography. N I \ t\ \ \ ' \ f I ; v*> > v^ x JL / V ^_ 51 => HOW I TAUGHT SIMON PHONOGRAPHY. ^ ^~ c '\ \ P ^ -V i while sentence of death was pronounced upon the prisoner. A sigh might have been heard during those memorable moments. Rush alone remained moment he left the dock with a smile. iv-';iiiriii tier icrii LUC uiH-K. \viLii a aiuiic> We always look with compassion upon th Leaves from the Note-Book of 7'. A. Reed. K, ever leeis at me close ui me uay me weariness 01 iteration experienced by the patient, conscientious teacher, whether he has been occupied with gerunds and participles, or has been discoursing on rhomboids and parallelograms. If all learners were industrious and intelligent, the teacher's work indeed would be comparatively easy and pleasant ; the weariness is chiefly occasioned by the dull and the lazy, who always form a considerable proportion of the taught. The strain upon the mental and physical energies of the teacher in endeavoring to over- come the intellectual lethargy of his pupils is such as can only be realised How I Taught Simon Phonography. ^ I hooks, circles, and all the mysteries of the phonographic sj'Stem, which I had been sedulously expounding the week through to all sorts and condi- tions of men. My pupils were of both sexes and of all ages from eight to eighty, and I am bound to confess that the majority of them were de- cidedly and unmistakably dull, and not a small proportion horribly lazy. The really intelligent and industrious were the rarie aves, whom it was a real pleasure to teach. My great horror was old ladies. " What ! old ladies learn shorthand !" My dear sir, I once had a small regiment of them under my tuition, not one of whom ever made the slightest progress. One of them was a good-natured Quakeress of the mature age of 75, and the only object for which she desired a knowledge of shorthand, as far as I could divine, was, that she might be enabled to retain copies of her laun- dress's bills without the trouble of writing them out twice in longhand ! That old lady's fee has lain heavily on my conscience ever since. I feel that 1 was an impostor in taking it. After the first lesson, the hopeless- ness of the task she had proposed to herself became so manifest, that I ought to have returned the money, and said, " My dear madam, it won't 54 Leaves from the Note-Book of T. A. Reed. do! " But I lacked the moral courage to say anything of the kind, and the lessons were given and received with many smirks and smileson either side : but I can conscientiously aver that at the close mv pupil could not have written correctly half-a-dozen consecutive words of two syllables to save her life. She took, however, an affectionate ''nterest in my welfare, and would often abruptly break in upon some shorthand exerc'se with a number of personal inquiries, which, however interesting to myself, had very little to do with the lesson of the day. Kut I don't know that any pupil ever gave me so much trouble, or so often left me with a splitting headache as a stolid-looking youth of about 18, who once presented himself to me at my chambers for instruction. He . . a ' ow forehead and heavy countenance, and spoke with a strong pro- vincial accent. " I understand, sir," he said, as he took a seat, and stretched out his legs to the utmost possible extent, "that vou teach shorthand, and I should be glad to know how long you think it will take me to be able to write down verbatim after a speaker :" a question which How I Taught Simon Phonography. m 56 Leaves from the Note-Book of T. A. Reed. < / /"~ A-. I V c^ <3x X ' pdtd / / v i nounced, and that each letter of the alphabet had only one sound. With p, b, t, d all went on smoothly enough ; but a difficulty arose at ch. I explained that this sloping letter represented the sound in such words as rack, coach, which sound was in longhand usually represented by ch, but that it would not do to call the letter c-h, because that compound was occasionally employed to express other sounds, as in chorus, chaise ; and that in order to preserve the exact sound in the name of the letter it had been christened chay. My pupil listened very attentively, and after I had repeated the information three or four times he appeared in a measure to apprehend it, but persisted in calling the new letter shay. I asked him to think of the word "chair" in connection with the letter, and the result was that for some time he called it chair. It was fully ten minutes before we surmounted this little obstacle, but we were soon drawn up by another in the shape of the letter g, which I explained was pronounced gay, and represented the hard sound, as in go, five, and not that in gin, age, etc., the latter being in reality the sound of j. Simon could not get over the How I Taught Simon Phonography. f ^. \, __ I w ^ * */ v-* ^ > th '* / O c /v- ^^cx x ^ (v " 57 VO^-.L _,_ 5 9 cf V X > idea of writing- ^vw with a/', and gfivinsj up the time-honored pronuncia- tion of , ^ x \A> ) ^ rv Y- l~^ \ ...I . (j. * /^> O r^ a ) * * *~* i x vr: letter was not required, being always employed in longhand for sounds (usually k or s) which were represented by other letters. This at length being apprehended, my pupil put the letters together thus ... It seems odd enough, but I have seen many beginners strike the / Upwards in this way, e^ven when they have read and copied pages of exercises in which the letter is invariably written downwards ; bimon's style, therefore, though rather singular, was not unique. But my greatest trial of patience was in the elucidation of the short vowels. First I attempted to teach the sounds of these letters as pronounced in words, not " longe," " long-*^> ^-~^-S (*-* IV) -kXV^V^^.^^ !> - _> \ ' _^^^ I ^-/ I ^^ v P ** -IF-- ^ Hr ' > -^y I ^t-* ^9-o( I c ^ \ ,^^^ /\ * i ^\y ^\ ^-1 ->- - N I ( r^ A . ^ P i/ 6 ww y < r >^ ' hv { \ N) ^ ^ ; ^ ^ ^^_p/1 ^ A - wi< )^^ /aii ^_P v , \-^ ^N ^Q-^> ^ ^r o -v-^ ^ -A ^ /^ x C /^ ^ exercise on these letters before he came to another lesson. He left me chief mistakes occurred in words in which the vowels had unusual values, such as " many," which was written ma.ny, instead of meny, and " busy," which was represented by UM.V, instead of bizzy : silent letters were almost invariably inserted, so that "knit" was written. . . . and "lamb," . . . ; and in a few instances the positions of the vowels before or after the consonants were reversed. This latter is not an uncommon error, and some pupils with difficulty remember the simple rule that in the case of horizontal consonants vowels placed above are read first, and those placed b<-lo\v are read last, and with all other letters preceding vowels are placed at the left, and succeeding vowels at the right. We next attacked the w and y series of vowels, long and short : these 64 Leaves from the Note-Book of T. A . Reed. /I , n V | qualm , g f -V- Nj r were understood without much difficulty, but it was long before their ap- plication ceased to be a toil. The word "what" proved a perfect bugbear. Simon, whose ideas of the aspirate were still very obscure, wished, of course, to put the h after the re, and thought I was joking when I told him that the word should be spelled hwot. Few persons in England ever pro- nounce the h at all in connection with w, and some educated persons who would shudder at the thought of omitting the aspirate in happy or haughty do not scruple to pronounce when and where as if written wen and ware. Such an omission is almost unknown in Scotland and Ireland. It was'in the course of an exercise on the TV series of vowels that my pupil tumbled upon the discovery that there was no letter q in the phonographic alpha- bet, " Look here, sir," paid he. in a tone which implied a personal grievance. " how in the name of goodness am I to write qualm without a q ? " " Why, write it as it is sounded, to be sure." Then rame the serious question how it was sounded. A slow pronunciation of the word repeated three or four times convinced Simon that the initial consonant was k, How I Taught Simon Phonography. 65 ^~... J V- wall x ^ \_ * o c\ o / / X_P \ P r-x i -1 Vr. x , (7 water x followed by the double vowel wah. I then begged him to remember that qu was in reality k~v, and should always be so represented. The double letter yoo, as might be expected, proved a stumblingblock. That it should be used in such a word as youth was intelligible enough ; but its employ- ment in the words use, few, etc., was not so obvious. What earthly purpose the letter y could serve in such words Simon failed at first to see, and to make it clear I had to write the words yoose, fyoo, and so on, and get him to pronounce them as thus written, which was not always an easy matter. Passing on to the double consonants, another difficulty presented itself the representation of added\ctters by initial hooks. Forsometime Simon would read pi as l-p, pr as r-p, and so on, regarding the hooks as the separate representatives of the / and r, instead of viewing each double consonant as a whole. When this difficulty had been surmounted, I gave my pupil a number of words to write by way of an exercise on the double vowels and double consonants. The first of these was " water." Having 66 Leaves from the Note-Book of T. A. Reed. . X _ ; ^ i r \f ; , \ ang-er pored o\ - er the word for about a quarter of an hour he rendered it riwi'/rr, and was fairly elated at having achieved so brilliant a success. I shook ray head, and begged him to try again, and to remember that the word required was 7i>a/er and not waiter. The second attempt resulted in . . . , and when I said that this also was wrong, my poor pupil looked the very picture of despair, but took heart again as soon as he thoroughly saw that . . . was the proper representative of this word. I next tried him with anger, which I well knew would prove a snare. The first effort produced ..." Now, sir, what do you say to that ? " said he. as, with a self-satisfied air, he submitted the word to my inspection. " Why. that it spells ang-er, and not anger." After pronouncing the word slowly he convinced himself that the letter fc was required in the last syllable. "I have it," said he, nearly lumping from his seat as he made the discovery; and then squaring his arms, he stooped over his book, and wrote . . " Try once more," I said, " and you will probably succeed ; but remember the word is not ang-er, nor an-ger, as you have written it, but ang-ger." How I Taught Simon Phonography, an-ger V^ | I ang-ger x" 6 7 > Southampton / V /U \ > x L ^'"tLx > r *^' ^* zw 5 r *>'*^ x (rV^ Simon is not the only person who has experienced a difficulty in perceiving that tho.^in this word really plays a double part, being required alike for the end of the first syllable and the beginning of the second. The case is analogous to the // in Southampton, which really belongs both to the first and u'rond syllables. Pupils may generally be assisted in their apprehen- sion of this peculiarity by contrasting such words as singer anAfinger, the former of which only requires the letter ... to represent the rig, while the latter needs the addition of the . . ., being pronounced fing-ger. In some parts of England these words are pronounced alike, the g being retained in both : and it is not uncommon to hear ring, thing, bring, and similar words pronounced riyg, fhiyg, briyg. Simon had not acquired this provincialism, and with a little labor came to see that the proper method of writing anger was . . . To test his appreciation of the sound T asked him next to write danger. It would not have surprised me to see him write it . . . , and I was not a little pleased when, after a few min- 68 Leaves from the Note-Book of T. A. Reed. unknown, unnecessary, innate utes' consideration, he wrote the word . . . "Words of this class, with similar longhand spellings, but different pronunciations, usually form excellent tests of the pupil's apprehension of the sounds to be expressed. Probably three persons out of four, in writing the words tinker, anchor, for the first time express them . , never suspecting for a moment that the n in such words has the sound of ng. t A frequent source of error with Simon was the unnecessary doubling of consonants, which led him to write buffer . . . , caff If . . . , coffee . . . , and so on, following the longhand spelling When he had over- come this tendency, he took a start in the opposite direction, and one day he pointed out to me an error which he thought he had discovered in one of the phonographic publications where the word unknown was written . . . , he contending that, upon the principle I had laid down as to the duplication of consonants, it should be ... I pointed out that in such words as unkn \v- " If there are any other little qualifications that you would like to throw in," I said, " say as to age, height, complexion, or manners, you had better name them at once, so that I may know your requirements exactly." "True," said my friend, laughing ; "and now that you mention man- ners that reminds me of one thoroughly indispensable requisite a gentle- manly bearing and appearance. I cannot have my paper represented by a man who is out-at-elbows, and keeps his nails in deep mourning. I seldom see a reporters' table now-a-days that has not one or two men around it whose seedy appearance is a disgrace to a respectable profession. I abominate a swell or a dandy ; you must find me a quiet dressing, gentle- manly fellow who has moved in good society, and won't compromise the respectability of the paper." " Is there anything else ?" I said. " No, I think not. What I want is a good all-round man. Getmeone, and I shall be eternally grateful." In Search of a Reporter. V . And what about the "all-round man? " I am sorry to say I have not yet found him. The few persons whom I know at all answering to the des- cription which my friend gave me are comfortably located, and not likely to change : they are men who are accomplished shorthand writers, can condense well, and write a descriptive article with facility; men who are thoroughly trustworthy, of temperate habits, and gentlemanly bearing. I have given a somewhat detailed report of our conversation with the view mainly of bringing before my younger readers the qualifications which are specially prized by newspaper conductors, and the particular weaknesses or disqualifications which render reporters unfit for the ful- filment of their duties. Nothing is more common than to hear a newspaper proprietor or editor say, " Smith is a capital hand, a thoroughly competent reporter, but we cannot depend upon him ; we are never sure that he is at his post ; " or, " Brown is a very steady and trustworthy fellow, but he is terribly slow, and it he has anything to report out of the ordinary' course, he makes a complete hash of it." If a reporter desires to advance in his profession he should endeavor to familiarise himself with all its varied 8o Leaves from the Note-Book of T. A. Reed. t Y ' V- _~ -*-\Sfl duties, and not be content with running in one groove all the days of his life. I have known reporters who are never at home except when reporting inquests ; others are only happy in the police court ; some make a special- ity of fires ; others of sermons or religious meetings. Of course it may well be, as in the case of every profession, that partic- ular departments will be best filled by particular men ; but the most valued hands will always be those w ho can take a wide range of duty. A narrow limit is never desirable. I have known very excellent professional short- hand writers whose ordinary practice has been in the Taw courts, not by any means the easiest kind of reporting, and who have shrunk with a feel- ing of something like dismay from work of a different and far easier kind. One of this class told me that nothing distressed him so much as taking notes at a public meeting: and I believe that he would not undertake to report a sermon for any consideration : and this not owing to any want of capacity, but simply because he had rarely employed his pen for such purposes. A moderate amount of practice would have given him a rea- sonable facility in these and other departments ; but he scarcely ever wielded his pen outside Lincolns Inn, or Westminster Hall. Another excellent reporter told me that he shrank from nothing so much as a sci- entific lecture ; and perhaps to one unaccustomed to this kind of reporting there is no department of the profession more uninviting: indeed, on some subjects it is next to impossible to report a speaker satisfactorily without some special knowledge of the technical terms employed. I do not mean that it is necessary to make a study of these subjects; but the reporter should have just sufficient acquaintance with them to be able to follow a speaker in his mind as well as with his pen, and to be familiar at any rate with most of the words he is likely to employ. I know a case in which a reporter attended a clinical lecture delivered at one of the metropolitan hospitals for the purpose of taking it down in shorthand. He wrote as far as the words : " Gentlemen, the subject of our lecture to-day is " anc there he stopped ! I do not remember the subject : perhaps it was " hy- perinosis," or "hepatitis," or "emphysema;" but whatever it was, the word rather rapidly pronounced staggered him so completely that he closec his book and did not write another sentence. 82 Leaves from the Note-Book of T. A. Reed. I never !elt more thankful for having made myself tolerably familiar with medical and anatomical terms than when some years ago I was required to report a dozen very technical lectures by Professor Huxley for the Lancet. Here are a few lines from one of the lectures which may serve as a fair specimen of the style, and which will show how difficult the task would have been without a little preparation : " It is an utterly erroneous state- ment to speak of the anchylosis of the primitive vertibrx in the skull. Such things do not exist. There is a differentiation of primarily homoge- neous cartilage into separate parts in consequence of the process of ossification ; that is as different from anchylosis of separate parts as can well be imagined. Then, at length, upon the under surface of the vomer there is developed an osseous centre, not from cartilage, but from the perichondrium surrounding the cartilage which forms the vomer : so that you will observe there is a very important difference between the basi-oc- cipital and the basi-sphenoid, and the presphenoid and the lamina per- pendicularis and the vomer." " A centre of ossification appears above the occipital foramen and constitutes the lower part of the supra occipital, In Search of a Reporter. 8; . r^ v<\-^~ * x ) v v / _ v N 1 -^ V S"^ ^-' 4 - - L > -V N- x that is to say, all that part which lies -here beneath the torcular Herophili, and beneath the occipital tubercle on the outer side of the occipital bone." Matter of this very technical description of course presents unusual difficulties to the reporter, who can hardly be expected to be au courant with all the arts and sciences ; but if he is an expert shorthand writer, a moderate amount of reading will render him sufficiently familiar with them to enable him, as I have said, to follow the speaker both mentally and verbally. A few strange words here and there will be sure to occur, however extensive his reading may have been ; but these will not trouble him much if he is able to write them approximately in his shorthand, since he can then probably supply thorn by having recourse to books of refer- ence : it is when they crowd on him thickly, so that they are more than a match for his shorthand that they become a source of serious perplexity. Apropos of scientific reporting let me recommend the young reporter a i- 84 Leaves from the Note-Book of T. A. Reed. I L c- . -^i-^ x r^* > r / . . ^ \4 ^ -^ _Vo ^ 10 _f_ 4 i ^ rv And firstly, as the clergyman says, as to the discomforts. Under this head I propose to enumerate all the disagreeable features I can think of in connection with our profession. This will be somewhat contrary alike to my inclination and my principles. If there is one thing for which I am specially thankful in my mental constitution, it is a tendency to look on the bright side of things, which I would not exchange for all the gold of all the Rothschilds ; and it will therefore require an effort to set myself deliberately to work to ferret out and describe the unpleasant and disa- greeable. I mention then, not as the most disagreeable feature of a reporter's oc- cupation, but as the first that occurs to me, the uncertainty of the hours of labor. To the well -worked reporter a comfortable post in a Govern- ment office from 10 till 4, with an hour for lunch and another hour to read the papers, a month's holiday in the summer, and occasional half-holidays besides, is simply an Elysium. To be "a gentleman at large" after 4 o'clock to have one's evenings at one's own disposal it is a dream of bliss too bright to indulge in ; such a lot must surely be reserved for mor- Is Reporting a Desirable Profession ? S C tals of altogether another stamp ! Why, if a reporter is invited out to dinner, to a ball, or an " at home," he can only accept the invitation sous touies reserves. Like a doctor, he has no time that he can call his own. He is at his office, where he has been all day writing out the speeches delivered at a long meeting held the night before ; and has just put on his hat to start home and enjoy a quiet pipe, or a book, or both, when he learns that a train has been inconsiderate enough to run off the line, or a house to allow itself to be set on fire, and his dream of just one quiet evening is at once dispelled. Even when in the bosom of his family (if he has one) he is liable to De summoned no one knows whither it may be to report the weak inanities of some tenth-rate orator, or to write a paragraph about. a trumpery conjuring performance, or (worse than all) to attend a school recitation, and write a laudatory notice of the performance. Even his Sundays are not his own. The vicar is going to preach a sermon on some topic of special interest, and the editor thinks that it would be as well to go Leaves from the Note-Book of T. A. Reed. give half-a-column of it. The paper is opposed to him in politics, and a delicacy is felt in asking for the loan of his manuscript ; consequently "our reporter," who has asked a brother scribe to come and spend an hour with him, is requested to attend. Or some wretched political agita- tor has announced a Sunday afternoon address, which must be reported, however briefly. Or if the Sunday is not occupied in actual note-taking, it is sometimes necessary to write out, say, a Saturday night's meeting on that day. With the great majority of reporters, night-work forms a considerable part of their labor. Meetings, lectures, concerts, entertainments of all kinds are more frequently held in the evening than at any other time ; and not only is it necessary to take notes of them, but the notes have not sel- dom to be transcribed in the " wee short hours ayont the twal " for publi- cation in the next morning's paper. Most papers of any importance have more than one reporter, and are able to send two or three hands to a heavy meeting, the report of which has to be published next morning ; so that Is Reporting a Desirable Profession f 91 -^. s-^ - ^- J: . ~ x 4i ' I I I ^\ ^ , x ^^^ o . AL. ^ x ' o v^ C ' . ^-* * t K^ ^ N % ^ r\ 6 U *- ^ x v ^ _j_ U j_ J_ 10 T\ 11 V the work of transcription is thus considerably lightened. I do not think that a reporter is now often required to work all night. This was a more fre- quent occurrence in former days than it is now. As I write, the recollection comes to me of long and weary nights spent in transcribing notes of speeches or lectures taken single-handed. I have sat down at my desk at ten or eleven o'clock at night, and written continually till eight in the morning to satisfy the craving demands of those terrible compositors. On one of those occasions I wrote by the light of a naphtha lamp, and the consequences were very nearly being disastrous. As the lamp was fading I took up the naphtha flask, and intending to replenish it, was proceeding to pour the spirit over the flame. I believe it was not an inch from it when it suddenly occurred to me that I was doing a very foolish thing, and I put down the flask a great deal more quickly than I had lifted it. But for that sudden thought I should not, in all probability, be writing this article. As I have said, these very long and laborious nights are not now of frequent occurrence, but it is common enough for a reporter to be at Leaves from the Note-Book of T. A. Reed. :\. _L ~Y_ _ <^\ ' ~ ^f~^x . V << ^ - o'S "v* ^ \ \_ /D ' j / I,; ^ c ^- -^ ^ P Q_^ "\_ K~ Z_ . v ^ ^. .?/ / ( A- N ^^ -U- x ^ H> / nine or ten o'clock at night. They are almost always crowded; and if anything like ventilation is attempted there is no escaping the draughts that everywhere prevail. It is the same at Quarter Sessions, and often at police courts. The latter indeed are at times positively offensive. The hours are not so long, but the people that ordinarily compose the audience are not agreeable to any of the senses. Add to this the fact that the courts are not seldom small and inconvenient, and it will then be seen that con- stant attendance at these places is the reverse of agreeable. But perhaps the most trying thing in this respect is attendance at crowded public meet- ings at night, when the heat of hundreds of gaslights is added to that gener- ated by compact masses of human beings. The reporter has constantly to attend such gatherings ; and after sitting for hours in a stifling atmosphere he has to go out in the rain, snow, or hail, not to muffle himself up and rush home as fast as he can, but to trudge off to the newspaper office and write out his notes. The chances are that here, too, he has to work under similar difficulties. Few printing offices are pleasant to write in ; and 94 Leaves from the Note-Book of T. A. Reed. I J some are absolutely abominable. The heat in some reporters' rooms that I have seen (even recently) is almost intolerable ; and long continued work in them cannot be otherwise than injurious to the health. Then the reporter is often exposed to the vicissitudes of the weather in all sorts of expeditions that he has to undertake. I am not, of course, speaking of the travels of special correspondents. Not every reporter has to start off with his note-book to Central Africa, fight with the nativi-s, explore a lake, and then report the speeches of a king Mtesa ; or to join an Arctic expedition and chronicle its movements. Rut most reporters have at times to attend open-air ceremonials, demonstrations and meetings in all weathers. The hustings is now a thing of the past ; but I have little doubt that many a constitution has been undermined by a severe cold taken while sitting for hours in the open air on a cold day, perhaps in a pelting shower, taking notes of nomination speeches. Attendance at the laying of a foundation stone, "turning the first sod " of a railway, or un- veiling a statue, is often a. trying ordeal for a delicate constitution. The Js Reporting a Desirable Profession 1 95 \ J \ _L L reporter must be in attendance in good time if a great crowd is expected he may have to be in his seat (should such a luxury be provided) an hour or more before the commencement f the proceedings, and if the day is wet or cold, or both, and the ceremony is a long one, he has a miserable time of it. Now thai, the railways are spread over the entire country, coach and gig traveling is not so common as it was twenty or thirty years ago. I have a vivid recollection of dreary midnight drives along unknown country roads, after attending say some agricultural dinner, when it has been so cold that I could hardly hold the reins ; and of sitting for many hours to- gether on the outside of a coach in a pitiless rain, to go to some political meeting at a distance, and having no opportunity of getting a change of garments before sitting for some hours longer to take notes. This does not often fall to the lot of the reporter now-a-days ; but it does sometimes. Cross country roads have to be traversed, and long journeys to be made in all weathers, and at all hours of the night ; and if the constitution be at all delicate the results of exposure may be very serious. 9 6 Leaves from the Note-Book of T. A. Reed. But besides the fatigue and exposure incident to the reporter's calling-, there are many positive desagrements which he cannot always avoid. A sensitive man will often be shocked at the scenes which he is called upon to witness. Custom, no doubt, enables him to steel himself against the painful impressions which they are calculated to produce ; but even the most stolid will sometimes shrink from the duties which their profession imposes upon them. Perhaps the most painful task which the reporter hastofulhl is that of attending a public execution. I am thankful that this has never fallen to my own lot, but I have narrowly escaped it. To see a fellow creature "judicially strangled" must be, to say the least, a horrible experience that most men of feeling would gladly be spared. Again, the scene of a railway or other accident may have to be visited by the reporter in the course of his daily duties, and if he is on the spot soon after its occurrence he may witness sights that he would gladly be spared. To see dead and dying men dragged from the debris of a railway carriage, or from the remains of an explosion ; to witness the agony of Is Reporting a Desirable Profession f 97 . ^ o/V > . \ ^ ' ^ W- v_. ^ j~ ^i . ^\ v ' v ^^ ^ S ^. . ; l C 1 l{ 5J / I '4c"1 '7'" ' "^" X ^P ' -vo -f v . /v v^ > -- ; .^x \ X 4 1 X -Vb v, -^/ s-^ ( , A^ X / ^o C_ ^ \ o / Q ^ rrr?> ^ <= v - 9 x Vi r -X^;- cy 1 ^ L=. ^- o . . _ _O . V . ' . -V^ x N ' <\ -~v \ >=> i S \ ^\ -r ^_).^ N ,-~" x /^, -^ L u >. S, Q_-x O or a church or a new railway opened, or a race run, or a foundation stone laid, at which he does not "assist." Engagements of this varied charac- ter form a pleasant interlude between the more monotonous labors con- nected with public meetings and the like, and they are by no means of infrequent occurrence. Then there are flower shows, agricultural shows, dog shows, exhibitions of every kind, at which he makes his appearance, and to a certain extent acts the part of a. connoisseur. It may be that he is now and then puzzled in discoursing on the merits of a prize pig, or the petals of the last new chrysanthemum ; but if he be tolerably skilled in his craft he will soon find easy methods of "cramming," and charming ex- Eedients for airinif his little knowledge in the columns of his paper. Some- ody was amazed at the thought of how little wisdom was required in the government of the world; and newspaper readers, I think, would be astonished if they did but know the small amount of actual knowledge that goes to the formation of many a paragraph which, from its ex cathedra style, might have been penned by an expert of the first water. In some cases, indeed, the reporter assumes the functions of an art critic. Ihe Leaves from the Note- Book of T. A. Reed. X, 'J L C -S? x a-* \ 'X L ' J M v^^ x M ( cr^a ** f \t ..o. ^ C, V J. 'eo ^ 70 making myself acquainted with some new bit of scenery or some noted work of art. If I say that I have traveled sixty or seventy thousand miles in connection with my reporting engagements, I think I shall be under the mark ; and some of my travels have been of the most agreeable char- acter. My fishing- rod is a frequent companion in these excursions, especially when I know that some pleasant streams will be accessible ; and I can assure those of my readers who do not indulge in the Waltonian pastime that few things are pleasanter, after a day's work, than two or three hours' stroll on a summer evening, with a rod and basket, by the river bank, even if the trout won't rise, or the perch are less voracious than is their wont. I know several " press-men " who are as ardent anglers as old Izaak himself, and who rarely take a trip into the country on business, if circumstances are at all favorable, without packing up the fishing tackle together with the note book ; and many a basket of fish has been brought home for family or friends after the reporting work has been done. Others Il6 Leaves from the Note-Book of T. A. Reed. I know who, with perhaps more refined tastes, take their sketch-books with them, which they bring home enriched with another landscape or sketch of an old ruin. Some, having no artistic ability, amuse themselves, say, by a trip to the nearest watering place, inhaling the sea breezes for a few hours, or to any noteworthy object of art within reach; while others have no higher aim than to get the hour's work done, and spend the evening in the smoking room. Tastes differ, and so do habits. But what- ever may be the inclination of the reporter, he can rarely be absent for any time on professional business without having opportunities of gratifying them. No doubt it occasionally happens that the work monopolises all the time at his disposal, leaving him none for personal enjoyment. This is likely enough to be the case with short journeys, or when a single speech or meeting is to be reported, after which the reporter has to hasten home with all speed, and without thinking of fishing rod, sketch-book, or even the smoking room. I am rather thinking of such occaions as conferences, congresses, and prolonged meetings of such bodies as the British Asso- Is Reporting a Desirable Profession ? 117 ciation, and numerous other peripatetic societies, scientific, social, and religious, whose deliberations are always reported by the press. In con- nection with many of these gatherings pleasant excursions are organized, which are commonly attended by the members of the press. They do not usually involve much work in the way of reporting; and if the weather is fine, and the company agreeable, a country excursion of this kind is attractive enough. You start perhaps by train ; then you are met at a little country station by a miscellaneous assortment of vehicles, in which you are driven through some delightful scenery, over sweeping downs or along some lovely valley, until you arrive at an old ruin, or perhaps at a nobleman's country seat. You alight, and are conducted over the ruin, or the old mansion, as the case maybe, and having seen and duly admired its many objects of interest, you are invited to lunch, which as often as not turns out to be a substantial dinner that reflects the greatest credit on the host's cuisine, and is most acceptable after your appetising journey. After a few complimentary words have been exchanged, you again take your seats in the carriages, coaches, phaetons and the like, and are driven Leaves from the Note-Book of T. A. Reed. " \ , , A J 3_._ by another road to the station, stopping, perhaps, at some tower, or castle, or church, and finding another entertainer, who has provided coffee, liquors, cigars, and what not. You reach home at eight or nine o'clock, having had as pleasant a day's excursion as you could well desire. An hour at your desk will suffice for your account of the trip, and this is all the real work which the day has brought with it. I can call to mind many such excursions as this, some of which are associated with very pleasant memories. Assuredly I am entitled to put these experiences of a reporter's life on the credit and not on the debit side of the account. Not many reporters except the professional "special correspondent" are called upon to go abroad ; but now and then even this duty falls to their lot. I have seen several continental countries that I might never have visited if I had not gone in connection with professional work, and I have no doubt that others can tell of the like experience. It will hardly be doubted that all this variety of occupation of which I Is Reporting a Desirable Profession f 119 have spoken has a considerable educational value. In the earlier part of these sketches I endeavored to point out the danger of extreme superficial- ity which the reporter runs who does nothing more than allow himself to be the machine through which the utterances he reports are communicated to the public. But assuming that the reporter reads as well as writes, and gives a reasonable portion of his leisure hours to stud}', his daily work will prove to be a real help towards his mental culture, and a valuable ex- perience in view of any more distinctly literary work in which he may desire to engage. And this leads me to say a few words, before bringing my rather long story to a close, about the reporting profession as a stepping-stone to others. Perhaps the most natural step which the reporter can take is into the chair of the sub-editor or editor. In many instances the position of sub-editor is by no means higher than that of the reporter, nor the remuneration greater ; but in other cases the change from one to the other would be a decided step in advance. Many a reporter acts also as sub-editor. This is especially the case on small country papers where meetings are few, and I2o Leaves from the Note- Book of T. A. Reed. the paragraph work is light. In some instances one person combines in himself the offices of reporter, editor, and sub-editor ; but this is only in the case of comparatively insignificant papers. I have known many reporters, after a few years' experience, advance to the editorial office on well-to-do and important papers. I suspect that a very large number of provincial editors have served a longer or shorter apprenticeship as re- porters; and their experience must have served them in good turn, not only in affording them opportunities of seeing and hearing public men of all shades of politics, but in giving them an insight into the practical details of reporting so as to enable them to make suitable arrangements with any reporters who might act under their instructions. I know per- sonally one or two editors on very high -class provincial journals who began life in this way. One especially comes to my mind, as I write, who owes his present position, an important and lucrative one, to his practice of Phonography in early life, and his subsequent experience as a reporter. The opportunity of displaying any ability as a writer is rarely wanting to the reporter. It will be sure to come out if it exists ; and the proprietor Is Reporting a Desirable Profession f 121 of his paper will be glad to encourage it. It may sometimes happen that the editor is ill or absent ; and if the reporter can sit down to write a leader in his stead, his services will be gjladly accepted. Or he may possess some special knowledge on certain topics of local or general interest, which he may now and then be called upon, if he is able, to throw into the form of a special article. In this and in other ways his knowledge ar.d abilities will find expression ; and if he displays a reasonable, amount of intelligence and capacity for work, the transition from he reporter's to the editor's room will not prove a difficult one. I nerd not say how often the reporter's pencil and note-book have been laid aside for the wig and gown. The Bar offers many attractions to reporters who desire to better their position ; and the salary earned in the Gallery of the House of Commons has, in not a few instances, paid the term fees and other expenses incident to a legal training. An industrious man " without encumbrances " finds but little difficulty in doing his daily reporting work, and carrying on his legal studies in his hours of leisure. 122 Leaves from the Note-Book of T. A. Reed. > s "^ ' "VIl. x V ) V Some of the most successful barristers have begun life in this way; and the Bench itself has had not a few occupants who have been engaged in reporting in their early days. Perhaps I was wrong in saying that in taking to the wig and gown the reporter resigned his note-book. This is not always the case. Not every young barrister finds briefs left at his chambers. One who has been a reporter has an advantage over others, since he can bridge over the months or years during which no briefs come in, by pursuing his old calling, while he is attending the courts and gaining the experience which is to qualify him for practice. A good deal of the law reporting is done by barristers who, in regard to legal practice, are like the men from Manchester, and " have got no work to do." The reports for the law journals are all supplied by members of the Bar; and most of The Times reporters in the law courts belong to the same frater- nity. I have in my mind's eye a very rising young barrister who, not many years since, was quietly sitting in the reporters' box of the very Is Reporting a Desirable Profession? 123 ./. ' n c ^ x v o *- v, ^ ^ court where now he has a large and lucrative practice. I also call to mind more than one member of the Bar who, while pursuing their legal studies, were glad to assist me in my own reporting work, in order to obtain addi- tional means to defray the expenses of their education. I do not know any case in which reporters have been drafted off to the Church ; but I have heard of a few such instances. And I am not aware that the medical profession has attracted many reporters to its ranks. Personally I only know of one such case, that of Dr Norman Kerr, the well-known temperance advocate. Literature has many well-known re- presentatives who began their career as reporters for the press. The transition is a very natural one. As I have said before, the reporting pro- fession is, to some slight extent, a literary one. The constant habit of writing for the press, though only recording the opinions and utterances of others, naturally gives a certain facility in composition which a literary man requires. It will not perhaps give ideas. A reporter may be all his Leaves from the Note- Book of T. A. Reed. life allowing the ideas of others to distil through his pen, and yet be very deficient in originality of composition ; and where this is absent, no mere facility in putting sentences together will avail him tor a literary career, l.ut where there is any real literary genius, the daily practice of the re- porter cannot fail to aid it. As in the case of leading articles so in the case of literary sketches : if the reporter exhibits any special talent in that direction the columns of his pnper will, in most casi-s. be freely open to him. Many a reporter has found it an advantage to try his hand at some local sketches say the description of antiquities in the neighborhood, the ferreting out of the origin of some old local customs or sayings, the col- lection of trade statistics, and the like : and when he has written a scries of articles on these subjects, he is induced to give them a more permanent embodiment in the shape of a book. Thus he becomes an author. The habit grows upon him : and in the course of time he finds, perhaps, more congenial and profitable employment in giving the world the results of his own thoughts and researches than he has found in recording the ideas of his neighbors. F2- Is Reporting a Desirable Profession I have now, according- to promise, given the other and brighter side of the picture, and I trust, enabled my readers to judge for themselves whether reporting is or is not a desirable profession. I havo no doubt that to some it will appear anything but an attractive occupation ; but I am quite sure that there are many who will not he deterred from embracing it by any of its disagreeable features, believing that they are far outweighed by its more pleasant aspects. If I am asked what is my own opinion I can truly say that I owe to my professional experience a great deal that I should not like to relinquish ; and that on the whole I have found the oc- cupation a pleasant and profitable one. My practice has been very varied, not only as a reporter, but as a professional shorthand writer ; and I do not know that if I had selected any other profession I should have met with less to harrass, or with more to please me. 126 Leaves from the Note-Book of T. A. Reed. MY REPORTING PEN. ^ % h^-'V Nothing 1 is more common than for a bad writer to lay the blame of an illegible scrawl on an unoffending pen. "Excuse the writing" so runs many a postscript "this pen is an abomination." Even orthographical blunders have been traced to the same source. It is said that a bad speller, when reminded that he was spelling some word incorrectly, testily threw down the instrument with which he was writing, and exclaimed, " Hang it ! why don't you give me a pen that will spell ? " When quills were the only pens in use, there might be some excnse for a little impa- tience in regard to their writing qualities. The attempt to mend a bad quill with a blunt penknife is of itself a trial to the most equable temper ; and the effort to write a long letter with a pen that persists in blotting or spluttering is a severe strain upon one's powers of endurance. But in these days of Gillott and Perry and Mordan, when metalic pens of every shape and size abound, from the twenty shilling gold "everlasting" to the humble steel " commercial " at sixpence a gross, writing should be as easy My Reporting Pen. as walking, and even the complaint of tools which the proverb attributes to the unskilful workman should be impossible. There is no style of writing which has not a pen specially adapted to it. The fine, delicate lady's hand, abounding in hair strokes; the heavy dashing hand of the professiona-1 man: the round, unmistakeable hand of the lawyer's clerk, have all been carefully studied by the steel pen manufacturer : and hence we have every variety of nib from the broad Mitchell's " J " to the finest point required by the lithographer. My opinion has often been asked as to the comparative value of the different metalic pens in common use, both for longhand and shorthand purposes. It is difficult, however, for one person to advise another on a Eoint involving so many diversities of habit and style. Everyone is capa- le of judging for himself as to the pen best adapted to his mode of writing. Where there is any doubt on this point the writer should try a number of pens till he finds one that suits him thoroughly, never forgetting that the main object to be secured should be, not that of getting over the ground quickly, but that of writing clearly and legibly. A " scratchy " pen 128 Leaves from the Note-Book of T. A. Reed. should, of course, be avoided. A very hard pen will rarely produce a good, bold hand, and it is only adapted to a small cramped style of writing. A fine pen is apt to make holes in the paper, unless the latter is very smooth and close textured; but it is well adapted to a neat, precise hand. For longhand purposes I confess to a partiality to rather soft, broad-nibbed pens ; but these would not suit all styles or predilections A g-ood medium or fine-pointed magnum bonum will suit almost any style, and is service- able alike for shorthand and longhand. There are as many varieties of shorthand as of lonsjhand ; and hence the difficulty of obtaining a pen well adapted to all hands. As I have said, a good magnum bonum is the most generally useful. No pen, however, is so enduring, none so serviceable, and probably none so economical if a proper selection is made, as a gold pen. I say, if a proper selection is made ; for some gold pens are the most intractable instruments that can be placed in a writer's hands. You may try a dozen Ao without finding one that really snits youi One is hard and scratchy; an- other will make nothing but thick strokes : a third will not be persuaded to make a thick stroke at all ; a fourth will often fail to make any mark whatever. But in this, as in most other things, perseverance will meet its reward. A thoroughly good gold pen will, with care, probably last a life- time; and if you can obtain one that is well adapted to your hand, you may consider yourself well repaid for any moderate expenditure of time and trouble in making your choice. If a lasting instrument is required one of the very best make, should be selected. I know of none better than Mordan's twenty shilling pen. There are much cheaper gold pens, and some are as good for ordinary use, both for long and shorthand, as the more expensive kinds ; but the latter are usually tipped with iridium, or some other exceedingly hard metal, which makes them very enduring. Some silver pens are extremely useful for shorthand purposes, but they are not so lasting as the gold. Most of the "phonographic" steel pens that _(_ U^ I x ~'~Y X < "W- \ ^ ^ o^ .1. " '- V - | ^ L r I H-n V , -P M lie s~^ VI ^ x- N 7 V \ e-1 i t " ^ X ^ / ^ v ^ - s \r^ y n * ^X ^= I *^ v- % , > ^ \ i- ) ( %^ , v*/^ " v * v ^ JL ^ -b N I have tried have been, to my mind, too fine for reporting purposes, though admirably adapted to phonographic writing not requiring any great amount of speed. I suppose that few pens have seen more service than my own gold pen. It is one of Mordan's best, and it has been my constant companion ever since 1847 upwards of twenty years. I have rarely used it for longhand to which indeed it is not well adapted but I have used nothing else for shorthand except on rare occasions, when by some accident I have not had it with me. I dare hardly say how much shorthand it has written certainly very many thousands of newspaper columns, and I believe that E radically it is none the worse for wear. I have taken great care of it, ut it has met with several accidents, none of which, however, have per- manently injured it. On one occasion, just as I was about to take notes of a sermon by a popular London preacher, a lady with an ample silk dress swept by me, and turned the points of my pen outwards, so that they presented the appearance of the letter V. I almost despaired of ever using c R ( ^ ^-> ..^ \v v "V^^N.^^iry-; r ) < v Y ^- - " ^ - k ^ . As r x S x^- ^s> -L i 1_ ' ^ -^- ^ ^ 5 '- -V ^r I k : 1 1- the pages of ray note-book, and patiently await the return of the light. After a few sentences had been uttered I resolved on trying the experi- ment in the dark, not feeling, however, very sanguine as to the result. The effort was somewhat embarrasing. It was necessary to be constantly dipping the pen in the inkstand lest it should run dry, and leave no trace of its movements; and special care had to be taken to keep the lines sufficiently apart that they might not come into collision. On looking at the notes, at the close of the lecture, they presented a singular ap- pearance. Of course the ruled lines of the note-book had been wholly disregarded : and in the endeavor to keep the lines well apart I had made them absurdly distant. Grammalogues depending upon position I had, as far as possible, avoided, and I had inserted vowels as freely as I was able. The result was that I had very little more difficulty in reading the notes than I should have experienced if they had been written in the light. Since then I have often reported in the dark, sometimes at lectures, at the Royal Institution and elsewhere, when the light had been extinguished, and sometimes at meetings that have been held at a late hour in the day I and extended into the evening, at which no lights have been introduced. My Reporting Pen. ^1* 135 v r\ . -\ -7 4 ^ y ' r\^i j~\. ^ >y ;t- > <- v 3 ~ -v_ } j ^-- ^ r^L S, - ^ , r ) -^-i ' In one instance, where I knew I should be liable to this inconvenience, I secured a small lamp which I placed by my side. It was on the occasion of a lecture which was delivered chiefly in the dark. The lamp was shaded in such a way that the light was only thrown on my note-book, so that it did not interfere with the lecturer's illustrations. On one occasion when the light was excluded I forgot to dip my pen in the ink at a certain part of the lecture, and the result was a gap of nearly half a page on which there was not a single character written. I had gone over the ground with my pen, but there was nothing to show it. I forget how I supplied the omission. The accident would not have occurred if I had written with a pencil, which indeed is the best instrument for writing in the dark. 136 Leaves from the Note-Book of T. A. Reed. GOVERNMENT SHORTHAND WRITING, c^ ->. ^ k ^ - f P f* -^ ^ ; J_ ^ ^- x A_^l U^ ^ v^ VI " /A I >-s V ^ x ) -W ^ L ) /^' 1 ' VL - k Some years ago, m a debate in the House of Commons, Mr Gladstone stated that one of the most wonderful things he had ever witnessed was the work of the shorthand writer, taking down evidence before Parlia- mentary Committees, and reproducing it as required for the use of the members. So far from regarding it as a mere mechanical act, as some persons have declared it to be, he described it as a remarkable illustration of the working of the human mind in combination with the hand. The occasion on which he thus expressed himself was a discussion of the Act for the prevention of bribery at elections. One of the clauses of the Act provided that the shorthand writer of the House of Commons, or his dep- uty, should attend at the trials of election petitions under the new arrange- ment, and take down evidence from day to day as required by the judge. Against this clause several professional shorthand writers presented a petition praying that the clause might not pass into law. and thus establish a monopoly which the Government shorthand writers (Messrs Gurney) have so long cnioyed. Several members of Parliament supported the Erayer of the petition, and moved the insertion of a clause giving to the ord Chief Justice the power of appointing the shorthand writers, so that other members of the shorthand profession might have a chance of obtain- Government Shorthand Writing. c N -- ) 137 } ' / L Vr ( ing this kind of official employment, fhis proposal, however, was resisted by the Government and by Mr Gladstone, and the clause as proposed in the bill was passed. Messrs Gurney, therefore, are the official shorthand writers under the new tribunals as they have hitherto been for the Parlia- mentary Committees. I am not, of course, referring to the reports of Parliamentary debates which are preserved in Hansard. These are chiefly compiled from the newspapers. Formerly they were altogether so compiled; but of late years special hands have been employed to report such portions of the debates as are rarely reported at all, or only very briefly, in the daily journals. I now allude especially to the arrangements made for taking shorthand notes of the proceeding's of Parliamentary Committees. Those who are familiar with the course of legislation are aware that a vast amount of work is accomplished by these committees, of which the public know very little. When a bill is brought before Parliament with relation to any subject on which it is felt that sufficient information has not been laid before the House, it is usual to refer it to a "select commit- 138 Leaves from the Note- Book of T. A. Reed. . .\.. tee," composed of members of various shades in politics, the number varying from five or six to twenty, according to the importance of the inquiry. One of the principal duties of the select committee is to receive the evidence of such witnesses as it may be considered advisable to call, and upon this evidence a " report" is commonly presented to Parliament, which may form the basis of legislation. Besides these committees on public questions there are numerous committees appointed for the consid- eration of what are called "private bills," that is, bills authorising the construction of railways, gas and waterworks, harbors, piers, and the like. These generally consist of only five members. The inquiries in which such committees are engaged often extend over many days, and even weeks, and a large body of evidence has almost invariably to be recorded at the different sittings. To facilitate the labors of these Parliamentary Committees, shorthand writers are appointed to take down evidence in shorthand and transcribe it from day to day. The office of shorthand writers to the House of Com- mons and the House of Lords has been for several generations held by the Gurney family, and is so still. The post is a very lucrative one, and great Government Shorthand Writing. 139 ^ M> * " "^V " ^ X c^-'sa x V ^ J \ L x 3y ^> \^ y\ > complaints have often been made by the independent shorthand writers of the "monopoly" enjoyed by the holders or the office. Of course the greater part of the work is done by deputy. There is only one official shorthand writer to each House, and it would be obviously impossible that one person should attend all the committees. At busy seasons of the year as many as twenty or thirty committees are sitting- at the same time, at each of which the attendance of a shorthand writer is required. In order to supply this demand the Messrs Gurney are obliged to keep a staff of able assistants who are constantly occupied during the Parliamentary session But even these are not able to meet the requirements of a busy season and in times of more than ordinary pressure other shorthand writers are employed who form no part of Messrs Gurney's staff, but are in general practice on their own account. Stenographers' work in committee is sometimes of a very arduous char- acter, and ought not to be undertaken by any but the most skilled hands. The hours of meeting are generally from n or 12 o'clock (most frequently the latter) till 4 in the afternoon, and the amount of evidence given in the course of a tolerably long day's sitting may amount to four hundred or I 140 Leaves 'from the Note- Book of T. A. Reed. .b_ ? :i\_ ^ 12 x is five hundred folios (seventy-two words), which, if printed in The' Times, would occupy from twelve to fifteen columns of small type. The whole of this has, in most cases, to be transcribed into longhand and delivered to the printers in the course of the night, and printed copies wet from the promoters ana opponents ot tne bill under consideration, sometimes these speeches are printed as well as the notes of the evidence. Formerly the shorthand writers' notes were copied by law stationers, but the plan of printing them from day to da)' has been adopted within the last few years. The shorthand writer attending a Parliamentary Committee is seated at a small table in front of the chairman. Opposite him, at the same table, the witnesses sit who are examined before the committee. This is found to be a very convenient arrangement. The shorthand writer has no diffi- culty in hearing the witness unless he speaks in a very low tone ; and if he is in doubt as to a word or a sentence he may ask the witness to repeat Government Shorthand Writing. 141 it. He may also check him if hfs speed is excessive. This, however, is a Crivilege of which the shorthand writer does not like too often to avail imself. To be continually stopping a witness and telling him that he is speaking too rapidly, or asking him to repeat some word or sentence im- perfectly heard, is a practice that no efficient shorthand writer will wil- lingly adopt. In the first place it may embarrass the witness and caase him to lose the thread of his statement ; and in the next place it is apt_to excite a little impatience in the minds of the committee and the examining counsel, and lead to the supposition that the fault is in the scribe and not in the witness. Sometimes a considerate chairman will check a witness who is speaking with too great rapidity, and remind him that his words have to be taken down by the gentleman sitting- opposite to him. As a general rule such reminders are of but little avail. The speaker perhaps checks himself for a moment, looks at the shorthand writer dashing along at express speed, and utters a few sentences in a deliberate manner. These finished, he is asked another question by the committee or the coun- sel : the poor stenographer is completely forgotten ; the witness turns his Leaves from the Note-Book of T. A. Reed. vi > V head to his questioner, and eager, perhaps, to answer the query that has been addressed to him, or to remove some impression which he thinks he has observed, resumes his former pace, and taxes the note-taker's powers to the very utmost. Again the chairman (who sees, it may be, the per- spiration standing on the shorthand writer's face) gently interposes : " Not quite so fast, Mr Smith." Mr Smith begs pardon ; he will do his best to speak deliberately. He succeeds in the effort for about ten seconds, and then runs on as rapidly as ever. The chairman shrugs his shoulders, gives a sympathetic look at the shorthand writer, and gives it up as a bad job. The case of a naturally rapid and impetuous speaker is almost hopeless, and the utmost that can be done is to got him now and then to repeat a sentence ; or if he mentions any unusual proper name, a little breathing time may be gained by asking him to be good enough to spell it. Sometimes a witness will repeat with great rapidity a dozen names of places of which the shorthand writer has never heard. This is especially the case in rail- way inquiries. The course of a line in some remote country district is Government Shorthand Writing. U ' ^ S~ W / I 143 notng o te wors to e gong at a gang pace. us a sortan writer will tell you that a speaker never articulates so rapidly and so in- distinctly as when he is enumerating a score or two of Welsh or Scotch places that never found their way into the Gazetteer, or rattling out the names of some local celebrities of whom no one beyond their own locality has ever heard. Technical terms too especially long and difficult ones 144 Leaves from the Note-Book of T. A. Reed. 21 "-4 ' (C x" <^_ \ _ -U'JBW^ ^ ) . -?^_f-^ t/ "entered into details with reference to the geological formation of the district," or " gave the committee a minute analysis of the chemical con- stituents of the soil." However abstruse, however difficult, however rapid or rambling the speaker whether he enters into an elaborate arithmetical calculation, or describes the post-mortem appearances of animals affected with cattle-plague ^the shorthand writer must be close at his heels, fol- lowing him in his labyrinth of words, noting every technical expression, whether he understands it or not, and reproducing every sentence that is uttered a task from which many a practised stenographer would shrink. But not only is it the duty of the shorthand writer to take accurate notes of all the evidence before Parliamentary Committees : he holds himself in readiness when called upon to refer to his notes and read them in order to clear up any doubt as to what has been said by a witness. Some such colloquy as this may often be heard in the committee-room : Counsel : I think, Mr Jones, you said at first yon were in favor of this line of railway ? Government Shorthand Writing. ' > Y V> "-' x 145 I ^ - A! W'ifness : Xo ; I said no such thing. Counsel : I certainly so understood you. Witness : You misunderstood me then. Counsel : Did you not say that you approved of the course that the line took? Witness: Certainly not. Counsel : Assuredly you are mistaken. I will ask the shorthand writer to refer to his notes. Whereupon the reporter turns back perhaps forty or fifty pages, till he comes to the place where the evidence in question was given, and reads the part in dispute. The liability to be thus called upon, at a moment's notice, to read hastily-written notes has deterred many a good reporter from enof.igintr in this department of labor. A nervous man asked for the first time to refer to his notes and read them in a crowded committee-room heart leap to his mouth, and is strongly impelled to shut up his book and rush out of the room. He knows that even. 1 eye is fixed on him and every ear listening. The stillness is absolutely distressing ; and he would I 146 Leaves from the Note-Book of T. A. Reed. \ ; ' I 7 c -" r ^- ^-P ) ' -v^V-,^ ^*-s v^ ^ ^ - \^W_P J ~i, v /1* V v L v=>_ t -U ^x c^.M^- ~" 2 v/^. k ^ ; c v^> yC r. rzi ^)\ ^ > J| ;" / \_ o r^> *U V / ^- ^ V ^ o \_ WJ o L, * ^-V= ^ . y\ o ' ^ x^ ^ ~V~A ^X x ^>r ^L. -v / -^ * *\ ^ c^ ^-^-] : " v A. E }_ ,^\h " ^ . W^ _ , V d -^ H i > /' .-- \ / A> ~ x 1 the shorthand writer remains in his seat with his note-book before him for the purpose of referring to any portion of the evidence that the Committee may desire to have read. It is not often that his services are required during the Committee' s deliberation. When, h owever, the "parties are called in " he has to rec ord the chairman's stater nent " that the preamble of the Bill has (or has not) been proved to the satisfaction of the Com- mittee;" and thus, generally speaking, his labors terminate. In some instances, if the pream ile is passed, evidence is taken on the clauses of the Bill, in which case ( tie shorthand writer is cal led into reauisition, as in the earlier stages of the proceedings. In the case of the old Election Com- mittees the Act of Par lament required that the shorthand writer should be sworn. This was usually done after the opening statement of counsel, and before the first witness was examined. The oath was administered by the chairman of the Co nmittee, and the form of it (I write from recollec- tion) was something to this effect : " I A.. B. declare that I will faith- fully take down in shorthand the evidence given before this Committee and will transcribe the same, or cause it to be transcribed, in words at length from day to day for th e use of the Committee. "' Parliament, however, has abolished Election Committees, and has committed to the Judges of iffl - . 148 Leaves from the Note- Book of T. A. Reed. \ the land the duty of inquiring into the merits of petitions presented against the election of members of Parliament. When a petition is presented against the return of a member of Parliament it is tried by one of the Judges, who is required to attend at the town where the election has taken place and examine witnesses in the locality itself. As in the case of the committees, a shorthand writer is required to be in attendance. He has usually a small staff of assistants, and the notes are transcribed from day to day for the Judge, who sends the transcript, together with his own report and decision, to the House of Commons. The amount of work which a shorthand writer attending a Parliamentary Committee gets through in the course of the day varies very considerably. In the majority of cases, as I have said, his notes have to be transcribed and printed by the following morning. In the case of " Select Committees," which ordinarily meet only twice a week, he has the whole of the next day in which to complete his transcript. The evidence given before these committees is printed from the shorthand writer's notes for the use of the committee members only. At the termination of a committee's sittings the evidence is frequently printed in the form of a " Blue Book." It is customary in this case to send to each witness a proof-sheet of his evidence, Government Shorthand \ Vnting. 1 49 IV I i / - -Q S J O quarter, when E will be ready to take the last hour. In the country this sort of assistance is not always available, but in London and in some of the larger provincial towns it can often be secured. If it is absolutely necessary that the report should be ready by the termination of the meet- ing, the last reporter may take a short report in longhand as the speeches are delivered, unless there is a staff large enough to admit ot the turns being minutely subdivided. It may sometimes be desirable to modify the arrangements with a view of securing a very full report of a particular speaker who may rise at an unexpected time, or with a view of placing the best hands upon the most difficult or most important speakers. Again, it may happen that the speaker hands down to the reporter the manuscript of a long speech which insufficiently clear to be sent to the printers after the insertion of the necessary "cheers," "laughter," and other expressions of feeling. This may liberate one of the hands engaged, and an alteration should be made in the turns so as to prevent his time being wasted. The chief will have no difficulty in adapting his plans to meet these and other emergencies 162 Leaves from the Note-Book of T. A. Reed. \ o s. ^ 4, c -^ e :>. 6 o\ as they arise, that is to say, if he has a faculty of organization, and is ac- customed to his work. In regard to the transcription of notes of law cases, Parliamentary Committees, and the like, the arrangements that may be made are very varied in their character. Where a case lasts from day to day, and the transcript is required to be furnished to the lithographer or printer in the course of the night, it is necessary to divide the work of note-taking into so many turns, as I have mentioned. The more usual course is to divide the day's proceedings between two, or at most three, shorthand writers, each taking notes for two hours, or more, and afterwards dictating them to assistants. Where one shorthand writer has to take the whole day's proceedings, say from ten till four or five o'clock, the work of dictating so m;my notes in time for transcription and delivery by the next morning is a severe strain, and cannot be continued for any length of time without injury to the health. If the shorthand writer has assistants who can read his notes with ease, he may take five or six hundred folios a day and con- tent himself with reading over the transcript made by others ; but this can Transcribing and Transcribers. only be done by very skilful note-takers and highly trained assistants. Under ordinary circumstances 200 or 250 folios a day taken in court and written out, with the aid at two or three assistants, may be considered very lair work tor one man, though on special occasions a shorthand writer may find himself obliged to do twice that amount of work in a day. A great deal depends not only on the skill of the note-taker, but on the dex- terity and accuracy of the assistants. If the latter can take down rapid!}' and write out accurately, the work may be got through with speed and comfort ; but where they are not so skilled, and it is necessary to read every line of their copy for fear of mistakes occurring, the progress is much slower ; and when stupid blunders have to be corrected, the work is ex- ceedingly trying to the temper. Great care is often needed to see that the transcript is correct. I have known an assistant omit a whole page of his notes in consequence of turning over two pages at a time. This is, no doubt, a rare occurrence, but the omission of a sentence is not at all uncommon. A careless transcriber will not unfreijuently leave off at a i particular word, and take up at the same word which happens to occur 11 * 164 Leaves from the Note- Book of T. A. Reed. ^ ' r again a line or two lower down ; omitting perhaps an important clause in the notes. With experienced and trustworthy assistants these mistakes will not occur, and hence it is not necessary to read over their transcript; unless, perhaps, in some special cases where extreme accuracy is needed. The transcript of an untried assistant, however promising he may appear, should never be allowed to go in without examination. I have known the most astounding mistakes made by men who professed to be accurate and expert, and could fill pages with specimens of them ; but I do not know that they are worse than those which one occasionally sees in type in newspaper reports. Each member of a reporting corps should do his best to carry out the programme that has been decided upon, whatever it maybe, remembering that the failure of one, especially if the corps be small, may lead to a breakdown of the entire arrangement. Such catastrophes have often I happened, alike from ineffective organization on the part of the chief, and ' from the failure of particular members to carry out their instructions. I Transcribing and Transcribers. knew an excellent reporter who could take a prescribed turn and write it out with remarkable accuracy and despatch, but who was wholly at sea when entrusted with a commission to arrange for reporting work in which several hands were employed. He would take notes himself for several hours while his assistants were twirling their thumbs, or engaged in less innocent pastimes ; he would then retire to transcribe or dictate to anyne who might present himself, leaving another hand, perhaps, to finish the note-taking, without regard to the length of time the proceedings might possibly occupy. At the most inopportune moment he would discover that he had not dined, and that bodily refreshment was necessary. After the refreshment I have known him take a long nap, while some of his staff were absolutely doing nothing. On awaking he would find himself per- haps with 150 folios of notes to get out at a time when the entire manuscript should be completed. In this way I have known a whole night spent in completing a transcript which had to be delivered the r.ext morning ; and the unfortunate shorthand writer has had to begin taking notes of the next day's proceedings within an hour or so of the completion of his first day's l66 Leaves from the Note-Book of T. A. Reed. \ I V- c / <^-s *! 61 t\ N " * b i= f 7 U \ ^ ^ _L " s ^ I ? ^ -k- x SCRAWLING AND SCRAWLERS. 1 ^ < _ V s - 9 task, of course with jaded energies, and with an extreme probability of a still worse result at night when he and his assistants would be more tired and sleepy than ever. It is a remarkable fact thit few persons write a thoroughly clear and legible hand, while of those who may be said to scrawl rather than to write the name is legion. This has sometimes been attributed to the length of the common cursive characters, and the difficulty of keeping pace with a rapid flow of thought ; but that is a veiy partial explanation of the phen- omenon. There is a large class of persons who, with the briefest possible characters, would never write with precision. Some, owing to a highly nervous temperament, can onlv jerk out their letters with a spasmodic effort, and their writing is illegible not only to others, but often to them- selves : but with very many the illegibility is due to sheer carelessness and want of consideration for the time and patience of the unfortunate readers of their lucubrations. It is said of a celebrated judge that when Scrawling and Scrawlers. appealed to to decipher a few wo'rds of his own writing, he declared that he had long given up that task, adding that his clerk was the only person who could accomplish it, and that even he sometimes failed. Everyone must have occasionally suffered inconvenience from the carelessness of his correspondents in this respect. Not long ago I received a letter from a lady who was never known to write half a dozen words that could be read without the aid of the context. Of course it was crossed, and it reouired the combined efforts of all the members of my family not to read it throughout, for that was an impossibility, but to get at the salient points of its contents. As to some of these, however, we were left in doubt. M\ correspondent stated that she was coming to pay us a visit, and should come to town by a particular railway and by a certain train, requesting some of us to meet her at the station. There were two railways by which she mt'ffif \in\~e traveled; but which of these was destined to convey her to London was certainly not to be gathered from her letter, for the col- lection of strokes intended to designate it might have answered for either and opinions were equally divided as to whether she was to arrive at 3.40 1 68 Leaves from the Note- Book of T. A. Reed. J_ 3 * A 5.20 x ' o^ ) 1 ^ or 5.20. A servant was despatched to each of the railway termini, but my visitor arrived almost immediately after they had left the house, the time of the train's arrival having- been earlier than either of the hours we had supposed our correspondent intended to specify. The inconvenience was not a very serious one, but really grave consequences might have ensued from such an ill-written epistle. In commercial correspondence the most extraordinary errors occasion- ally takes place in consequence of misconceptions produced by illegible writing. Everyone has heard of the merchant, who could neither write nor spell well, who wrote to a correspondent in Africa, and requested that he would send him two monkeys, but wrote the word " two " so indiffer- ently, (not crossing the t, and spelling the word with a double o,) that the order was supposed to be for 100. To the merchant's infinite astonishment he received some months afterwards a consignment of about 60 chattering monkeys, his correspondent informing him that those were all he was able to procure, but that the others should be sent by the next ship ! Many a similar mistake is probably made every day simply because there are Scrawling and Scrawlers. ) -/^- N -* . v- !_, v vS-o^r-Vl ]_ ! ; persons in the world who will not cross their /"'s or dot their t's, who will persist in making their 's like 7<'s, and their /'s like ^'s, be- sides performing evolutions on paper of a. nature to mystify the most experienced decipherers of bad writings In business matters indistinct writing, like looseness of expression, should be scrupulously avoided. A single ill-formed letter may be followed by disastrous consequences. An action at law was once the result of the misplacement of a comma; anc some years ago a large firm was ruined by the non-delivery of a badly- directed letter. I recollect an important communication intended for a gentleman in the Strand being sent to Stroud in consequence of the ness of the writer in directing it ; and many a letter, from the same cause, has been half round the world in search of someone who has livec within half a dozen miles of the writer. By some unaccountable perversity bad writers usually concentrate al the objectionable features of their writing in their signatures, which are as unintelligible as if they were written in Sanscrit. I have seen signatures iyo Leaves from the Note- Book of T. A. Reed. J " \0 L_n x V^Q I which might have done duty for almost any name in the Post Office Di- rectory. Expostulation is utterly useless ; it is in vain that you take the trouble, in writing- to such a person, to copy his signature as accurately as you can, or cut it off and paste it on the envelope ; he is quite accustomed to that sort of thing, and thinks it rather a good joke than otherwise ; and it is not until he sutlers some serious loss from his carelessness that he adopts measures to render at any rate his signature intelligible. I know some scribblers who have been compelled to have their names printed on their letter paper in order to prevent mistakes as to their identity ; and one gentleman of my acquaintance who writes a bold, clear hand, but usually signs his name with a series of parallel lines which no one has ever born known to decipher, and which are supposed by his friends to have no reference whatever to his real name, invariably encloses his printed card when writing to a stranger. This slovenly habit of writing a signature which might equally serve for John Smith or Nebuchadnezzar is absolutely unpardonable; I would make it a criminal offence, not even admitting of " extenuating circumstances." Scrawling and Scrawlers. 171 ^-^-y 9 ^-< \ i N. P >?1:;i v How many " printer's errors," so-called, are really attributable to the carelessness of those who supply " copy," everyone who has any experi- ence in printing offices can testify. I have seen a dozen compositors interrupted at their work by the handing round of a slip of copy which has contained some ill-written words that have had to be submitted in turn to every person in the office, and have at length been given up in despair. Some manuscript is as clear as print, andean be placed in the hands of the youngest apprentice : some again is ail but unintelligible, and is only entrusted to the most skilful type-setters, who are occasionally paid an extra sum for bad copy. No doubt compositors do sometimes make absurd mistakes even with tolerably clear manuscript : but for one such error I believe there are a dozen occasioned by scribbling. I remember prinwres et pares converted into "primroses and p no doubt that many historical errors have been perpetuated by the care- Leaves from the Note-Book of T. A. Reed. lessness of early scribes. Witness the curious story of the eleven thousand virgins who were said to have left these shores and to have suffered martyrdom near Cologne. It is now asserted that that astounding legend was built upon a very simple error arising from some indistinctness of the record; the word " Undecimilla" (the name of a female who probably met the fate of a martyr) being mistaken for undecim mil/e, or eleven thousand ! It is but fair, however, to state that this explanation is not received by Roman Catholic authorities, and a German work was pub- lished a few years since, I think at Cologne, maintaining the substantial accuracy of the legend. To reporters a legible hand-writing is of great advantage. The urgent demands for copy in a newspaper office are by no means favorable to the development of the best style of penmanship, and some excuse should be made for the scribe whose characters get a little straggling at one or two o'clock in the morning. The reporter, however, who has cultivated the habit of writing legibly will rarely, whatever pressure may be put upon xb o IX x ^ xj ^ i _. him, find himself betrayed into absolute scrawling- He may dash along at the top of his speed in obedience to the imperious mandate from the printing office ; he may use numberless abbreviations, and fail to form his letters with exactness, but with all his omissions and variations of outline, an unerring instinct will lead him to preserve a degree of legibility in his writing of which no compositor will ever complain. In the London news- paper offices it is not usual for the reporters to read the " proofs " of their reports, and even in the country the opportunity of revision is not always afforded; under these circumstances it the hand-writing is not tolerably legible, occasional mistakes, and sometimes serious ones, are inevitable. I know the case of a clever reporter who lost an important engagement solely in consequence of the difficulty, or rather the impossibility, of read- ing his copy. Repeated remonstrances were addressed to him, but the habit had become inveterate, and he paid the penalty of his carelessness. It is idle for anyone to say that he cannot write legibly. Of course some 174 Leaves from the Note-Book of T. A. Reed. X >> X' t / -> 1 1 ^ ( / VD .^ J ^^ '^ v^-' c v > ; A NS^N _I- v >=-. / ~s r wzs X u m persons may. from want of natural aptitude or from temperament, experi- ence more difficulty in doing so than others; but everyone (at nny rate with very rare exceptions) mav write a moderately distinct hand if he will only give himsclt time. If a person finds that he cannot write very rapidly and at the same time clearly, it is obviously a duty which he owes to others to write more slowly, since every minute gained by himself in hurrying over the paper is saved at the expense probably of several minutes to those who have to decipher the characters. Habitual scribblers should make a point of writing, For some time, at about half their usual rate of speed, and should not be content unless each word could be easily read without the aid of the context The effort, I know, is a trying one, but it should be made nevertheless. Special care should be taken to distinguish w's. w's, and 's. This alone would give a degree of clearness to the writing that would amply compensate for the small amount of extra trouble involved. The distinction is best made by keeping the strokes of m and close to- gether, joining them at the top and taking care to keep the letters well Scrawling and Scrawlers. / /^~ -\ . *\ / I > x x ^-\. / 6 \/_ \ (, x . L c ^- r\ /v^' ' 175 V ' S. /'V N ^ 14 * a ^8 / s ^ rig, are enough to make any hand illegible. As a rule, flourishes should 3e avoided, and no stroke be made that is not necessary to legibility, ong tops and tails to letters that go above and below the line are par- icularly objectionable. I think that the clearest style of writing is that which is upright, or nearly so, and tolerably round. A very sloping hand is seldom very legi- )le, and everyone must have had his patience tried by the angular style of ady correspondents. It is satisfactory to know that the meaningless )ointed-writing once so fashionable among the ladies is no longer " the hing;" girls are taught to write very much like boys, and no lady need )e ashamed of a bold round hand, which, besides being far more egible than the other, gives far greater scope for the expression of indi- idual characteristics. The method of holding the pen in writing will, to a considerable extent, determine the character of the penmanship. The orthodox system, when was a boj' and I believe it is still inculcated in many schools was to Scrawling and Scrawlers. ._!_. . 177 . U draw the elbows close to the side, and hold the pen pointing- to the shoul- der, moving only the thumb and the first two fingers. To my mind this is simply an abomination. The elbow should be at some distance from the side ; and the pen should be held rather loosely in the hand in the position most easy and natural to the writer, very much as in drawing. Some persons (and this is my own case) hold the pen so as to point outwards, while others hold it nearly upright. Some place the pen between the first and second fingers. This method, I believe, is an importation from America. I do not think it is any improvement upon the usual mode, but I have known it adopted by one or two very good writers. Hitherto my remarks have been wholly directed to longhand; I now propose to continue the subject in its application to shorthand, and especially to Phonography. Ot course, the main feature in a legible hand is accuracy of outline not necessarily rigid exactness of form, which when writing curreiife calamo it is impossible to secure, but such an approximation to exactness as will 178 Leaves from the Note-Book of T. A. Reed leave no doubt on the mind of the reader as to the charnrters intended to be expressed, with a. special avoidance :of certain common divergences from the true outlines which, apparently insignificant, are really the sources of great indistinctness. This may be said to apply both to long and to shorthand. In neither is it possible, when writing swiftly, to form the characters with mathematical precision ; nor is this necessary : certain variations of out- line, the result of rapid execution, may he safely indulged in ; but it must never be forgotten that there are limits beyond which such variations cannot safely go, and in shorthand those limits are much more circum- scribed than in longhand. Almost every letter in longhand is composed of several inflections of the pen, and consequently there is not so great a l--:rri'r of similarity between them as exists among shorthand characters, which are mainly composed of single inflections \Vhen it is remembered that in shorthand I am now speaking especiallv of Phonography the let- ters consist chiefly of curved or straight lines differing only in inclination, in thickness, or in position, it will be obvious that a far greater amount of precision is required on the part of the writer than in the case of letters Scrawling and Scrawlers. 179 of a more complex character, and with less resemblance inter se. Indeed, considering the many minute points of difference in the phonographic characters, it seems difficult to believethat they can be written rapidly and yet legibly, or that the least divergence from the strict alphabetic form can ever be unaccompanied by great danger of illegibility. Experience, how- ever, abundantly testifies that notwithstanding these many nice shades of distinction it is possible to unite even extreme rapidity of writing with a fair amount of legibility. I say it is possible, not wishing it, however, to be understood that the result is attainable without considerable labor and great care in the method of practice. The student, in his early efforts, cannot be too careful in preserving the exact shapes and positions of the letters, first because this is essential in training the hand to accuracy of form, and secondly because he has not learned by experience where and to what extent a departure from the exact outline may be safely allowed. When he has acquired this experience, not by reading only, but by actual practice in wrifinj*I1ie may to some extent relax the reins with which his brain has been regulating and check- 180 Leaves from the Note-Book of T. A. Reed. ( ' c (\ " A 9 o - _.\._ ^ ^ | X \_ ,-v \ t_^ A ^ ^\D . ^ ing the movements of his impatient fingers, and permit them to dash forward at a pace which would have been altogether hazardous when they were ignorant of the perils of the road. The difference between a careful and a careless writer is that, while both may write rapidly, and indulge in departures from alphabetic forms, rounding angles, and extemporizing unauthorised abbreviations, the one knows where he may do this with safety, and keeps within reasonable limits ; the other puts no restraint upon his erratic tendencies, and consequently tumbles into innumerable pitfalls. A very common error among careless writers consists in the indis- criminate omission of vowels. I have known phonographers who have made it a boast that they never inserted a vowel when reporting, and one indivi- dual of the genus scrawlcr positively declared to me that he never on any consideration wrote a vowel, or inserted the dot for ing or con. " Are you serious ? " I asked him. " Perfectly," he replied; " I never found the Oitjhfest occasion to employ any of these symbols, and I do not believe that they are needed." I begged him to tell me how he would express the | 181 Scrawling and Scra-wlers. conveying. ? ' c, J_^ ^ ^j. j^ ~1 - ' J ~ ~ ^ ' T-\ n/ - ^ X3 \ Y V'h-,' ' ^ W 9 /^?r-H\_ ^ v/l word conveying. He was staggered when lie -discovered that a rigid ad- herence to his dictum would reduce the phonographic representation of this word to the single letter " v" which he reluctantly admitted might give rise to a little ambiguity. A judicious not necessarily an extensive employment -of vowels may be regarded as one of the criteria of careful and legible writing. The extent to which vowels may be safely omitted can only be ascertained by long-continued practice, and beginners should in this, as in other respects, be careful to err on the safe side ; reversing the rule which prevails in the reporters' Gallery with respect to imperfectly heard sentences, " When in doubt leave it out." When I was engaged in teaching Phonography my regular occupation for several years of my life my pupils constantly asked me when they might begin to omit vowels, and this before they had fairly mastered the elementary details of the system. They were burning and what young phonographers are not ? to become reporters, and early began to feel a sort of professional scorn for minute dots and dashes which they supposed to be only needed in the very first stages of their phonographic practice. The question, 1 182 Leaves from the Note-Book of T. A. Reed. \-T r \ u -x ^ 2i T,- r ^. \ ^ > v_/ x_0 o V i_ c^ believe, was sometimes prompted by an indolent desire to escape the necessity of learning the accurate use of the vowels, which to some begin- ners is a matter of a little difficulty, and I know several tolerably expert reporters and shorthand writers who never would take the trouble to make themselves familiar with the complete and valuable system of vowel notation which Phonography possesses. My usual reply to the impatient querists to whom I have referred was to the effect that when they were able to insert the vowels freely and accurately they might begin to omit them, and not on any consideration before. I give the same advice now, and recommend all phonographers who do not wish to be classified under the heading of the present article to make a careful study of the vowels, and familiarise themselves with their use, before indulging in the prospect of throwing them aside as unnecessary aids ; and when the requisite familiarity has been acquired, to omit only by degrees, never wholly or indiscriminately. The result of awholesale omission of vowels would often be disastrous to the young reporter, as exemplified in the instance I have cited, where the phonographic symbol might, even with the aid of the con- Scrawling and Scrawlers. 183 ^/x v^ '\ . " I r*-s \ ^ d L\ \- text, be wholly unintelligible. The " Phonographic Reporter" contains a long list of similar words containing the same consonants but different vowels, which in reading might be very liable to be mistaken for each other, if they were not distinguished either by a diversity of outline or the insertion of a vowel : and the experience of every practical phonographer will supply many other illustrations of the same kind, all showing the im- portance of an occasional recourse to vocalisation. Let me suppose the case of a speaker saying " I hope I am not worrying you with these details." Perhaps three out of four phonographers would think it sufficient to write "I hope I am not w r ing you with these details;" the fourth would instantly perceive that unless he inserted the vowel in "worrying" he would, almost to a certainty, transcribe the word "wearying" unless his memory chanced to serve him in his selection of the right word. True, the error in this case would not be a serious one ; indeed the sentence might be considered to be improved by the substitution ; but the next clash might prove a veritable snare. Suppose, for instance, he had written, 184 Leaves from the Note- Book of T. A. Reed. collision _ X ^Y^ ) \ ^f' V^_p i -^)- r b I ^z- b U. ' CLP ^-^> S -X- '\ ^ coalition ) J \ "\O x .K ^ > ' \ ) \ V -f , c--v \ c 1 / /"N )- r > ^ j )- I s= b Y-V ^ ^ ^' (y> ^> - /i ^ , X ' \ ^- \- - -V - ^ ^V '^ J^ . O^P " ' ^ i&a O^ " "1 " ' <>^ eye^ x-y/ x" ^ TJ x and the singular mistakes sometimes made by young and careless phono- graphers would seem to give force to the objection. Thesystem, however, should not be judged by the performances of those who scrawl, but by the results of careful and expert manipulation ; and, so estimated, it stands without a rival among stenographic systems. Circulation, 16,500. Published every Saturday, 16 pages, Crown ^to., price ONE PENNY, THE Phonetic Journal The Organ of the Phonetic Society of Great Britain and Ireland. EDITED BY ISAAC PITMAN (INVENTOR Of PSONOGRAPHT.) CONTAINING SIX COLUMNS of In the Learner's, Corresponding, and Brief Reporting Styles 1 , with, KEY in common print. Intelligence of the progress of Phonography and the Spelling Reform in Great Britain, the United States, Australia, etc., and A list of the names of New Members of the Phonetic Society. J- The Memben of thii Society correct the Exerciiei of Learnen through the pott free of charge. Articles in phonetic and common print on interesting subjects, Persons who find it inconvenient to get the JOURNAL, by order, through a bookaeller, may obtain it direct from Bath, on the following terms : Subscription for one copy per quarter, sent weekly .. ,, fortnightly .. two copies weekly one copy per annum Two copies and upwards sent post free ; per dozen 8d 1. 8d. 1. 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