University of California 
 
 Southern Regional 
 
 Library Facility
 
 Ex Libris 
 C. K. OGDEN 
 
 II
 
 PHONOGRAPHY IN THE OFFICE : 
 
 A COMPLETE 
 
 SHORTHAND CLERK'S GUIDE 
 
 WITH 
 
 CHAPTERS ON SPECIAL PREPARATION, 
 
 INCLUDING 
 
 BUSINESS PHRASES AND CONTRACTIONS, 
 LETTERS, &C. 
 
 BY ALFRED KINGSTON. 
 
 " In a very short time it will be a futile attempt on the part of any 
 youth, however clever in other respects he may be, to gain admission to 
 any counting-house, professional office, or large warehouse, without a 
 practical knowledge of shorthand, and hence arises the vast importance of 
 the art to the young and rising generation." Nottingham Daily Express. 
 
 LONDON : 
 F. PITMAN, 20 & 21, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.G. 
 
 BATH: 
 
 ISAAC PITMAN & SONS, PHONETIC INSTITUTE. 
 NEW YORK: FOWLER & WELLS CO., 753 BROADWAY. 
 
 1886.
 
 Printed by Isaac Pitman & Sons, Phonetic Institute, Bath. 
 
 [ENTERED AT STATIONERS' HALL.]
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 Phonography, or Phonetic Shorthand, has revolutionized the 
 old idea which connected Shorthand exclusively with the Press, 
 and has placed the art alongside the electric telegraph and the 
 railway, as a necessity of modem business life. Year by year 
 the thousands who are learning the art to qualify themselves for 
 the office, and the situations in which Shorthand is a recom- 
 mendation or a necessity, are increasing, and seem destined to 
 increase almost indefinitely in the future. Hence the acknow- 
 ledged want of a guide for the Shorthand Clerk, which would, 
 at the same time, give in some measure the assistance of a text 
 book of preparatory training for those seeking such a position. 
 In the following pages both these objects have been kept in 
 view, and the author would venture to hope that sufficient ground 
 has been covered to make this a useful and necessary supplement 
 to Mr Pitman's general instruction books in that large majority 
 of cases in which the intention is to make use of Shorthand in 
 the office and in business. 
 
 A. K. 
 
 Royston, Herts ; October, 1886. 
 
 1114994
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 Introduction i 
 
 Failures, their Causes and Remedies 8 
 
 Shorthand as a Means of obtaining a Situation 15 
 
 General Qualifications 23 
 
 Applying for a Situation ... ... ... ... ... ... 31 
 
 On Entering a Situation ... ... ... ... ... 41 
 
 The Shorthand Clerk at Work 47 
 
 Transcribing 55 
 
 Other Duties and Opportunities 67 
 
 Writing Materials, Books and Routine 77 
 
 Special Preparation 84 
 
 Business Phrases and Contractions 87 
 
 Business Outlines ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 97 
 
 The Use of Figures ... ... ... ... ... ... 101 
 
 Influence of Longhand upon Shorthand 108 
 
 Aids and Hindrances in 
 
 Sources of Error 115 
 
 Business Letters 121 
 
 General Hints Conclusion ... ... ... ... ... 131 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Abbreviations used in Business Correspondence 139 
 
 Abbreviations for Names and Titles, &c. 140 
 
 Modes of Addressing Persons of Rank 141
 
 PHONOGRAPHY IN THE OFFICE. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 IN the golden age, when classic books were written 
 and classic tongues were heard, a good angel 
 took Speech by the hand and promised to carry 
 all her good deeds for her, and to show them to the sons 
 of men lor their instruction and guidance through all the 
 clamor and the strife of the coming time. Action, a 
 sturdy youth, fresh from fields of conquest, and ready to go 
 forth " conquering and to conquer," stood by and heard 
 the promise, but was destined himself to wait. Many 
 centuries came and went, and at last a grim Giant, 
 born of the Norsemen's gods, awoke from his slumbers, 
 stretched his mighty limbs, and beckoned from cloud- 
 land a fairy creature of subtle presence and unknown 
 power. Together, they took Action by the hand and led 
 him through the earth at redoubled speed, promising that 
 his future should be greater and more blessed than his 
 past, and suggested that the promise given by the good 
 angel to his sister, Speech, might henceforth be his also. 
 The plain facts contained in the foregoing little alle- 
 gory, when stripped of their fanciful ornament, carry us 
 back to the days of the Roman Empire. Very soon 
 after the commencement of the Christian Era we find 
 Martial writing thus 
 
 The swifter hand doth the swift words out-run ; 
 Before the tongue hath spoke the hand hath done. 
 
 After making due allowance for poetical license, of which, 
 we know, a great deal was often taken by the poets of 
 those days, it is plain that the art of writing shorthand, 
 or rather a system of longhand abbreviations, was a well- 
 2
 
 2 Phonography in the Office. 
 
 practised art in those early days ; and from other sources 
 it is clear that the speeches of the old Roman orators 
 were taken down by notarii, or the professed scribes 
 of these longhand abbreviations (notes). But, though 
 Cicero could command the services of his freedman Tiro 
 as a kind of shorthand amanuensis, there is no evidence 
 that the merchant of ancient Rome ever commanded 
 the services of a shorthand clerk. It was not until rail- 
 ways, in these modern days, had annihilated distance, 
 and the electric telegraph had realized the words of 
 Shakspere and 
 
 Put a girdle round about the earth 
 In forty minutes 
 
 that shorthand began to be recognized by business men, 
 and until recent years the shorthand clerk in an office 
 was as much the exception as he is now becoming the 
 rule. 
 
 Taking, therefore, with but this brief retrospect, the 
 standpoint of the present position of shorthand, and its 
 relationship to commerce, there are two facts which 
 strike one very forcibly at the outset. One is the astound- 
 ing rate at which the demand for shorthand in the office 
 and in business life has increased during the last twenty 
 years, is still increasing, and is destined perhaps to in- 
 crease, beyond even the most sanguine anticipations of 
 the inventor of the system which, by common consent, 
 has superseded all other systems, whether ancient or 
 modern I mean, of course, Pitman's Phonography. 
 The other fact is that, to some extent as a consequence 
 of this demand, there never was a time when so many 
 persons learned the principles of the art of shorthand as 
 at the present, or when, one is bound to add, such a 
 large proportion of learners failed, for the want of a 
 little perseverance, to make the art of any real use to 
 them in the business of life. 
 
 In the past, when shorthand writing was looked upon 
 as something of a mystery, and when the opportunities 
 for the exercise of the art were few and far between, the 
 shorthand writer was almost sui generis. He was gen- 
 erally something of an expert at his craft, for the simple 
 reason that it was a matter of business with him, and 
 there was then practically no such thing as amateur 
 shorthand, if one may use the term. But now, there is
 
 Introduction. 3 
 
 no art that can be named which has been tried by so 
 many 'prentice hands ; and, considering the thousands 
 who commence the study of the art as a means of recom- 
 mending- them for employment in an office, yet never 
 reach the goal of efficiency, it is time, perhaps, in the 
 interest of shorthand itself, that some attention should 
 be paid to the possible effect of such failures upon the 
 confidence of those who may be thinking of shorthand 
 as an aid to their business, and upon the welfare of 
 those who have been looking to a shorthand clerkship 
 as their future calling in life. 
 
 The foregoing remarks lead naturally to the question 
 whether a clerkship, and especially a shorthand clerk- 
 ship, is such as to justify a youth in looking forward to 
 it as his choice of occupation. Even in Sir Thomas 
 More's Utopia, with all its unattainable ideals, there is 
 one point made upon the importance of a choice of a call- 
 ing in life for youth, which commends itself to our prac- 
 tical modern ideas. It has often been urged of late 
 years that the labor market for clerks is altogether over- 
 stocked by the anxiety of parents and guardians to get 
 their sons into what they consider a genteel occupation. 
 There is, of course, too much truth in this, and it can 
 hardly be denied that many a youth who would have 
 succeeded and made a better livelihood in some techni- 
 cal employment, has been forced, by this false notion of 
 what constitutes true dignity and respectability, into 
 that increasing stream of competition for clerkships in 
 which many must necessarily meet with disappointment. 
 But, admitting this, it is still true that there will always 
 be room for really competent men, and the youth who 
 aims high has still the stimulus and hope contained in 
 one of the utterances of, I think, Daniel Webster, who 
 assured a young man that there was " plenty of room at 
 the top." 
 
 The evil of the modern competition for clerkships is, 
 that it is forced from below, where incompetence and 
 inexperience, with the plausible aids of charitable re- 
 commendations from influential persons, and the desire 
 to patch up a decaying gentility, often underbid appli- 
 cants of better training, and thus lower both the stand- 
 ard of work and the standard of pay. If, however, 
 there is still room "at the top ; " room for really com- 
 petent men as general clerks, it is more especially true 
 2*
 
 4 Phonography in the Office. 
 
 in the case of those possessing the additional qualifica- 
 tion of being able to write shorthand efficiently. Indeed, 
 the signs of the times would appear to indicate that, in 
 the struggle for places, those possessing this advantage 
 will, in many cases, have the preference, it other qualifi- 
 cations are equal, even where shorthand is not specially 
 required. 
 
 The object of these pages, however, is not to attempt 
 to decide the question whether there is room for an in- 
 crease in the number of persons applying for clerkships, 
 so much as to endeavor to be of some service to those 
 who do apply for such situations where shorthand is 
 likely to be required. It is true, no doubt, that the 
 youth who aspires to such a position would soon learn 
 by experience the most likely means of overcoming diffi- 
 culties and rendering his services effective, but "it is 
 better to prevent a runaway than to have to mend the 
 harness," and it must, of course, be much better for him 
 to learn something of what may be required of him and 
 the difficulties he may be called upon to meet in that 
 position, before he makes the trial of his powers, than 
 to wait until experience comes, perhaps too late, to re- 
 Store lost confidence. 
 
 It is not necessary here to go into the elementary 
 principles of shorthand. When shorthand instruction 
 books are placed within the reach of all and the learning 
 of the art is, by their means alone, brought within the 
 comprehension of everyone of average natural ability, it 
 would be a pity, and would be unworthy of the spirit of 
 the age, lor a young fellow who is in other respects well 
 qualified for the position of corresponding clerk, to find 
 himself outstripped by the competition of the times 
 simply because, when called upon to save his employer's 
 time, he has no resource but to fall back upon the clumsy 
 expedient of the past, viz., that of drafting a business 
 letter in a kind of skeleton longhand. Such a practice 
 has undoubtedly been often found useful in business 
 houses in the past and there may be some excuse for 
 the clerk who has grown old at his desk, and for whom 
 the time has gone by for any great change in his ordin- 
 ary habits of work ; but to a young man entering upon 
 such duties there is no excuse for relying upon such a 
 make-shift for despatch. It might also be urged that 
 the practice often has a prejudicial effect upon ordinary
 
 Introduction, 5 
 
 writing. But the time has come when the enormous 
 volume of our commercial correspondence can no longer 
 be carried on satisfactorily by such means, and nothing 
 less than the qualification to write shorthand will enable 
 the corresponding clerk to dispose of the claims it makes 
 upon the time of his employer, with that promptitude 
 and despatch which are so dear to the heart of the 
 modern business man. 
 
 To some who may aspire to the position of a short- 
 hand clerk the question may, perhaps, arise as to the 
 system of shorthand which is best calculated to qualify 
 them for the post. If so, a very little inquiry indeed 
 will be sufficient to show that the question is one which 
 has practically been settled long since by the over- 
 whelming voice of that popular factor, the majority. 
 Among professional reporters for the press belonging to 
 the "old school," there are still one or two of the old 
 systems which linger on the stage. The systems of 
 Taylor, and Gurney (really Mason's) are still used by a 
 few, while here and there some obsolete system is gal- 
 vanized into life by means of " improvements," giving it 
 the semblance of a system, but reminding one ofLessing's 
 famous antithesis that though it may contain some 
 things which are good and some which are new, yet the 
 good are not new and the new are not good. Experience 
 shows, moreover, that among the younger men engaged 
 in reporting for the press, five out of six use Pitman's 
 Phonography, and if such is the case in that stronghold 
 of the craft, it is not surprising that in the more modern 
 arena of commerce, the universality of Phonography 
 should be even more marked. 
 
 Almost the only complaint the writer has ever heard 
 made against Phonography is that it is difficult to learn. 
 This complaint has generally proceeded from those who 
 have commenced its study merely out of curiosity, or 
 from those interested in some other system ; and hardly 
 ever from the conscientious student who expects to de- 
 rive a solid advantage from shorthand. Without ad- 
 mitting that it is difficult to learn, the writer would repeat 
 the proposition generally accepted by the best authorities 
 on the subject, viz., that the system of shorthand which 
 is very " easy to learn," will generally be found, when 
 put to the test, to be also limited in the range of its use- 
 fulness. Judged by the latter standard, Phonography is
 
 6 Pho7iography in the Office. 
 
 unrivalled, and has made its way into the office and into 
 the technicalities of business, because it has met a want 
 in the commerce of the English-speaking peoples of the 
 world. Between those clumsy notes which were practised 
 by the Romans two thousand years ago, and Pitman's 
 Phonography, the difference is almost as great as that 
 between the labored manuscripts of the monks and the 
 work of the modern printing press. By the former the 
 whole burden of the work was thrown upon the memory. 
 The evolution of shorthand since those days has gradually 
 shifted that burden and distributed it over certain gen- 
 eral rules ; but there still remained in the many systems 
 which were invented in the eighteenth century, a per- 
 plexing margin for the exercise of the memory, until 
 Mr Isaac Pitman entered the field in 1837 an( ^ set to 
 work, framing rules and adopting and classifying signs, 
 for placing shorthand on a strictly scientific basis. The 
 co-operation of the early writers of this system was freely 
 invited, with a view to make it as perfect as possible, 
 and the result is that, in Phonography we have a system 
 of writing by sound which leaves the memory compara- 
 tively unfettered and free. 
 
 The question as to the choice of a system having been 
 thus decided almost beyond any hope of appeal, there 
 remains the duty of pointing out how it may be best 
 turned to account by those who are seeking to gain a 
 position, or improve their present position, in an office, 
 by its use. For learning the principles of Phonography 
 and understanding it as a science the learner will find 
 all that he requires in Mr Pitman's instruction books, the 
 " Phonographic Teacher " and " Ifey," " Manual of 
 Phonography" and " Reporter" and he has only to 
 follow the advice there given, and " practise and perse- 
 vere," to make himself master of the system as an art. 
 After considerable experience with pupils and in the 
 practical use of the art, the writer would venture to 
 suggest that, although the system is one that the learner, 
 possessing good natural abilities, may acquire without 
 the aid of a teacher, yet, in the great majority of cases, 
 the more satisfactory plan is to seek the assistance of a 
 teacher private tuition if possible not merely from a 
 person who has succeeded in obtaining a certificate that 
 he possesses a knowledge of the principles of the art, be- 
 cause a man may know a thing thoroughly, and yet be
 
 Introduction, 7 
 
 an indifferent teacher, but from someone who is known 
 to have had considerable experience in the use of the 
 art, and in teaching it. Avoid professed teachers of 
 Phonography by post for a fee ; and if any assistance 
 beyond the instruction books is required, send a few 
 exercises for gratuitous examination, and possible cor- 
 rection, to some member of the Phonetic Society. (See 
 the List of the Society for the current year, or any number 
 of the Phonetic Journal.} If the learner teaches him- 
 self, he will do well to obtain some special lessons in 
 getting up speed. To many this is the most difficult 
 part ot their progress from 50 to 100 words a minute 
 and many thousands have given up shorthand after 
 reaching the speed of 40 or 50 words a minute, when a 
 little well-directed assistance would have saved them 
 from failure. If the teacher is one who has had pro- 
 fessional or practical experience in the transcribing of 
 notes, which is not always the case with teachers of 
 shorthand, the pupil should seek to obtain some special 
 help in this very important matter also. But, after all 
 this has been obtained, much will depend upon the pupil 
 himself. " Have but a love to it, and I'll warrant you " 
 was the quaint assurance given by honest old Isaac 
 Walton to his pupil in the gentle craft of angling, and 
 if the shorthand pupil will only " have a love to it," his 
 success may generally be " warranted " also, even with- 
 out the aid of a teacher.
 
 Phonography in the Office. 
 
 FAILURES, THEIR CAUSES AND 
 REMEDIES. 
 
 T has been pointed out that among the thousands 
 of learners of Phonography, very many give it up 
 after acquiring the ability to write about fifty 
 words a minute ; but there are also among this large army 
 of learners other doubtful writers who do succeed in ac- 
 quiring a speed of about 80 or 90 words a minute, that is, 
 if they only test themselves with some favorite passage 
 . which has perhaps been written over and over again, 
 and who, with very little preparation for the special 
 requirements of business life, are hoping that this limited 
 qualification will be sufficient to commend them to those 
 desiring the services of a shorthand clerk, and to open 
 the portals to an easy berth and to competence. Even 
 if there were situations ready and waiting for every one 
 of such aspirants, such an eagerness for commencing 
 an untried sphere of labor upon so limited a stock of 
 knowledge and experience, must, in many cases, lead 
 to discredit and disappointment, if not to failure. 
 
 I know that many an aspirant to such a post has, 
 under similar circumstances, tried to ignore his want 
 of thoroughness with some such reflection as this : 
 "Writing from dictation in an office won't be like 
 reporting a speaker or a lecturer ; the dictator is sure 
 not to go very fast because he will have to think of what 
 he has to say, and, by leaving out a word or two and 
 writing a difficult word here and there in longhand, I 
 daresay I shall be able to pull through." Experience 
 in teaching shorthand to pupils who are preparing for the 
 office shows that such a notion is too often entertained 
 by learners in their eagerness for the novelty of the work. 
 Like many other notions, there may be a small grain of 
 truth in it, but one can only add that there is aKo such 
 a region as a fool's paradise. But even if there were 
 more truth in it than there is, would it be honest and
 
 Failures, their Causes and Remedies. 9 
 
 prudent to go into an office leaning upon such an uncer- 
 tain crutch ? When the goal is so near, and may be 
 reached by a little extra effort, would it be worthy of the 
 position of a young man, standing, if he ever will, on the 
 border land of promise ? The position he seeks is one 
 that would launch him at once into the stream of his 
 employer's interests and give him the privilege and 
 responsibility of moulding, in some measure, the most 
 effective agency in the business, namely, its correspon- 
 dence ; and, with all this accumulative stimulus to high 
 endeavor, there is surely enough to inspire any young 
 man with an ideal standard of excellence ! If, on the 
 other hand, all this stimulus is to be disregarded, and 
 there is to be no higher ideal in life than to ' pull 
 through," then there is another side to the picture. 
 
 Suppose a youth succeeds in obtaining a situation as 
 shorthand clerk, and enters an office in such a spirit. 
 The most favorable estimate he can himself put upon his 
 shorthand qualification is that he can write eighty words 
 a minute, and he has never had the courage to test his 
 speed upon anything but that "measured phonographic 
 mile " over which he has done all his little training, and 
 knows nothing of the peculiarities of the work which is 
 awaiting the trial of his powers. The mere fact that he 
 is commencing at a comparatively low rate of speed is 
 therefore not the worst part of it. In his very first essay, 
 it may be, the fates are against him. He is called upon 
 to take down a letter in which there are no familiar 
 theological phrases, or the " Mr-Chairman, ladies-and- 
 gentlemen," to which he has accustomed himself, but a 
 free admixture of strange terms which he has hardly 
 ever heard before ; and figures, not in the convenient 
 round sums of " thousands," but in odd sums and. per- 
 haps fractions, all of which it is necessary to combine 
 rapidly with his shorthand words so as to make the 
 meaning clear where the greatest accuracy is necessary. 
 He will be fortunate if he is not " staggered " a little by 
 such a surprise ; and, in his endeavor to give expression 
 to the strange terms with which he is for the first time 
 confronted, he will either miss some important word, or, 
 what may be worse, take down the figures inaccurately. 
 If he finds his first attempt at serious note-taking so 
 unsatisfactory, what can be expected of his transcript ? 
 He thus finds at the outset of his career that his fair-
 
 10 Phonography in the Office. 
 
 -weather estimate of speed has been subjected to a rude 
 awakening, with the natural result of weakening his own 
 and his employer's confidence in his powers, even if 
 nothing worse happens ; and that, not because the task 
 was in itself at all a formidable one, or that the dictation 
 was at all rapid, but simply because the writer had 
 neglected to provide for himself a good honest all-round 
 test of his speed, or to accustom himself to taking down 
 business language before entering upon his duties ; and 
 had trusted, moreover, to a very superficial knowledge 
 of the principles of his art. 
 
 Fpr the encouragement of the really conscientious and 
 diligent student of Phonography, it may safely be said 
 that such a failure as the above is not due to anything 
 in the system of Phonography as an art, nor is the 
 demand generally made upon the young phonographer 
 by business correspondence likely to be too much for the 
 writer's manual dexterity. Where such a failure does 
 occur it is due mainly to a want of thoroughness. The 
 elementary principles of the art have never been 
 thoroughly grasped. The subject has been taken up in 
 a spasmodic way ; the phonetic principle has never been 
 grasped, and such writers often drilt into the foolish 
 habit of testing their speed by the passage that presents 
 the fewest difficulties ! 
 
 Another cause of failure with many is that they have 
 never really mastered the art of joining, especially by 
 means of the *\ pr and \ 1 series of hooks in con- 
 nection with a circle s, or the rules for the upward and 
 downward r, and the various other expedients for con- 
 venience and facility in joining. They can never face 
 
 such words as ""^"^ exclusive, /D restraint, Q^A ex- 
 asperated, \J~> transactions, A displeasure, without 
 
 a decided halt, and a good deal of floundering. The 
 consequence is that their speed over that favorite 
 " measured mile " to which reference has been made, 
 dwindles down from the maximum of eighty or ninety to 
 sixty, or even fifty, words per minute, according to the 
 character of the passage they are called upon to write, 
 and simply because they " cannot think of the outline," 
 and the head cannot keep pace wit.h the hand. To this 
 may be added that many hurry forward to the rules for
 
 Failures, their Causes and Remedies. 11 
 
 shortening before they have thoroughly mastered the 
 vowel system ; but until this is done it must be obvious 
 that they can hardly expect to know where vowels may 
 be safely omitted, or where it is necessary that a vowel 
 should be inserted. 
 
 The above are weak points in the case of many who 
 wish to learn something of shorthand, not from any love 
 of the thing, but simply because they have been toldfaaA. 
 they would stand a much better chance in the severe 
 competition of the age if they knew shorthand. But the 
 competition of the age is not to be successfully faced 
 from such a motive only. It is worth remembering that 
 the competition of the age is already beginning to apply 
 to shorthand writers, as well as to others, though not 
 in the same degree, and the best men will of course get 
 the best places. To those who commence the study and 
 practice of Phonography in this dilettante spirit, there- 
 fore, the words of Carlyle, on another subject, may very 
 well be applied: "You must not be surprised if the 
 results arrived at considerably disappoint you ; and 
 sometimes, though also sometimes not, completely 
 deserve to do so." In the great majority of cases the 
 thoroughly successful shorthand writer is the one who 
 has a genuine love ot his art, and the failure is on the 
 part of the one who never had any love of it and did not 
 deserve to succeed. 
 
 There remains, however, one special difficulty for 
 which even the most diligent and conscientious learner 
 would do well to prepare himself if he wishes to make 
 use of Phonography in the office. I refer to the differ- 
 ence between the ordinary practice to which he has 
 accustomed himself, and the special characteristics of 
 the language of business life. While the writer would 
 give place to no one in his cordial approval and admira- 
 tion of the general text-book instruction which Mr Isaac 
 Pitman has provided for the learners of his system, he 
 would, at the same time, in the course of these pages, 
 base some recommendations for special practice for 
 those who think of making use of Phonography in the 
 office, upon two important reasons. In the first place, 
 it would be unreasonable to expect any general system 
 of text-book instruction to provide special methods of 
 practice for any one particular direction in which short- 
 hand would be likely to be used by individual students ;
 
 12 Phonography in the Office. 
 
 and in the second place, it is, I think, undeniable that 
 almost the only opportunities for practice available for 
 the learner at that point when he is seeking to get up 
 speed from sixty or seventy to one hundred words a 
 minute, are the utterances from the platform and the 
 pulpit ; and these are almost exclusively favorable to the 
 learner who is seeking to become a newspaper reporter, 
 rather than to the future shorthand clerk. At any rate, 
 such utterances have very little in common with the lan- 
 guage of the office, the counting-house, the mart, and 
 the Board room ; with their statistics, prices current, 
 their reversions, bills of lading, stocks, shares, and bye- 
 laws. 
 
 The tendency of the times is to " specialize," and 
 language has to be so moulded as to form a ready means 
 of expressing the peculiar needs of a business or depart- 
 ment, and any means of taking down the wants of a 
 business should also be made readily available by prac- 
 tice for meeting the end in view. But while the extent 
 to which Phonography is required in the office and in 
 mercantile life is increasing in such a remarkable 
 manner, there has been, as far as the writer is aware, 
 no special or recognised method of practice put forward 
 which will give the writer that ready habit of expression 
 when applied to business terms, etc., which is so neces- 
 sary to give him confidence in his work, The writer 
 must not, however, be understood to mean that a system 
 of shorthand so perfect as that of Phonography, is not 
 absolutely capable of giving expression to every kind of 
 technical language. Let it be at once, and freely, 
 admitted that it is ; but the point remains that the 
 learner who wishes to make good use of his art in an 
 office will always do well to obtain a certain amount of 
 practice in making himself familiar with something like 
 the special terms and phraseology which he will be 
 called upon to write on commencing duty as a shorthand 
 clerk. " Art is long but life is short ;" or, to vary the 
 maxim, art may be far-reaching, and apparently bound- 
 less in possibilities, but human capacity and opportunity 
 are limited. While, then, Phonography is fitted to meet 
 the requirements of even technical branches of com- 
 merce, it follows that the best results in any given 
 direction will be obtained by the writer who has the 
 most practice in, and for, that particular direction.
 
 Failures, their Causes and Remedies. 13 
 
 The remedy, then, is obviously this, that the learner 
 who wishes to turn his Phonography to account in an 
 office should provide himself with this special kind of 
 practice, when getting up speed, and should especially 
 seek to acquire a facility in rapidly and accurately com- 
 bining his shorthand with figures. By a course of prac- 
 tice such as this, the would-be shorthand clerk may do 
 much to take away the possible sting of humiliation 
 arising from any such failure as that which has been 
 described ; and the strange terms to which reference 
 has been made, instead of coming upon him as enemies 
 in ambush, will in a great measure have already become 
 his familiar friends. The value of such a special pre- 
 paration may make all the difference between failure 
 and success at the start, the most important time of all, 
 when the writer has very little knowledge of the business 
 to fall back upon. As to the directions in which such 
 special practice may be most useful, something will be 
 said in greater detail, and exercises given, hereafter. 
 
 This reference to failures and their causes would be 
 hardly complete without one word on the subject of the 
 phonetic basis of Phonography. The writer is convinced 
 from his own experience, as well as from that of others, 
 that a liberal course of reading in Phonography and also 
 of phonetic printing, such as that given in the pages of 
 the Phonetic Journal, at the time of learning to write 
 Phonography, would tend very much to remove that 
 difficulty which many learners experience in grasping 
 the phonetic principle of Phonography. I know that 
 many learners look upon the phonetic printing in the 
 pages of the Journal as only " some new-fangled notion 
 about English spelling," and of no particular concern 
 for them in learning shorthand. They are, of course, 
 perfectly entitled to their own opinion as to whether or 
 not it is worth while to interfere with English spelling 
 and upon the merits of that question I would say 
 nothing here but the phonetic principle of Phonography 
 is so vital to a thorough mastery of the art that the 
 learner would do well to read this phonetic printing 
 all that he can get of it even if he should not be con- 
 vinced of its reasonableness. 
 
 The subject of failures has been placed thus pro- 
 minently before the reader because it was thought that 
 the peculiar demands of business upon shorthand were
 
 14 Phonography in the Office. 
 
 such as to justify a word of warning. Inability to keep 
 pace with a speaker by writing too deliberately on the 
 one hand, and the risk of error in attempting to write too 
 swiftly, or beyond his powers, on the other, are, of 
 course, the Scylla and Charybdis of every shorthand 
 writer, but it is more especially against the latter that 
 the shorthand clerk needs to be on his guard. He will 
 find that he has much less margin for modification of his 
 noi;es than that enjoyed by the shorthand writer for the 
 press. Indeed, it may be said to be of much greater 
 importance that the shorthand clerk should aim at being 
 accurate and reliable in what he writes, even though he 
 may never reach a sensational rate of speed, than that 
 he should aim simply and solely at a high rate of speed ; 
 although there is no reason why he should not endeavor 
 to do both, and he will assuredly find his reward should 
 he succeed in both.
 
 15 
 
 SHORTHAND AS A MEANS OF OBTAINING 
 A SITUATION. 
 
 [HE story of the 'cute Yankee who wished to be 
 "pulled out of a fever" by a contract with his 
 doctor for so many days at so many dollars, is not 
 one whit more absurd than the way in which some young 
 phonographers approach the question of making use of 
 shorthand as a means of obtaining a situation. " How 
 soon do you think you could qualify me to take a situa- 
 tion as a shorthand clerk ?" is the type of question which 
 the teacher of Phonography is sometimes called upon 
 to answer ; and the only honest answer to the question, 
 when put in this form, is, "Never the 'qualifying' 
 must rest with yourself, for all that the teacher can do 
 is to help you." Again, " How long would it take me 
 to be able to write shorthand last enough to take a sit- 
 uation as a shorthand clerk ?" is another form of the 
 same kind of question, and again it is about as difficult 
 to answer as for the doctor to contract for a given num- ' 
 ber of days within which to " pull " his patient through 
 an attack of fever. All professions about "turning out" 
 efficient shorthand writers within a given time like 
 turning out manufactured articles, all from the same 
 material remind one of Plato's dictum about equal 
 rights for unequal people, and are comparatively worth- 
 less for the purpose of settling this point. All that can 
 be said is that possibly some, a very few, have become 
 efficient writers in three months, while others have been 
 almost as many years about it, and some probably 
 never would be able to claim that qualification. Twelve 
 months may, however, be given as about a fair average 
 of time in which a diligent learner, with daily practice, 
 would become an efficient writer of 100 to 120 words a 
 minute. The time it will take, must, in the nature of 
 things, depend more upon the writer and his opportuni- 
 ties than upon his art. For the youth who trusts to
 
 16 Phonography in the Office. 
 
 shorthand and his teacher to "do something' for him " 
 there is no hope as a phonographer, but to the learner 
 who works with a will, and is determined to do some- 
 thing with his shorthand, there is always a land of 
 promise. 
 
 Assuming that the learner has taken up the subject 
 in earnest and has acquired a fair speed and thorough- 
 ness in the use of Phonography he must not place his 
 sole reliance upon this as a means of obtaining the 
 employment he desires. It is this mistake, coupled 
 with the eagerness to obtain such employment upon a 
 superficial knowledge of shorthand, which is, I am 
 afraid, responsible in a great measure for that "mot- 
 ley" band of applicants which is ever ready to flock in 
 from the phonographic by-ways and hedges, and to 
 besiege an office whenever a vague advertisement which 
 includes the word " shorthand" appears in the news- 
 papers. The full value of Phonography as a means of 
 obtaining a situation can, of course, be best realized by 
 a due regard to the directions in which other qualifica- 
 tions would be most likely to prove useful, and the 
 sensible student of the art who wishes to make use of it 
 in this way, will therefore seek that kind of situation in 
 which not only his shorthand ability but his other 
 qualifications and experience in an office (if any) would 
 be likely to give him the best chance of success. For 
 the purpose of aiding him in coming to a conclusion 
 upon this point the writer would divide the usual run of 
 situations for shorthand clerks roughly into the follow- 
 ing three classes : 
 
 (1) Those situations in which a thorough efficiency 
 and experience, with a high rate of speed in shorthand, 
 are of the first importance. 
 
 (2) Where, in addition to a fair shorthand ability, ex- 
 perience gained in some special department of office 
 work or business is an indispensable condition. 
 
 (3) Where an ordinary clerk, or a junior clerk, is 
 wanted who can write shorthand, or, according to the 
 stereotyped addition, "one with a knowledge of short- 
 hand preferred." 
 
 Let the learner who has not thoroughly mastered his 
 art take warning when he sees an advertisement like
 
 Shorthand as a means of obtaining a Situation. 17 
 
 the following, and sit down again to his books with 
 fresh determination, remembering that there is still 
 " room at the top " 
 
 WANTED, an efficient and experienced Shorthand Clerk ; rapid 
 note-taker, accurate transcriber, and good business long- 
 hand letter writer. References must bear strictest investigation. 
 None but competent men need apply. 
 
 Of the second class of situations to which I have re- 
 ferred the following is a fair sample, though the charac- 
 ter of the special experience required will, of course, vary 
 with the particular office or business in which the va- 
 cancy occurs : 
 
 A SHORTHAND CL,ERK is required in the Local 
 Board Office. One with some experience in a similar office, 
 and acquainted with the Orders and Regulations of the Local Gov- 
 ernment Board would he preferred. Commencing salary, ^70 per 
 annum. Apply, etc. 
 
 The candidate who does not feel quite competent to 
 apply for the first class situation will find this second 
 (provided he happens to possess the experience re- 
 quired) a very gqod substitute for it. 
 
 The third division is, of course, much more compre- 
 hensive than the other two, and embraces a variety 
 which it would be impossible to classify more definitely 
 than by saying that it ranges through all grades of 
 clerks, or office hands, even from the errand boy, " with 
 a knowledge of shorthand." to the regular routine-made 
 clerk well ported up in accounts and the distinctions 
 and "fictions." of double-entry, with perhaps French 
 and German thrown in. It is in this division therefore 
 that the competition is generally the keenest, the pay 
 often the lowest, and the work not unfrequently the 
 farthest removed from the ideal which the applicant 
 had probably cherished on entering upon his duties. 
 The degree of qualification required and the salary 
 offered will also be found to vary as much as the merits 
 of the applicants for such situations. When the first 
 rung of the shorthand ladder is, fixed as low as in the 
 advertisement which is given below (cut from the adver- 
 tising columns qf a London daily paper) there is, at 
 least, hope for every smart boy who has sixpence to 
 3
 
 18 Phonography in the Office. 
 
 invest in a Phonographic Teacher, and little room for 
 surprise that a small amount of shorthand capital should 
 sometimes be made to go a long way : 
 
 JUNIOR CLERK wanted for copying, shorthand, and errands ; 
 must have been out before ; IDS. per week. 
 
 The following may perhaps be considered a fair gen- 
 eral idea of the remuneration to be obtained and the 
 shorthand speed required in the situations falling within 
 the three divisions into which I have placed them : 
 
 (1) In this class the remuneration would not be less 
 than 2 per week, and would probably in many cases 
 reach ^3, after a time, if not at first, and the maximum 
 shorthand speed required would be from 130 to 150 
 words a minute. It must not be supposed; however, that 
 the mere ability to write at the speed here mentioned 
 would of itself secure the situation. An employer in 
 such a case would naturally look for a candidate who 
 had had some experience in a similar position and in 
 the important work of transcribing notes. 
 
 (2) In the class of situations where a special experi- 
 ence in some particular business or department of an 
 office is a condition of selection, the remuneration, if for 
 a junior, would be about 255. or 303. a week, with very 
 good prospects of advancement, and a speed of from 
 100 to 1 20 words a minute would probably be found 
 sufficient. 
 
 (3) In this very broad division, not taking into ac- 
 count the phenomenal errand boy above mentioned, the 
 remuneration would commence with about i or 2is. a 
 week for the junior clerk, and range up to 2 a week 
 according to the place, the ability and trustworthiness 
 of the clerk, and also length of service. The shorthand 
 speed required would be from 80 to 120 words a minute. 
 
 In many cases the junior shorthand clerk might very 
 well commence with a speed of 80 words a minute and 
 find it sufficient, provided his knowledge of the art was 
 thorough, and his other qualifications and general abil- 
 ity fairly good. In the situations falling into the first 
 and second of the foregoing classes the duties would 
 consist mainly of taking notes of correspondence, draft 
 reports, etc., and in transcribing the same ; in other
 
 Shorthand as a means of obtaining a Situation. 19 
 
 words, the shorthand clerk's duties and position would 
 answer in the main to his designation, but in the many 
 kinds cf situations falling into the third group, the 
 usual run of a general clerk's duties would to some 
 extent often be added, and in some cases perhaps duties 
 for which the candidate for the situation had never 
 bargained. 
 
 In the interests of the large number of learners of Pho- 
 nography who are seeking for the first time, and by its 
 means, to obtain situations in offices and in businesses of 
 which they havehadno opportunity of gainingexperience; 
 and considering the extent and variety of situations in 
 which shorthand is memioned in some form or other as a 
 requirement or reason for preference, there is need for 
 one word of caution, especially where applications are 
 to be made in answer to an advertisement. Where an 
 advertisement clearly states that a shorthand clerk is 
 required, or contains words equivalent to that, it may, 
 so far, be trusted to mean what it says, but in case of a 
 large number of advertisements of a less definite cha- 
 racter where a " sharp lad in an office " or a "junior 
 clerk, "or an "intelligent youth," etc., is wanted, and 
 somewhere among the qualifications required, there is 
 incidentally mentioned that " a knowledge of shorthand 
 would be a recommendation," I think the suspicion is 
 not an unreasonable one that, at least in some such 
 cases, it is included in the advertisement not because 
 the youth would be required to write shorthand at all or 
 to any useful extent, but because the employer is shrewd 
 enough to know that a youth who has had the mental 
 training which a knowledge of shorthand is pretty sure 
 to have exacted, will be one who, in colloquial phrase, 
 " has something in him." Either this must be true, or 
 his ideas of shorthand must be rather crude, in expect- 
 ing a shorthand writer and office boy combined ! The 
 learner of Phonography who is seeking a situation in 
 which he hopes to make his art of real use should, 
 therefore, especially in answering an advertisement, 
 endeavor to satisfy himself as far as possible that he 
 is applying for a situation in which the use of his short- 
 hand is required, rather than the benefit of his short- 
 hand training to be applied to the ordinary duties of 
 an office. 
 3*
 
 20 Phonography in the Office. 
 
 With regard to the particular office or business in 
 which a young- phonographer should seek a situation, 
 much will, of course, depend upon his own inclination, 
 but more still upon the direction in which he has gained 
 previous experience of an office, if any. For a junior 
 clerk, a solicitor's office will afford as good a start as 
 can be found, either for general training or for oppor- 
 tunities of advancement. Here, so far as correspond- 
 ence is concerned and excluding for the present the 
 more difficult work of taking down a conversation he 
 may start with a lower rate of speed than in many mer- 
 cantile offices, and probably a better prospect of pay. 
 There are two reasons for this which are part and par- 
 cel of the habits of the legal profession. The one is 
 the necessity for caution, which will not admit of so 
 hurried a drafting of letters, and the other is confidence, 
 which is the foundation of a legal firm's prosperity. 
 Both these facts are in favor of the young beginner. A 
 letter deliberately dictated will not only be easier to 
 take down but will be much easier to transcribe, and 
 will require less modification than would be the case in 
 the hurry and bustle of mercantile correspondence ; 
 and, in a solicitor's office, if anywhere, experience and 
 trustworthiness will never be lightly set aside or lightly 
 valued. If the young phonographer begins here, how- 
 ever, and has had no previous office experience, he will 
 hardly txpect to jump into the full position of a short- 
 hand clerk all at once. He will do well to work himself 
 up in general duties, as a junior clerk, and lose no 
 opportunity of cultivating his Phonography and in inr 
 creasing his efficiency by adapting his art to what he 
 learns of the office. The demand for the regular use 
 of it will very soon arise, and he will gradually get into, 
 the position he wishes for, or qualify himself for a better 
 one in a similar office elsewhere. It is clearly, therefore, 
 to the advantage of a junior clerk who is already em? 
 ployed in a solicitor's office to make himself master of 
 the art of Phonography, as he, at any rate, has the 
 foundation of some office experience to build upon. 
 
 Situations in banks and insurance offices are among 
 the more select places, but they afford much less scope 
 for shorthand than the solicitor's office, the demand 
 upon the shorthand clerk being in such offices limited
 
 Shorthand as a means of obtaining a Situation. 21 
 
 to the correspondence department, and as this is en- 
 trusted to an experienced hand, and as any vacancy is 
 generally filled up by influential support, the chances 
 for a junior to commence in them as a shorthand clerk 
 are few and far between. In railway offices influential 
 recommendation is also frequently brought into play. 
 Another direction in which shorthand will occasionally 
 be the means of procuring a really good berth, and 
 which prospective legislation is likely to favor still more 
 than in the past, is to be found in the various offices 
 charged with the administration of local government, 
 where the clerks of public bodies find shorthand almost 
 a necessity in taking down minutes of public proceed- 
 ings, and draft reports, as well as the correspondence. 
 The learner of Phonography who happens to have 
 gained some experience as a clerk in such offices is 
 therefore in a fair way of being able to make good use 
 both of his shorthand and of his experience whenever a 
 shorthand clerkship of this kind is offered, as he would 
 naturally have the preference over applicants who could 
 not combine the two qualifications. Another advantage 
 of such an appointment, and of appointments under 
 public bodies generally, is the greater chance of a 
 permanency. In commercial houses there are causes 
 which may interfere with a permanency which are be- 
 yond control ; such, for instance, as a bankruptcy, a 
 dissolution of partnership, etc., but with a public body, 
 though its members may come and go, the official staff 
 would remain unaffected by the popular vote, and nothing 
 but misconduct need interfere with the chances of a per- 
 manent appointment. In such a situation, too, a short- 
 hand clerk would, as he gained general experience, 
 probably find profitable openings for his knowledge and 
 experience in the way of deputy's work, etc. ; for one of 
 the most certain tendencies of local government work 
 is for new offices and emoluments created by the legis- 
 lature to drift into the hands of those already engaged 
 in similar duties, and thus in an especial sense experi- 
 ence becomes a capital, which may be made to pay 
 increasing interest as time goes on. 
 
 If, however, the learner of Phonography with no pre- 
 vious office experience cannot find a suitable opening 
 as a junior in a solicitor's office ; if he has no influential
 
 22 Phonography in the Office. 
 
 relative or patron to secure for him a place in banking, 
 insurance or railway establishments ; and his lack of 
 previous experience stands in the way of his selection 
 for a berth in local government offices, he will still have 
 the great mercantile world to fall back upon, where the 
 hurry and bustle of life make the saving of time by 
 means of shorthand, in many ways, and in many places, 
 an absolute necessity. Here the field will be much 
 wider, but, owing to the more general absence of the 
 demand for special experience, the number of applicants 
 and the competition for places will be greater also, and 
 the pay and chances of promotion not quite so good as 
 in the other directions mentioned. But even here, dili- 
 gence and perseverance are not likely to go unrewarded. 
 Enough has been said to show that the best point at 
 which to make use of shorthand as a means of obtain- 
 ing a situation, is when the young phonographer has 
 had a little previous experience as a junior clerk, or at 
 any rate a little experience of the inside of an office. 
 He may, under exceptional circumstances, or by means 
 of influential recommendations, be able to go straight 
 from home or school into a shorthand clerkship, but in 
 the great majority of cases it is otherwise, and his best 
 plan would be to commence as junior clerk in an office, 
 and then by making the most of his opportunities, and 
 improving his shorthand ability during the first year, 
 he will be in a much better position for using his short- 
 hand as a means of obtaining a situation elsewhere, if 
 no opportunity for its use presents itself in this, his first 
 situation.
 
 GENERAL QUALIFICATIONS. 
 
 [N these days no sensible student will expect to find 
 the philosopher's stone in one lump. That was 
 the mistake the alchemists made ; and, while 
 they were vainly endeavoring" to compel the elements to 
 give up the mystery, someone, I suppose, trod upon the 
 magic stone and smashed it to pieces, and thus, like Hope 
 in Pandora's Box, there remain chips of it, waiting to 
 reward toil and to compensate misfortunes, which are to 
 be found everywhere on life's highway. But if the art 
 of Phonography cannot claim to be the philosopher's 
 stone in a lump, it certainly contains a respectable chip 
 of that long-sought treasure ; and, to many a young 
 fellow, with his heart in his work, it has proved, com- 
 paratively speaking, not a bad substitute for the real 
 thing. The moral of the above is, that shorthand will 
 not cover a multitude of deficiences in other directions. 
 If the business of a shorthand clerk was to write nothing 
 but shorthand, or if the ability to write it was the extent 
 of the qualifications required of him, the test of efficiency 
 would be a comparatively simple one ; but for the effec- 
 tive and profitable use of Phonography in an office there 
 are collateral qualifications needed which claim our 
 attention on account of their importance. The youth 
 who would make a poor clerk in an office without short- 
 hand must not expect to make a first-class one with it. 
 The extent and character of the general qualifications 
 which may be necessary for a shorthand clerk will, of 
 course, vary somewhat with the kind of situation he is 
 called upon to fill, but at the same time there will be 
 certain requisites common to all. If he goes solely as a 
 shorthand clerk or shorthand writer of the first rank, he 
 should be pretty well informed on general subjects, and 
 especially on those having either a direct or indirect 
 bearing upon the business or profession of his employer, 
 and he should endeavor to be in this direction a good 
 all-round man. If he should be engaged, as some are, 
 in the service of a member of Parliament, or of a public
 
 24 Phonography in the Office. 
 
 or literary man, the extent and character of his general 
 qualifications should, of course, be high. History, gen- 
 eral and current literature, and contemporary politics, 
 would then come prominently within the range of his 
 requirements, but in the case of shorthand clerks em- 
 ployed in business houses, or the offices of professional 
 men, or public bodies, the general requirements will be 
 very different. In all these cases it will be more impor- 
 tant that the shorthand clerk should be well posted up 
 in accounts and in the elements of book-keeping than 
 that he should be expert in analysing and docketing for 
 reference the inconsistent utterances of a political oppo- 
 nent, or have at his finger ends the various shiftings of 
 the "balance of power" in Europe, or any passage 
 from Gibbon, Grote, or Macaulay ; or be able to give 
 an opinion on the Letters of Junius. In addition to a 
 knowledge of accounts he will also find a knowledge of 
 geography very essential, especially of his own country, 
 our colonies, and of the commercial centres in, and trade 
 routes to, the various foreign countries with which this 
 country has commercial relations. Wherever a sufficient 
 number of men can be found, in any part of the world, 
 to make a market, there an Englishman may generally 
 be found ready to sell them something or to buy what- 
 ever they may have to offer which his country requires, 
 and it should be one of the first duties of a shorthand 
 clerk employed in a mercantile house to find out as much 
 as possible of those particular countries with which his 
 house has transactions. 
 
 Coming to the case of the young phonographer who 
 is seeking a shorthand clerkship for the first time, or 
 who has had but little experience in an office, there are 
 certain qualifications of a more elementary kind which 
 are in danger of being overlooked owing to their very 
 familiarity, and their importance being very much under- 
 estimated. It is a significant fact, and an instructive 
 commentary upon certain stages of our educational 
 system, that, in the case of very many youths who have 
 been well brought up, and considered to be fairly well 
 educated, the weakest part of their qualifications for a 
 clerkship is often to be found in what may be called the 
 rudimentary parts of an education. The teaching of 
 plain English subjects is too much neglected even in
 
 General Qualifications. 25 
 
 many of our schools which profess to educate youth for 
 commercial and business life, and the reason is not far 
 to seek. To spell correctly, to write a good longhand, 
 to make good, square, readable figures, or to write in a 
 straight line across a piece of unruled paper, are such 
 ordinary, every-day, taken-for-granted. trifles to show for 
 that rather formidable bill, with its elastic margin for 
 " extras," which is sent in at the end of a " term," that 
 the temptation to look more to what are considered 
 "telling" subjects is too great to be resisted by the 
 majority of those responsible for a school curriculum 
 which claims to be above the status of an elementary 
 school. The consequence is that in such schools there 
 is no thorough grounding in the rudiments of English, 
 corresponding with that enforced in elementary schools, 
 a fact which in a great measure accounts for so many 
 of the cleverer boys from the Board Schools and the 
 Elementary Schools of the country securing the place on 
 the first rung of the clerks' ladder with very good pros- 
 pects of rising, simply because their qualifications are 
 substantial and useful. 
 
 To the phonographer who is seeking a situation as a 
 shorthand clerk, good longhand writing and " orthodox ' ' 
 spelling are of the first importance, and yet many a 
 youth on leaving school finds that it is upon just these 
 two points that he is the weakest. No amount of short- 
 hand ability will make up for an indifferent longhand. 
 It is this part of the shorthand clerk's work which will 
 come under the eye of an employer and his customers 
 or clients, and it is this which will reflect credit or dis- 
 credit upon the clerk and upon the office from which it 
 proceeds. There are many stories in circulation of men 
 of some eminence in public life writing such a wretchedly 
 bad hand as to be unable to read their own writing. 
 For the truthfulnes of one or two such stories the writer 
 can vouch. But such instances have not often proceeded 
 from men of business training and habits. If, however; 
 an employer should be guilty of writing "bad copy" 
 himself, he will not be likely to tolerate the same thing 
 in the clerk who conducts his correspondence. 
 
 If the would-be shorthand clerk writes a faulty style 
 of longhand irregular, loose, and wanting in finish 
 if he writes " a bad hand," he may do much to improve
 
 26 Phonography in the Office. 
 
 it and make it passable by selecting some definite and 
 effective form of those capital letters which vary most in 
 different styles of longhand, and having hit upon the 
 form which suits his hand best, to stick to it. The effect 
 of a good style of capital letters in improving an other- 
 wise indifferent longhand is very great. Among the 
 capitals which admit of the greatest modification and 
 the most effective service in this respect, the letter D 
 occupies the first place, both on its merits and because 
 it often has the place of honor in business correspon- 
 dence, in the familiar greeting " Dear Sir," etc. For 
 the last named reason the letter S should be the next to 
 receive attention. Other capitals worth a little attention 
 of this kind are Y (in "Yours truly," etc.), C, G, E, R, T, 
 M, and W. The same remarks also apply to certain 
 characteristic small letters in the alphabet which admit 
 of variation in different styles of longhand. The rqost 
 useful letters to experiment upon in this way are the 
 letters r (which is written in two distinct ways, * being 
 preferable to 4), s,g,,y, w, c, d. These may appear at 
 
 first sight to be trifling details, but the writer has known 
 cases in which a little drilling upon the best available 
 forms of the capital and small letters has worked a com- 
 plete transformation in a loose, ill-informed, and charac- 
 terless longhand. In this connection, and for the general 
 purposes of acquiring a good style of longhand, it is of 
 the greatest importance that good models should be 
 obtained to work upon, and, at least to the junior who 
 is already installed in an office, there are frequent oppor- 
 tunities for selecting these from the various styles in the 
 business letters which will come under his notice. The 
 little book in Messrs Pitman and Sons' catalogue entitled 
 " Papers o,n Penmanship" is recommended to those who 
 aspire to a clerkship and wish to, improve their long- 
 hand. 
 
 With many youths there is, at the commencement o,f 
 office work, a stiffness and labored appearance in their 
 writing which cannot too soon be got rid of. Business 
 men generally despise flourishes and ornarnent in writing 
 and these should qn no, account be attempted. The 
 writer should also avoid writing with a backward slope. 
 An upright or angular style is also objectionable. A
 
 General Qualifications. 27 
 
 good open and fairly round hand, with sufficient freedom 
 in it to be called flowing, and formed without frequently 
 lifting the pen, is the style which will most readily com- 
 mend itself to business men with whom the primary test 
 is that the writing should be sufficiently clear to be 
 easily read. If the writer possesses anything like this 
 in his own hand writing as a foundation to work upon, 
 all that he will require will be to develop the " flowing " 
 characteristic just mentioned, and he can leave the plan 
 of improvement which has been suggested, excepting 
 perhaps the hints on capital letters, to the more unfor- 
 tunate scribe who comes direct from school to the office 
 with the effect of sundry " impositions " clearly trace- 
 able in his slovenly penmanship. 
 
 Our English way of spelling is such an admirable 
 contrivance for " plucking " that, when educated 
 Englishmen and women are not always quite perfect in 
 this so-called elementary branch of education, it is not 
 surprising that a youth should sometimes fail in this 
 respect when he first enters an office, yet the difficulty 
 must be faced if he would fill the situation o.f a shorthand 
 clerk. An ill-spelled ungrammatical letter is not the 
 price a business man would care to pay for the privilege 
 of having his wishes taken down in shorthand. A clerk 
 may be otherwise qualified for general office work, but 
 unless he can spell, he is absolutely out of place in cor-, 
 respondence. The reason why a proof-reader, or an old 
 hand at the composing " stick," can spell well is that 
 he has had plenty of practice, and so there is left only 
 the application of the golden rule "practise and per-; 
 severe." 
 
 There are, however, pitfalls in the spelling of certain 
 common words which frequently turn up in business 
 correspondence, against which a word of warning may 
 be given. Care should be taken, for instance, to dis- 
 tinguish between the correct spelling of such similar 
 words as principle (noun) and principal (adjective), 
 style and stile, has and as, to and too, there and their, 
 than and then, advice and advise, practice (noun) and 
 practise (verb), except and accept, president and 
 precedent. The transposition of the letters i and e in, 
 certain words with similar vowel sounds as in believe 
 and receive, relief and receipt should be carefully
 
 28 Phonography in the Office. 
 
 noticed. The cases in which the letter e should be 
 omitted or inserted in the middle of certain words, and 
 the cases in which a consonant should be doubled or 
 remain single, are often perplexing, as in the following : 
 abridge and abridgment, judge and judgment, acknow- 
 ledge and acknowledgement, manage and management, 
 argue and argument, accede and succeed, proceeding 
 and preceding, annu/ and annu//ed, benefi/ and bene- 
 fited, fulfi/ and fulfi//ed, paralle/ and paralle/ed, permi/ 
 and permi#ed, profi/ and profiled. The following are 
 other words containing distinctions in spelling which 
 are important : effect and effect, indispensable and 
 possible, observance and correspondence, consistence 
 and resistance, serviceable and unmistakable, stationery 
 (paper, etc.) and stationary (fixed), canvas and canva.w 
 (to solicit), chec/ and cheque, counez'l (a meeting) and 
 counsel (advice). 
 
 It has been shown that the shorthand clerk's qualifica- 
 tions should be substantial and useful even though they 
 may be lacking in elegance and culture, but there is no 
 reason why they should not embody a little of both 
 characteristics. He may be familiar with something of 
 Euclid, but. he must be quick at accounts and make 
 plain figures which will pass muster with a business 
 man ; he may be versed in circles, tangents and curves, 
 but he must be able to write in a perfectly straight line 
 across unruled paper ; he -may be able to find his way 
 throueh the maze of Latin " verb endings," but he must 
 be able to distinguish between two common English 
 words pronounced alike but spelled differently ; he may 
 know something of general literature, politics, and of 
 the rise and fall of ancient civilizations, but he must (if 
 engaged in a business house) know something of modern 
 geography, in its commercial aspect, and modern 
 civilization, having regard to the production and distri- 
 bution of wealth, more especially of that of his own 
 country and of those countries with which it has com- 
 mercial transactions. Finally, he may know something 
 about ringing the changes on tupto and amo, though a 
 little knowledge of German, Spanish, French, or Italian, 
 would be of much more value to him than Greek and 
 Latin, but he must know the grammatical construction 
 of the English language. But here again in many of
 
 General Qualifications. 29 
 
 what are known as middle-class schools it is the English 
 grammar which often comes in for the "scamping." 
 Familiarity with the usages of English grammar in its 
 main features of every-day observance, is, however, an 
 indispensable condition of success for a shorthand clerk. 
 It is true, of course, that he is guided in some measure 
 by what is dictated to him, but even if it were worthy of 
 his position to depend upon this, it would not save him 
 from numerous risks of error in transcribing letters, and 
 the dictator himself may not have been perfectly gram- 
 matical in his hurried dictation. 
 
 In the foregoing subjects which have been emphasized 
 as necessary qualifications there is nothing very formid- 
 able, and very little but what every fairly well-educated 
 youth ought to be perfectly master of, but it must be 
 distinctly understood that the points insisted upon con- 
 stitute the minimum, and not necessarily the maximum 
 of the shorthand clerk's general qualifications. If his 
 aim is to rise to the first rank in his calling, he will seek 
 to improve himself in these, and add to them others in 
 the directions indicated, looking out first of all for such 
 as may have even an indirect bearing upon the business 
 or profession with which his duties are connected, or 
 which will help in any way to add to the efficiency or 
 increase the value of his services. Upon the last named 
 point it may be mentioned that a knowledge of one of 
 the modern Continental languages could not fail to 
 enhance the shorthand clerk's prospects in rnany large 
 business houses. The choice of a language to learn in 
 such a case could be made after entering a situation, 
 and would depend somewhat upon the choice of the 
 business house in which the writer may enter (or upon 
 any previous knowledge that he may have of a language), 
 but German, French, Spanish, and Italian, are the 
 principal languages in which business letters are received 
 by English houses. In the case of a shorthand clerk 
 employed in a solicitor's office, or in the office of a 
 public board, etc., there wou}d be little if any opening 
 for the use of such an extra qualification as a foreign 
 language, but in mercantile offices the case is very dif- 
 ferent, for a large amount of correspondence is some- 
 times conducted in a foreign language, and in many 
 cases a special correspondent is employed for this pur-
 
 30 Phonography in the Office. 
 
 pose. But even if a youth does not aspire to the com- 
 plete mastery of a language, he will find it worth his 
 while to master the equivalents, in one or two such lan- 
 guages, of a few familiar every-day words ; such, for 
 instance, as the names of the days of the week ; the 
 names of the months ; the numerals ; the relative value 
 of the commonest coins ; and the variations in spelling 
 the names of places and the Christian names of indivi- 
 duals, etc. A little knowledge of this kind will not be 
 very difficult to acquire, and will be pretty sure to prove 
 useful. Upon the important subjects of composition, 
 punctuation, etc., in letter writing, something will be 
 said under the head of *' transcribing,,"
 
 APPLYING FOR A SITUATION. 
 
 iOMEONE has said that you may tell a man's 
 character for business by the way in which he an- 
 swers or draws up an advertisement, and there 
 is some truth in the remark. A great deal of an appli- 
 cant's chances of success in obtaining a clerkship will 
 often depend upon this initial effort, and it is surprising 
 what a trifling circumstance will turn the scale where 
 the merits of a number of candidates are about equal. 
 There are two usual methods of obtaining a situation, 
 namely, answering advertisements and advertising. I will 
 deal first and most fully with that of answering an adver- 
 tisement, because something of what is said upon that 
 subject will also apply to any communications or inter- 
 views which may follow as a result of advertising for a 
 situation. There must, of course, always be a certain ob- 
 jection to answering an advertisement where no name is 
 given> as the applicant has no means of knowing with 
 whom he may be communicating. Possibly he may find 
 himself in such a predicament as that experienced by 
 the crochety old bachelor who, after spending the best 
 part of a lifetime in single blessedness, living with an 
 equally crochety maiden sister of uncertain age and 
 similarly circumstanced, at last hit upon the desperate 
 plan of launching out into the open sea of matrimony. 
 He drew up the advertisement which was expected to be 
 the means of delivering him from the dull round of ex- 
 istence to which he had been accustomed, and sent it 
 off to a matrimonial journal. He received but one answer. 
 His crochety maiden sister had seen that anonymous 
 advertisement, and had come to the same conclusion as 
 himself, and at the appointed interview that old bachelor 
 and spinster once more came face to face with the burden 
 of the old life which each was seeking to flee from. So 
 the applicant for a shorthand clerkship might possibly 
 find his letter of application turning up where he least 
 expected it. For this and other reasons a little caution 
 is necessary in such cases.
 
 32 Phonography in the Office. 
 
 The practice of giving only initials, such as A.B. and 
 X.Y.Z., etc., at the end of'an advertisement is so general 
 that the disadvantage must be faced. Indeed, the writer 
 noticed at the time of writing this chapter, as many as 
 thirty situations advertised in one week in the Daily 
 Telegraph for shorthand clerks, or clerks having a know- 
 ledge of shorthand, and in nine cases out of ten they 
 were either anonymous or application was to be made 
 through an advertising agency. This instance of the 
 large number of situations in which shorthand is now 
 required, also points to the need for the exercise of some 
 discretion in answering advertisernents. Some foolish 
 learners of Phonography I have known to answer all 
 kinds of situations in which the word " shorthand " oc- 
 curred, thinking in the spirit of Micawber philosophy, that 
 out of so many applications something would be sure to 
 "turn up." Ifthephonographer, however, has exercised 
 discretion in answering the advertisement which appears 
 to agree best with his ability, general qualifications, and 
 experience, he should bear in mind th,is important fact, 
 that his own character and fitness for the post he is seek- 
 ing will be judged in the first instance by his written 
 application, (and testimonials where these accompany 
 the application,) and very often the result of that judg- 
 ment will depend not merely upon what he says in his 
 application, but also upon the way in which he says it. 
 An employer has no other mean,s of testing the accuracy 
 of what you say when your application is first opened, 
 but he has a keen eye for the way in which you say it, 
 and the art of the thing is, qf course, in saying enough 
 without saying too much. )o not expect that you will 
 obtain a situation because you want it ; if you get one it 
 will be because you deserve it. Therefore, avoid any- 
 thing like a begging letter, or asking for a situation as 
 a favor. Business men succeed in business by showing 
 the public that it is to their interest to deal with them, 
 and you should approach an employer in the same spirit. 
 The applicant should state his qualifications clearly and 
 concisely, and with sufficient moderation to command 
 the respect of others, yet with sufficient confidence to 
 show that he respects himself. Above all things he 
 should avoid writing a diffuse and discursive letter of 
 application. On no account should his letter of appli-
 
 Applying for a Situation. 33 
 
 cation be written in shorthand, nor need he send any 
 specimen of his Phonography, unless it is asked for in 
 the advertisement he is answering. An employer who 
 has perhaps from one to two hundred applications for a 
 situation will have no time to learn shorthand in order 
 to test their relative merits. If necessary, he has a rough 
 and ready method of settling this point which is more 
 satisfactory to himself, though it may prove a "rod in 
 pickle " for applicants with a limited stock of shorthand 
 ability. Suppose an applicant wishes to answer an 
 advertisement such as the following : 
 
 WANTED, an efficient Shorthand Clerk ; one with some office 
 experience. Must be steady and reliable ; a good business 
 correspondent, and used to accounts. State salary required, with 
 references. A. B. 
 
 The following is a specimen of a letter which should 
 not be written m answer to such an advertisement : 
 
 My dear Sir, I have the honor to offer you my services for the 
 situation of a Shorthand Clerk advertised hi the Daily Telegraph of 
 Monday last, and for which I am confident I shall be able to dis- 
 charge the duties to your entire satisfaction. I have had plenty of 
 office experience and sometimes as a shorthand clerk. I am an ex- 
 pert shorthand writer, and very superior at longhand and accounts. 
 I am willing to take your situation for 2 a week, which I think you 
 will agree with me is a reasonable figure for one with undeniable 
 qualifications. If you wish it I shall be prepared to give you the 
 names of two gentlemen who will vouch for everything I have said 
 in this letter, as I am at present in, a good situation. Hoping you 
 will favor me with the situation, I remain, yours, etc., 
 
 P.S. I enclose my photo. JOHN SMITH. 
 
 One half of the egotistical points contained in the 
 above letter would effectually settle the chances of any 
 candidate, and the mistakes as to the proper form of 
 drawing up such a letter, and the omission to definitely 
 answer the points raised in the advertisement, would be 
 equally decisive in placing the writer at once out of 
 court. The following form of a letter of application is 
 suggested as embodying the lines upon which the ap- 
 plicant's merits and qualifications should have been set 
 forth in such a case ; omitting, of course, the photo : 
 4
 
 34 Phonography in the Office. 
 
 To A. B. 
 
 Sir, In reply to your advertisement, in the Daily Telegraph 
 of this morning, for a Shorthand Clerk, I beg respectfully to offer 
 you my services. 
 
 I have been in the office of Messrs Brown and Jones for the last 
 three years and am still there. Part of that time I have been em- 
 ployed as general clerk at accounts, and since then as shorthand 
 clerk, in which capacity I have been entrusted with the correspon- 
 dence of the Firm. I have, therefore, every reason to believe that I 
 should be able to discharge the duties to your satisfaction. 
 
 The salary required would be 2 a week, and for testimonials as 
 to my personal character and ability I would refer you to Messrs 
 Brown and Jones, my present employers. Should you think my 
 qualifications suitable I shall be happy to wait upon you if desired. 
 I am, your obedient Servant, 
 
 JOHN SMITH. 
 
 As the point is one which has a general bearing upon 
 the subject of business correspondence, it may not be 
 out of place to note the different forms of commencing 
 and ending the above specimen letters. The preliminary 
 greeting, " My dear sir," in the first letter is obviously 
 improper, and would be altogether out of place in ad- 
 dressing either a superior or a stranger. "Dear sir," 
 would not be quite so bad, but " Sir" would, of course, 
 be much more appropriate in such a case. Again, the 
 concluding form, "I remain," would only be justified, 
 or indeed have any meaning, in cases where there had 
 been a previous correspondence or acquaintance, and 
 " I am " should, therefore, in this case be used. 
 
 When a candidate for a shorthand clerkship sees an 
 advertisement which he thinks it desirable to answer, he 
 should do so promptly, and not have to write Monday 
 last, as in the first of the above letters of application. 
 The man who writes Monday last in such a case, is 
 generally too late, and out of a hundred applicants the 
 first received will always have the best chance of being 
 considered. In answering an advertisement the ap- 
 plicant should answer clearly and concisely the points 
 in the advertisement in the order in which they arise, 
 giving a paragraph to each subject. He should select 
 the best materials and write his letter in the best long- 
 hand he can command, paying special attention to ar- 
 rangement and to his own signature at the end of the 
 letter, and to the address on the envelope. He should 
 also read his letter through carefully before enclosing it,
 
 Applying for a Situation. 35 
 
 for " there's many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip " says 
 the proverb, and a single " slip," in the form of a mis- 
 spelled word or misplaced or mistaken date, etc., may 
 be sufficient in his case to realize its meaning. 
 
 One or two instances of the above " slips " the writer 
 could give from his own observation. In onecase, which 
 was as amusing to the persons inquiring into the merits 
 of the candidates as it was crushing to the .prospects of 
 the particular candidate, occurred in the filling up of an 
 appointment by a public body. One of the candidates, 
 who apparently had an otherwise very fair chance of 
 success, thought it worth while, in his letter of applica- 
 tion, to mention his height (a totally unnecessary thing 
 to do), and by an unfortunate " slip," instead of writing 
 5 ft. 9 in. , he, unconsciously no doubt, elevated his stature 
 to the extraordinary height of " 9 ft. 5 in. ! " This in- 
 nocent little transposition of a figure of course created a 
 great deal of amusement at the writer's expense, and 
 the Directors, thinking that the applicant would naturally 
 feel a little "above them," passed on to the claims of 
 the next applicant. In another ease an applicant lost 
 all chance of gaining the appointment he was seeking, 
 a few days after the New Year had commenced, by fol- 
 lowing the force of habit in dating letters for the previous 
 year, and dated his letter of application for the year 
 which had just expired. Everyone knows how easily a 
 slip of this kind is made at such a time. In both cases 
 the straightforward, business character of the letters in 
 other respects made it perfectly clear that the mistake 
 was unintentional. Such apparent trifles were, of course, 
 not inconsistent with the belief that the two candidates 
 might be able men, but the inference a business man 
 draws from such trifles, however natural and plausible 
 the explanation of them may be, is that if an applicant 
 will make such a " slip " at such a lime, he may make 
 a " slip " at another time, when the consequences might 
 be serious. 
 
 If an answer to an advertisement is considered satis- 
 factory, the applicant will probably (with several others), 
 be selected for personal attendance at the office of the 
 firm. Very much will depend upon the estimate of 
 character an employer will form of each applicant at 
 such an interview, and the man who, by his qualifica- 
 4 *
 
 36 Phonography in the Office. 
 
 tions on paper, appeared to start first in the race, will 
 often come off second best, simply because he is not 
 gifted naturally with, or has neglected to cultivate, that 
 very essential of business a good and pleasant style of 
 address. For one candidate who, at such an interview, 
 can show that he knows how to respect himself and at 
 the same time be respectful to a possible employer, there 
 will probably be several who will fail to do themselves 
 justice, either through some personal peculiarity or con- 
 ceit, or a too self-depreciatory spirit, and to whom the 
 best qualifications on paper will never quite make up the 
 balance. While an applicant should, of course, seek to 
 be on his best behavior under such circumstances, he 
 should guard against pushing this effort to ingratiate 
 himself with a possible employer beyond what is natural 
 to him ; and above all should avoid anything like "play- 
 ing a part," or delivering himself of a set speech bearing- 
 traces of frequent rehearsal ; though the temptation to do 
 this is often very strong with young fellows who have 
 had no experience in such matters. Many an applicant 
 has spoiled his chance of success by a weakness of this 
 kind, and it is hardly necessary to add that want of punc- 
 tuality, carelessness or extravagance in the matter of 
 dress, do not often lead to success in such a competi- 
 tion. The candidate who succeeds best in steering clear 
 of such little indications of unbusinesslike character, and 
 who is the most straightforward, frank and unhesitating 
 in answering any question which may be put to him, has 
 won half the battle, and will certainly very soon obtain 
 what he is seeking. 
 
 The foregoing has reference chiefly to answering ad- 
 vertisements for situations, but in seeking to obtain a 
 situation as a shorthand clerk in a mercantile office, or 
 a solicitor's office, the better plan is generally to adver- 
 tise on your own account. You will not, of course, get 
 the large number of applications that an employer would 
 get in answer to his advertisement, but even if you should 
 only get one, you will in that case perhaps be the only 
 candidate whose claims will have to be considered by an 
 employer, instead of being one in a hundred ; and con- 
 sequently your merits will be much more likely to receive 
 a fair consideration. 2'he limes and the Daily Tele- 
 graph will be found the best of the London daily papers
 
 Applying for a Situation. 37 
 
 for this particular purpose. In drawing up such an ad- 
 vertisement care should be taken not to over-state your 
 quali6cations, and not offer your services too cheaply. 
 It is better in this case not to state the exact remunera- 
 tion required, or you may shut yourself out from a suit- 
 able situation ; or an employer will perhaps accept you 
 on your own terms when he would otherwise have been 
 prepared to give a little more. The following is sug- 
 gested as a suitable form for such an advertisement, 
 subject, of course, to such variation as the circumstances 
 of the case may require, and the reference to special ex- 
 perience if any has been gained: 
 
 SHORTHAND CLERK. Wanted, by an efficient shorthand 
 and longhand writer, an engagement as above. Has had four 
 years' office experience. Age, 20 ; good references ; moderate salary. 
 Address B. C. 
 
 If a youth is advertising who has had no previous ex- 
 perience as a junior clerk he may adopt such a form as 
 the above, but omitting the reference to experience, or 
 he may use such a form as the following : 
 
 SHORTHAND. An intelligent youth desires an engagement as 
 Junior Shorthand Clerk. Writes shorthand ( Pitman's) at a good 
 average speed, and is quick at long-hand and figures. Address X, 
 
 If a situation under a public body is desired, this plan 
 of advertising would be of no avail, as such situations 
 are generally filled up by advertising and throwing them 
 open to all. But among situations of the first-class, 
 to which reference was made in a previous chapter, 
 the most remunerative are not often advertised at all, 
 but are filled up by influential recommendations. One 
 remark on the subject of references and testimonials 
 will equally apply, whether the situation is sought by 
 means of advertising or by answering an advertisement. 
 In the case of a business man or mercantile firm, re- 
 quiring a shorthand clerk, references to previous em- 
 ployers are generally accepted, but in the case of a 
 larger office or that of a public body, this would be too 
 troublesome an arrangement, and the candidate must 
 be prepared with his testimonials ; that is to say, he 
 should send in copies with his application.. Then in case 
 he is selected for a personal interview he should not for- 
 get to take the originals of his testimonials with him,
 
 38 Phonography in the Office. 
 
 as they will most likely be asked for. For the above 
 reason it is always better to obtain a testimonial on 
 leaving a situation, than trusting to a reference at a 
 future date. By having his testimonials by him a can- 
 didate is able to make as many copies as may be neces- 
 sary in answering more than one advertisement, and 
 thus save the trouble of possibly more than one reference" 
 to his previous employers, -even if the latter were still in 
 the same position or at the same address, which might 
 not always be the case. If an applicant has several tes- 
 timonials the most recent ones will be valued most. 
 
 Whether the applicant for a shorthand clerkship seeks 
 to obtain a situation by answering an advertisement or 
 by advertising, there remains in the former case the pro- 
 bability, and in the latter case the possibility, that, as a 
 part of the interview with an employer to which refer- 
 ence has been made> he would be called upon to* submit 
 his shorthand ability to a practical test. Many candi- 
 dates shrink from the idea of such a test, and in the 
 case of some who rush in wherever a vacancy occurs 
 there is perhaps sufficient reason for their diffidence ; 
 but to the conscientious student of Phonography it should 
 not be such a very formidable matter. If he should ob- 
 tain a situation by advertising, or by the influence of 
 others, and can command a good testimonial as to speed 
 and ability from some responsible teacher of Phonogra- 
 phy, or is in possession of a Phonographic Speed Certi- 
 ficate, he will probably escape any such preliminary trial 
 of his powers, but as one among a hundred applicants 
 answering an advertisement, the chances are that he 
 would not. Forewarned should be fore-armed, and no 
 better kind of preparatory practice can be devised than 
 to add to an ordinary course of shorthand writing a 
 thorough grounding in taking down business corres- 
 pondence, and in whatever peculiarities may be found in 
 the particular business or office he seeks to enter. This 
 may not be an absolutely infallible preparation, for an 
 employer might dictate something outside the ordinary 
 character of the business, but the advice is sound never- 
 theless, for in the majority of cases the probability is 
 that an applicant would be tested in that kind of work 
 in which the employer would require his services. With 
 this special preparation the candidate will find himself
 
 Applying for a Situation. 39 
 
 ready if called upon, and if he is not he will have the 
 satisfaction of -feeling that the confidence in him has not 
 been misplaced. 
 
 If, however, an applicant is selected for a personal in- 
 terview, he should be prepared for the emergency by 
 taking with him his own writing materials those 
 which he has found in practice have enabled him to do 
 the best work. To sit down to a. dictation exercise from 
 . a man who may be your future employer, with the con- 
 sciousness that the issue depends in a great measure 
 upon ho\ yo'u acquit yourself at the task, is, of -course, 
 very different from your ordinary run of practice, and 
 while it contains stimulus to the highest effort, it also 
 contains that -which may disconcert you and prevent 
 your doing full justice to your ability. Do not allow the 
 novelty of the situation to make you over anxious, or the 
 manner'of the person who is about to dictate to you to 
 frighten you into a hurry. If you set about your task 
 methodically he will respect you for it. But having com- 
 menced your note-taking, concentrate all your attention 
 and energies upon it while it lasts, even to the extent of 
 making a mental note of any difficult point, and thus 
 bringing in the aid of memory, if necessary, when read- 
 ing your notes. Between a business man dictating a 
 set passage to half-a-dozen candidates in this way, and 
 the same man dictating an ordinary business letter, 
 there will be something like the difference noticed be- 
 tween a person who knows nothing of shorthand dictat- 
 ing from a book, and the natural flow of words from a 
 public speaker, and therefore the test, though compara- 
 tively a short one (probably a letter), is not a fair one 
 from a business point of view, and the candidate who 
 passes it successfully will have no difficulty in meeting 
 the demands upon him when actually filling the situa- 
 tion, so far as speed is concerned. 
 
 If a candidate is of a particularly nervous tempera- 
 ment, he should, in addition to his ordinary pocket ink 
 bottle, pen, and note-book, provide himself with a good 
 HB pencil, sharpened well at both ends; and, if he 
 finds himself likely to be " flurried " by his novel situa- 
 tion, he may then abandon pen and ink for the time and 
 trust to his pencil. Having taken his shorthand note 
 satisfactorily or otherwise, there will be one other point
 
 40 Phonography in the Office. 
 
 upon which the candidate's chances will turn, and really 
 the critical point, namely, the transcript of what he has 
 taken. A correct transcript will be evidence of the suffi- 
 ciency of his shorthand speed ; a well written and pro- 
 perly punctuated transcript will be evidence of his fitness 
 to undertake business correspondence.
 
 ON ENTERING A SITUATION. 
 
 SE who would be useful to mankind must accomo- 
 date himself to their manners. This old truism 
 
 would, perhaps, be more appropriate in a 
 
 volume of Laconics, or of that proverbial philosophy 
 which, in the rush of life of the present day, is in danger 
 of being too much disregarded. The shorthand clerk 
 who enters an office with which he has not been pre- 
 viously connected cannot afford to disregard it. He 
 must begin at once to look about him and adapt himself 
 with all speed to his surroundings. The first considera- 
 tion will be to find out those peculiarities of the business 
 either in technical language, figures, or routine, which 
 are likely at the first to prove a stumblings-block in the 
 exercise of his art as a phonographer, and in the way of 
 an intelligent transcript of his notes. No more ready 01 
 valuable means of doing this can be afforded than by 
 acquainting himself with the contents of the letter 
 books, and especially the recent ones. In these letter 
 books he will find the history of the business, written in 
 the language which he will have to write in shorthand. 
 He will there note what are the peculiar terms employed 
 and what are the most frequently recurring groups of 
 words. Having entered the same in a book provided 
 for the purpose, he should then provide some special 
 contractions, if necessary, so as to enable him to take 
 down such terms or groups of words, with facility and 
 despatch. To get the full value out of such contractions 
 they should, of course, be written out again and again 
 until he can write them as readily as the grammalogues 
 and contractions in the " Manual of Phonography." A 
 little time spent in this way at the outset will soon make 
 the new comer familiar with the peculiarities of the 
 business and will render his shorthand a ready instru- 
 ment for giving expression to them. Moreover, this 
 preliminary survey will not only prove useful by enabling 
 him to anticipate difficulties and in giving him confidence 
 in his first attempts at note-taking, but also because
 
 42 Phonography in the Office. 
 
 every addition to his knowledge of the business will be 
 of the- greatest value to him in the transcription of his 
 notes. 
 
 An intelligent shorthand clerk may soon adapt him- 
 self and his art to the peculiarities of an office or busi- 
 ness, after he has got there and got fairly into working 
 order, but it is none the less true that the ordinary 
 practice which many youths have accustomed themselves 
 to before entering upon such duties, might leave them 
 in hopeless bewilderment, during the first few attempts, 
 over some formidable, because unaccustomed, set of 
 terms ; such, for instance, as those in frequent use in an 
 insurance office with its "quinquennial valuations," 
 " reversionary bonuses," and " non-participating policy- 
 holders." In such cases as these the advantage of an 
 arrangement which will enable the writer to represent 
 such cumbersome phrases by two or three strokes of the 
 pen must be obvious, and there is no more convenient 
 or intelligible direction in which this may be done than 
 by a judicious use of the principle of intersecting the 
 leading consonants as recommended in Phonography. 
 There are two important considerations upon which the 
 selection and adoption of such contractions should be 
 based. One is the difficulty of writing certain peculiar 
 words or phrases in full with sufficient expedition, and 
 the other is the frequency with which such words or 
 phrases occur. A phrase which occurs twice as often as 
 another, will of course benefit the writer most by being 
 written as a contraction or in other words the value of 
 any special contraction is multiplied by the comparative 
 frequency of its occurrence. 
 
 If the young phonographer is entering an insurance 
 office he will find it worth while to write such words as 
 quinquennial valuations by intersecting the simple 
 phonographic signs, thus C ^ D or reversionary bonus 
 by X^_p and so on with any other similar phrases which 
 may present a difficulty in taking down speedily with full 
 alphabetic outlines. If he is entering a Local Gov- 
 ernment office such as a Town Clerk's office, a Local 
 Board office, etc., or any office of a public body under 
 the control of the Local Government Board, he will find 
 still greater play for the exercise of this shortening pro-
 
 On Entering a Situation. ' 43 
 
 cess ; indeed, the opportunities will be greater than 'in 
 almost any other office or any other department^ of 
 public life. The title Local Government Board itself, 
 which will very frequently occur in such cases, may be 
 written by the simple expedient /'* t " = - r v a Local Board 
 may be similarly represented by ^~~^ or, if necessary, 
 
 even by the shorter form ^< a Town Council by U=> 
 and Council may bs represented by ~f omitting 
 n ; the words Town Clerk by J .. and the very 
 frequently recurring, but not very easily written, word 
 ratepayers by ^, The same expedients would also 
 answer well for numerous other terms and phrases, such 
 as the style and title of the various committees which 
 are appointed by such representative public bodies. 
 That the same thing may be advantageously practised 
 in a solicitor's office is sufficiently indicated by the legal 
 phrases given in Mr Pitman's instruction books. In a 
 School Board office the same principle will apply in such 
 words as School Board "-A School Attendance Com- 
 mittee e ~|| Editcation Department which may be 
 written I | and a similar expedient may be resorted to 
 with the various departments under a Railway Company. 
 In an office connected with shipping too, such frequent 
 terms as Bills of Lading and Charter Party might be 
 
 represented thus, \^L. l^\ respectively. 
 
 In all businesses or professions in which shorthand 
 may be required, there will be a necessity for special 
 phraseograms. It would, however, be impossible within 
 any reasonable limits to suggest contractions for each 
 business or profession. The directions for their use are 
 as various as are the departments of business and official 
 life in which Phonography has now become an indis- 
 pensable handmaid. But enough has been said to show 
 the direction in which the usefulness of the plan may be 
 found. A more practical application of the principle, 
 and of other methods of abbreviation, will, however, be 
 given in special examples for preparation hereafter. 
 With regard to the extent to which such a practice 
 should be carried there is need perhaps for one word of
 
 44 Phonography in the Office. 
 
 caution. While the shorthand clerk in any business 
 may find a sufficient field for the exercise of this prin- 
 ciple, and without sacrificing the legibility of his short- 
 hand for his own fiurfioses, he should not " keep more 
 cats than will catch mice." He should not carry this 
 principle of special contractions so far as to burden the 
 memory with forms of doubtful value, or weaken the 
 scientific basis of his art. In these days when short- 
 hand is of such extensive utility in almost every depart- 
 ment of life when there is a tendency to tack on a few 
 improvements or alterations to some respectable system 
 and then give it a new name it is not perhaps too much 
 to say, considering the future possibilities ot shorthand, 
 that it is of national importance that there should be 
 some acknowledged shorthand currency for all the 
 purposes to which the art may be applied, and there 
 appears to be no other system, besides the Phonography 
 of Mr Isaac Pitman, which is entitled, either by merit 
 or custom, to any such universal claim. In so far as 
 commercial life may modify the current of speech to suit 
 its needs, shorthand for business purposes may be adap- 
 ted to the same end, but "adaptations" and "modi- 
 fications" of a system of shorthand so national as 
 Phonography should be jealously guarded against, and 
 kept within the strict limits of usefulness. In England, 
 at any rate, the writer, as an old phonographer, would 
 be sorry to see such a mongrel presentment of Phono- 
 graphy as that which has grown up in America, but which 
 is now, happily, being superseded by the English form of 
 Phonography. 
 
 Unless the shorthand clerk has a memory like that of 
 Themistocles who was reputed to be able to name every- 
 one of the twenty thousand citizens of Athens, he will 
 find attention to names and addresses of great value to 
 him in the course of his duties. One of the most fre- 
 quent demands upon a clerk in an office, and especially 
 a corresponding clerk, will be that of remembering the 
 names, titles and addresses, of individuals and firms 
 with whom his employer has transactions as customers 
 or clients, etc. When looking over the letter books, as 
 recommended on entering an office, he may write out 
 into a book kept for the purpose an alphabetic list of 
 these names and addresses, but the sooner he can carry
 
 On Entering a Situation, 43 
 
 a good number of them in his head the better. This 
 will be so much a part of his work, however, that, if he 
 is a conscientious workman, he will soon find himself 
 storing both his memory and his note-book with items 
 of information of this kind, which will enable him to 
 answer any queries in this direction promptly and with- 
 out displaying any want of interest in his employer's 
 business by resorting to the apologetic promise, " I'll 
 look it up, sir." Considering that in most large business 
 houses or offices the correspondents of the firm will 
 include persons in all stations and ranks of life, the 
 shorthand clerk should also provide himself with a list 
 of the proper forms of addressing persons, officials and 
 dignitaries of rank and title, both as to the formal salu- 
 tation in commencing a letter to such persons, and the 
 proper address on the envelope. 
 
 If it is true in a general sense that there is nothing lost 
 by cultivating a friendly disposition towards those with 
 whom a man may come in daily contact in business life, 
 it is especially true in the case of the shorthand clerk, 
 and in his attitude towards his colleagues in an office. 
 Considering that his position is in some measure a con- 
 fidential one, and that he is brought into much more 
 intimate contact with the principal of a firm than a 
 general clerk of much longer service may be, he cannot 
 be too careful for his own sake in seeking to start, and 
 continue, on good terms with his fellow-workers. There 
 will be no need for him to be a Uriah Keep, the 'umble 
 cringing clerk portrayed by Dickens in " David Copper- 
 field," and on the other hand he should avoid anything 
 like a disposition to take advantage of the invidious 
 element in his position, by affecting airs of superiority. 
 Even if there were no higher motive for cultivating a 
 good feeling with the other clerks than that of self- 
 interest, the shorthand clerk should, at least, do nothing 
 which would prejudice his position in the eyes of his 
 colleagues, for he will be fortunate if he does not occa- 
 sionally stand in need of some little assistance which 
 their experience of the business would enable them to 
 give. 
 
 Clerks, like others, are not destitute of human nature, 
 on its weak, as well as its better, side, and in some 
 cases the shorthand clerk may find that he has to face
 
 4g Phonography in the Office. 
 
 something very like a disposition to withhold, rather 
 than to give, any little information of which he may 
 stand in need on entering a fresh office. In any case a 
 kindly disposition towards others will bring its own 
 reward, whether in disarming rebuffs or obtaining assis- 
 tance, and, if nothing else, will add to his happiness in 
 the work. Civility costs nothing and pays interest, and 
 the most effective weapon to make way with, either on 
 entering a strange office or to obtain promotion in after 
 life, is cheerfulness or good temper. It is the unguent 
 which reduces the friction and the wear and tear of 
 business life to a minimum, and gives to its possessor at 
 the outset a decided advantage over the unfortunate 
 possessor of an austere manner, or a morose temper. 
 It is not, of course, suggested that cheerfulness and good 
 temper can be acquired by anyone like shorthand or 
 book-keeping. They are in a great measure the fruit of 
 natural disposition, physical health, and constitutional 
 temperament, but where a candidate for an office is not 
 thus naturally gifted he should at least do all in his 
 power to conceal or neutralize any defects of an opposite 
 character, and thus make up, as far as may be possible, 
 for the deficiency of that rare virtue which, next to honesty 
 and trustworthiness, has often done more than any other 
 trait of character, in obtaining for its possessor a rapid 
 and substantial promotion. 
 
 These hints on the attitude of a shorthand clerk when 
 entering an office may very well conclude with the follow- 
 ing piece of Baconian philosophy. " Preserve the right 
 of thy place but stir not questions of jurisdiction, and 
 rather assume thy right in silence and de facto than 
 voice it with claims and challenges. Embrace and 
 invite helps and advices touching the execution of thy 
 place ; and do not drive away such as bring thee in- 
 formation."
 
 THE SHORTHAND CLERK AT WORK. 
 
 JHE worst troubles and the most delightful occu- 
 pations are those which never come ; and, with 
 many young fellows who are aspiring to the use 
 of their shorthand in an office, without any previous 
 office experience, the ideal picture of work in their new 
 sphere is pretty sure to be at fault in one or other of the 
 above directions, according to the tendency of personal 
 habits in the direction of conscientious work or of in- 
 dolence. Between the ideal picture of having someone 
 at your elbow making confidential suggestions for the 
 letters to be written, and the real modern city man face 
 to face with the necessity of employing shorthand in his 
 business, there is a sufficient margin for any number of 
 illusions and discoveries. Glancing briefly at both sides 
 of the picture, it is quite possible that the future short- 
 hand clerk may sometimes have pictured to himself a 
 position, as the confidential medium for the transmission 
 of his employer's wishes, something like the following. 
 He has perched himself at his desk with becoming dig- 
 nity, and conveniently at his elbow stands his confiding 
 employer telling him what he is to say ; and he may 
 further imagine that something of this sort happens : 
 Employer : " This, Mr Thompson, is Mr Smith's letter, 
 which I wish you to answer. I will read it to you, and 
 then you will understand better what it is that I want 
 you to say in reply." [Reads it.] " Now, then, if you 
 will take it down I will tell you what to say. Tell Mr 
 Smith that I have received his letter and shall be glad 
 but perhaps you had better take the beginning. Say, 
 then, ' I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of 
 the I4th inst., and shall be glad to confer with you res- 
 pecting the proposal for the purchase of the New Three 
 per Cents.' Have you got that ? I mean the Three per 
 Cents.?" "Yes." " Then tell him that I cannot make 
 any absolute promise until I have discussed the matter 
 with my partner, and when I have done that I will let 
 him know the result. There, just read it over and see
 
 48 Phonography in the Office. 
 
 if you have got it right." He reads it over with con- 
 scious pride of having achieved a victory. 
 
 " That will do ; now if you will get it written out I will 
 sign it, and we can get it off by the next post." Both 
 agree that shorthand is a wonderful power in business. 
 
 So much for dolce far niente (dolqefar niente), and 
 the age of round-hand, stage coaches, and top boots ! 
 There may be such places as this, and, here and there 
 under special circumstances, a letter may be dictated 
 with this deliberation and respect for the correspondent's 
 feelings. May every young phonographer have some 
 small share of such good fortune ! But what says the 
 more conscientious and apprehensive youth who has had 
 a little office experience, perhaps under an employer of 
 hasty temper ? What is his ideal of a shorthand clerk- 
 ship ? In his exaggerated picture of the situation he 
 sees no benign, fatherly individual at his elbow con- 
 fidentially whispering his directions. He knows the 
 modern city man to be a perfect philistine in comparison 
 with the above picture. From what he has learned of 
 him in other relations he imagines him, as the employer 
 of a shorthand clerk, sitting at a table surveying a for- 
 midable pile of letters and papers with the air of a man 
 who is terribly in earnest, and " full of dealings with the 
 world; " while he, the unfortunate scribe, sits at a desk 
 some distance away, where he is trembling with fear 
 and excitement, until he is suddenly brought up as with 
 an electric shock by a preliminary " Ahem ! " which to 
 him sounds much like the railway guard's, " Whew ! 
 right away ! " before the express starts. Then he hears 
 him launch out at some imaginary individual among the 
 papers before him, and he knows that it is his duty, like 
 that of the railway guard with the express, to "get on 
 board " as best he may and to see that no single vehicle 
 leaves the line while the train rushes over bridges and 
 viaducts (not very well built in his case), and if at the 
 first stopping place he can manage to bring up the rear 
 before he again hears that laconic signal for another 
 stage of the journey, he will have got over his first diffi- 
 culty, and may live to laugh at the amount of perturba- 
 tion **hich it called forth. 
 
 But all business men do not quite answer to the above 
 exaggerated picture, and the task of taking down letters
 
 The Shorthand Clerk at Work. 49 
 
 from their dictation is not really so formidable in itself 
 as our typical young 1 phonographer imagines it. The 
 cause of a failure to take down from dictation satisfac- 
 torily at the commencement is often not so much a 
 question of ability as of nervous anxiety, which results 
 in a waste of energy and in the taking down of every 
 word of a stereotyped form, which experience will teach 
 might have been very much shortened, at the risk of 
 missing some essential fact. In such cases self-con- 
 sciousness is at the root of the matter. If the shorthand 
 clerk could only forget himself and his shorthand at the 
 commencement, and think more of what his employer is 
 saying, from a business point of view, he would see 
 and understand what was essential or non-essential, 
 and would find that many of the broken bridges over 
 which our typical friend stumbled in that first phono- 
 graphic "express," need never have been built at all, 
 or should have been provided with far less expensive 
 materials. This view of the case is, of course, an easy 
 thing for an experienced shorthand clerk to take, but it is 
 not so easy for the beginner to act upon the advice. A 
 preliminary practice of his art upon business correspon- 
 dence, would, however, do much to make his work come 
 more ready to his hand, and consequently should do 
 away with some of the nervousness arising from his 
 novel situation. 
 
 In any case, even if the apprehensiveness of the ner- 
 vous youth should be fully realized with regard to the 
 city man, there is room for a grain of consolation. If he 
 acts up in the hint which has already been thrown out 
 as to first of all consulting- the letter books of the firm he 
 will notice that there is not only a recurrence of certain 
 phrases which may be shortened into some special con- 
 tractions, but that this is especially the case with regard 
 to some prevailing and characteristic form of commenc- 
 ing the letters, and he will soon come to the conclusion 
 that it will not be necessary to take down these stereo- 
 typed forms of commencing letters in full. The follow- 
 ing commencement of a letter will show what is here 
 meant : 
 
 Sir, I am directed by the Local Government Board to acknow- 
 ledge the receipt of your letter of the i8th inst. 
 6
 
 50 Phonography in the Office, 
 
 Of this, all that the shorthand clerk need take down 
 would be 
 
 Acknowledge letter 18th 
 
 and then he will be pretty close to the dictator for the 
 essential part which is to follow. This method of dis- 
 posing of a formal introduction is also a necessity, be- 
 cause the dictator will be inclined to "skip" it in a 
 similar manner himself. In most Government depart- 
 ments, and in public offices approaching the routine of 
 such departments, the commencement of a letter is 
 generally something like the above and more formal 
 than in business correspondence where such forms will 
 vary in different offices, and will include such commence- 
 ments as : " Yours to hand this morning," " Your es- 
 teemed favor to hand," " In reply to your esteemed 
 favor," " I beg to acknowledge," "In reply to your 
 letter," " In answer to your letter," etc., but though the 
 form may vary in different offices it will generally be 
 uniform in the same office, and will admit of the intro- 
 duction being disposed of in the way suggested. What 
 the shorthand clerk has to look after are, of course, the 
 essential parts of a letter, and to see that these are 
 taken down with absolute accuracy. These essential 
 parts of a letter will often be found to be within a small 
 compass compared with the number of words used in 
 the letter. The following form of letter, commencing as 
 in the case just quoted, is an instance of this : 
 
 Local Government Board, Whitehall, S.W, , 4th Dec. , 1878. 
 Sjr, I am directed by the Local Government Board to state that 
 they have paid to Mr Smith, your treasurer, the sum of ^120, being 
 the amount payable from the Grant made by Parliament in respect 
 to the moiety of the salaries paid to the Medical Officer of Health 
 and Inspector of Nuisances for the year ended 29th September, 1878. 
 The Board have requested the treasurer to place the above sum to 
 the credit of the Rural Sanitary Authority. 
 
 I am, yours obediently, 
 
 J. Brown, Esq., JOHN LAMBERT, 
 
 Clerk to the Sanitary Authority. Secretary. 
 
 [115 words.] 
 
 Here the essential points in a wordy communication 
 are the sum of money, 120, the fact that it is from
 
 The Shorthand Clerk at Work, 51 
 
 " Parliamentary Grant," and that it is half the salary of 
 the Medical Officer of Health and Inspector of Nuisances 
 for the year named. It is not by any weans suggested, 
 however, that the shorthand clerk should praciise this 
 condensed form of taking down a letter, and indeed it 
 would not be safe for him to attempt it when commencing, 
 with but very little knowledge or experience of the busi- 
 ness ; but the point is mentioned to show how little in 
 comparison with the whole, the vital part may sometimes 
 be, and how important it is that such points should be 
 taken down with the strictest accuracy. But it wil} 
 sometimes happen that the whole of the letter is of this 
 essential character, including the introduction, which 
 must be taken down verbatim. Of this, the following 
 letter may be taken as a specimen : 
 
 Strand, London, 24th Aug., 1880. 
 J. Robinson, Esq. 
 
 Sir, Application having been made to our firm, for a situa- 
 tion as shorthand clerk in this office, by Mr James Thompson, who 
 informs us that he has been for three years, and still is, in your em- 
 ploy, we shall esteem it a favor if you will kindly inform us to what 
 extent he has been called upon to discharge similar duties in your 
 office, and with what result. 
 
 We would also thank you for your opinion respecting his general 
 character and ability, and of his experience in, and fitness for, 
 general office work. 
 
 Thanking you in anticipation of your favor. 
 
 We are, yours faithfully, 
 [120 words.] BARCLAY AND JQNES. 
 
 In the above letter there is nothing that could be safely 
 omitted or shortened in taking down, but it may be said 
 that a letter such as this would not be likely to be dic- 
 tated very rapidly. Generally speaking, if the person 
 dictating is very rapid he will not be so precise in the 
 choice of language, and perhaps less grammatical. In 
 such a case the plionographer need be under no serious 
 apprehension on the subject of speed, but should keep 
 his business faculty cm the alert and endeavor to under- 
 stand what the dictator is talking about. On the other 
 hand, if the dictator should be slow and deliberate in the 
 choice of words, and grammatical, it will, of course, be 
 necessary to be strictly verbatim in the note-taking, 
 for the double reason that it will be comparatively easy
 
 52 Phonography in the Office. 
 
 both for note-taking and the transcript, and because the 
 man who is deliberate and particular in the choice of 
 words would resent any liberty being taken with his 
 language. But in either case it is of the first importance 
 that there should be a fixed attention, not merely upon 
 what will be the correct forms of your shorthand, but 
 upon what it is that is being said. If a person's utter- 
 ance is misunderstood the best shorthand writing in 
 the world will not set the matter right, but if what is 
 said is thoroughly understood a badly written note may 
 be rectified. 
 
 The shorthand clerk should endeavor to obtain such 
 a position when writing that he can not only write to 
 the best advantage, but one which will also enable him 
 to hear best. The most favorable position is to face the 
 person dictating; the next best with the dictator on 
 the right-hand side. But, given the best position, the 
 faculty of readily catching every word a person says is 
 one that varies in different individuals, just as the faculty 
 of being easily understood varies in the speaker or dicta- 
 tor. Even where the utterance is fairly loud, some persons 
 do not always catch every word, though practice and an 
 increased familiarity with an employer's habitual utter- 
 ance will do much to remedy any such defect where 
 it exists. If the shorthand clerk fails to take down 
 properly anything which seems a material part of a 
 sentence, he should not hesitate to check the dictator 
 and ask for its repetition, though, of course, it will be to 
 his own interest that such interruptions should be as 
 few as possible. Even this, however, is much better 
 than the foolish proceeding the author has known some 
 young beginners to fall into, namely, that of letting the 
 matter drift until they have had to face it again when 
 transcribing, and then, finding no other way out of the 
 difficulty, have been obliged at last to go to the princi- 
 pal and ask his help in order to clear the matter up. 
 The principal in such a case might not always be ac- 
 cessible, or in the office ; and, even if he were, such an 
 appeal would most likely have to be made when he had 
 other matters to attend to, and it would certainly prove 
 a source of annoyance to him, if only for the reason that 
 he would, probably, be unable to clear up the point 
 without a second reference to the letters the shorthand
 
 The Shorthand Clerk at Work. 53 
 
 clerk is endeavoring to answer ; and, consequently, the 
 trouble of doing his work over again. Such a proceed- 
 ing would be much more likely to lower a shorthand 
 clerk in the estimation of his employer than that of ask- 
 ing him to repeat any doubtful passage when dictating, 
 and when he has the means of immediately setting it 
 right. The initial error, if it occurred frequently, mi^ht 
 weaken your employer's confidence in your shorthand 
 ability, or your faculty of apprehension ; but to defer the 
 difficulty would only aggravate the original offence, and 
 also weaken his confidence in your judgment and dis- 
 cretion. 
 
 The different kinds of composition which the short- 
 hand clerk may be required to take down may be roughly 
 divided into the following : Mercantile and business 
 houses generally, chiefly correspondence; offices of 
 public companies, Boards, and representative public 
 bodies, draft reports and correspondence ; solicitors' 
 offices, correspondence, instructions to counsel, and 
 occasionally, interviews and conversations. Of these, 
 correspondence will generally be found the easiest from 
 a purely shorthan,d point of view ; draft reports will re- 
 quire the greatest facility in composition ; and the second 
 and third items assigned to the solicitor's office will ap- 
 proach the nearest to verbatim reporting, or shorthand 
 writing pure and simple. 
 
 Upon one of the foregoing subjects a few words may 
 be said. It may sometimes fall to the lot of the short- 
 hand clerk, especially in a solicitor's office, or in the 
 office of a public body of which the clerk is a solicitor, 
 to be called upon to take down notes of an interview be- 
 tween his employer and someone else, and in such a 
 case it may happen that the note-taking has to be done 
 in such a way that the visitor may not be aware of it 
 in an ante-room for instance, with the door ajar, or 
 sitting at a desk in the same room, but in such a way 
 that the shorthand writer may appear to have no concern 
 with, or to be taking no interest whatever in, the con- 
 versation which is going on. To take down a conversa- 
 tion under any circumstances is not an easy matter, 
 and those who have had to do it under the circumstances 
 I have indicated know well how difficult it sometimes is 
 merely to catch all that is said, apart from the effort re-
 
 54 Phonography in the Office. 
 
 quired to write it down. But this is one of those rare 
 cases in which the employer will be fully sensible of your 
 difficulties, and in which you may rely upon him for 
 some assistance if necessary. He will, for instance, set 
 the example himself of speaking loud enough for you to 
 hear him may even appear slightly deaf if the other 
 person .does not follow the example and, in case you 
 find in your notes any incomplete sentences, he will also 
 be able to help you to supply the missing links from his 
 memory. In such a case, however, whether the short- 
 hand clerk is in the same room or not, some little atten- 
 tion should be paid to the order of taking down a con- 
 versation so as to secure a clear and intelligible division 
 between question and answer; either by commencing a 
 fresh paragraph with the name (or better still the lone- 
 hand initial) of each speaker ; or, by dividing each ques- 
 tion from the succeeding answer by a bold mark between 
 them, as in the following instance : 
 
 I think you are in the same business ? Only for about 8 months in the year. 
 
 This plan is best adapted to what a solicitor would 
 call " leading questions," to which the other party would 
 simply answer in the affirmative or negative. If the 
 questions were designed to draw forth A statement or 
 series of statements, then the plan of dividing by para- 
 graphs, commencing with the initial letter for each 
 speaker, would be the better ne.
 
 TRANSCRIBING. 
 
 |HAT the Lancashire cotton weaver with his loom 
 is to the cotton spinner ; what, in a measure, 
 the manufactured article is to the raw material ; 
 what the keystone is to the arch, that, or something like 
 it, is the transcribing of shorthand notes to the notes 
 themselves. Note-taking is but the seed-sowing, of 
 which the transcript is the harvest, and the moral holds 
 good, that " whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he 
 also reap." The end and aim of all shorthand writing 
 for business purposes is to save time. To write short- 
 hand is, therefore, only half the battle, and the other 
 half, namely, reading and transcribing what is written, 
 is where the test of victory or defeat really lies ; and it 
 is here that the only adequate test of the shorthand 
 clerk's fitness for this part of his work is to be found. 
 Of the character of his shorthand his employer will know 
 nothing, but he knows a good business letter when he 
 sees one, and to this test the shorthand clerk's qualifi- 
 cations must ultimately be referred. To the shorthand 
 business clerk, absolute accuracy in the transcript is 
 more important than in almost any other department of 
 shorthand work. For instance, if the phonographer who 
 is transcribing for the Press finds a doubtful passage in 
 his aotes, he may leave it out altogether, or substitute 
 another word for a doubtful one ; and, excepting in the 
 rare cases in which an absolutely verbatim report is re- 
 quired, may, and generally does, re-model sentences so 
 as to convey the sense of the speaker's words in the 
 shortest possible space. Not so the phonographer who 
 is engaged as a shorthand clerk, upon whose accuracy 
 in transcribing will often depend very importaat points, 
 involving the serious element of liability, or the validity 
 of contracts. 
 
 The main question upon which the usefulness of Pho- 
 nography in the office really turns being the ability to 
 read your notes and furnish a correct transcript, it may 
 be observed that there ought reaHy to be no difficulty in
 
 56 Phonography in the Office, 
 
 accomplishing this with facility and despatch. To the 
 accurate and rapid reading and transcribing of short- 
 hand notes there are several points necessary which 
 belong to the domain of experience. The teacher of 
 Phonography who has had much experience with pupils 
 and in transcribing shorthand notes, will probably re- 
 member instances in which a learner was unable to 
 make an intelligible and rapid transcript of his own 
 writing when the teacher himself could read it off very 
 readily ; because he knew from experience some of the 
 commoner sources of error, or the directions in which 
 the writing might, under given circumstances, vary from 
 the correct form. 
 
 If the learner of Phonography cannot at once read his 
 phonographic notes off " like print," there are two things 
 which will go far towards securing this result, and 
 save the writer from the risk of mistakes in transcribing. 
 The first may be summed up aphoristically thus : " Do 
 not read shorthand with a microscope." The meaning 
 of this is, that the writer should not try to settle any 
 individual outline of a doubtful character merely by 
 measuring it off with rule and compass.. If you should 
 ever be so unfortunate as. not to be able to recognise in 
 a given outline a resemblance to any particular word 
 which would "read" and such things do sometimes 
 happen to learners of all systems take, in such a case, 
 a little broader view than that of a half-length consonant, 
 a loop or a circle. If you are unable to make sense of 
 what the outline looks like, remember that you may 
 make sense with something that it does not look like ; 
 and that the preceding or following words, the structure 
 of the sentence, your own common sense, your know- 
 ledge of the business you are writing about, or a hint 
 from a friendly colleague if really necessary that each, 
 or all, of these may be laid under contribution in helping 
 you out of the difficulty. There is nothing which should 
 in any way detract from the usefulness of shorthand 
 itself in the necessity for this practice of occasionally 
 reading with a liberal margin for variations where the 
 forms are so minute ; and Phonography, though one of 
 the most legible of systems, can hardly be expected to 
 always escape, when in indifferent hands, from the risks 
 incidental to such narrow limits. Even where shorthand
 
 Transcribing. 57 
 
 is fairly well written there is generally some little varia- 
 tion of hooks, ticks, and loops, according to their asso- 
 ciation in a phrase, and curves are often deflected by 
 the character of the preceding or following strokes. 
 
 The author once spent nearly half-an-hour with a young 
 phonographer over the following doubtful passage in his 
 notes of a leading article from a newspaper, before 
 the writer of it could manage to make out, without 
 assistance, what it was that he had written : 
 
 Here, at first sight, the passage looked like but 
 ^^ ^/ have to be feared by yottr own world. 
 What it was that was to be feared or why any indi- 
 vidual should have a world all his own, the inexperienced 
 .stenographer was, of course, unable to explain. At last 
 he hit upon the correct word iorfr d, as fired, instead 
 of feared. [The vowel ought to have been inserted in 
 this uncommon word.] He was then advised to run 
 through the gamut of things likely to be fired, and he 
 naturally came to the conclusion that it must be shots. 
 The sign for sh had been written nearly full length in- 
 stead of half length. By your own world was next 
 found to mean before end world, or before the end of 
 the world. Next came the commencement of the sen- 
 tence, which looked like but go among shots, etc., but 
 this would never do. At length the writer of the passage 
 . completed his transcript as follows : But a good many 
 shots will have to be fired before the end of the world. 
 Here again a phonographer would have only himself to 
 blame for having created a difficulty for which his art 
 could not be held accountable. This example is intro- 
 duced merely as an indication of the way in which a 
 difficulty in reading any given passage in a note-book 
 should be approached. A knowledge of the business, 
 or of the work of an office with which the shorthand 
 clerk is identified, will materially help to unlock any 
 mystery about a doubtful shorthand word. 
 
 The second of the two points to the value of which, in 
 the reading of shorthand notes, I have referred, is one 
 of the greatest importance to the young phonographer,
 
 58 Phonography in the Office. 
 
 because the advantages of acting upon it are within the 
 reach of the learner even if he has only an elementary 
 acquaintance with Phonography. It is this ; always 
 read what you write, and never be tempted to put aside 
 even those volumes of shorthand notes which you write 
 when getting up speed without reading a very large 
 portion of them and practising the art of transcribing 
 from them. It is not necessary to write out in longhand 
 everything, if you are able to read it you can, of course, 
 write it. The importance of this practice cannot be 
 over-estimated, and the learner who is accustomed to 
 keep his shorthand reading practice fully up with his 
 writing will rarely have any difficulty in reading his own 
 notes with accuracy and despatch. 
 
 If any captious critic should be disposed to think that 
 the above reference to difficulties implies any reflection 
 upon the legibility of Phonography as compared with 
 longhand writing and the writer has sometimes heard 
 remarks of this kind, but generally from those who com- 
 menced its study and failed to command enough dili- 
 gence to learn the art let such critic take the trouble 
 to look through his longhand correspondence, and the 
 letters of his friends, and if he should find, as he most 
 assuredly would, that it is impossible to read many of 
 the words, letter by letter ; that he would be unable to 
 read a good number of the words even, without the aid 
 of the context, and the signature at the end without his 
 knowledge of who was the writer then let him for evet 
 after hold his peace about shorthand, or, at least, if he 
 should find faulty let him blame the writer and not the 
 system. 
 
 Next in order, and not less in importance, to tfoe ac- 
 curate and prompt reading of what has been taken 
 down in shorthand, is- the longhand dress in which it is 
 to be presented, either as a business letter or report, 
 etc. One of the most noticeable defects with many 
 youths at the first start is the misplacing of capital letters. 
 Every sentence should commence with a capital letter ; 
 also all names of persons and places, and adjectives 
 derived from proper names ; also letters standing for 
 abbreviations, the days of the week, months of the 
 year, etc. 
 
 Punctuation, to those who are not experienced or par-
 
 Transcribing. 59 
 
 ticularly gifted in composition of which it forms an es- 
 sential part is sometimes a weak point, as it is a matter 
 upon which the shorthand clerk will have to rely in a 
 great measure upon his own resources. Yet there ought 
 to be no very great difficulty in this- part of letter writing, 
 for its rules will be found in most books of grammar, and 
 their application is being daily illustrated for the benefit 
 of everyone in the printed page of a book, newspaper, 
 or magazine. Of the stops used in punctuation the 
 colon (:) is now fast becoming obsolete even on the 
 printed page. The semicolon (;) though freely used in 
 printed matter is a point upon which perhaps no two 
 persons could be found to agree as to the precise situa- 
 tions in which it should be used. Its use varies more 
 than any other point, and the places in a sentence at 
 which it should be used hardly admit of any more exact 
 definition than that the place for its insertion is "too 
 much for a comma and not enough for a full point." 
 But whatever may be its exact limits in the printed 
 book, it is, for all practical purposes hardly ever used 
 in business- correspondence. The points that are used, 
 and the placing and proper value of which should be 
 well understood by the business correspondent, are the 
 comma , full stop, note of interrogation, and the apos- 
 trophe. Of these the full stop and note of interroga- 
 tion may be dismissed with the remark that the place 
 of the full stop is at the end of every sentence) or 
 complete statement. When such a sentence takes the 
 form of a question, the full stop should be replaced by 
 a note of interrogation (?), and the succeeding sen- 
 tence should commence with a capital letter. The chief 
 use of the comma is to divide different parts of a sen- 
 tence where, but for its use, the meaning might be ob- 
 scure, or where the word after which it is te be placed 
 might, in the absence of the comma, be read with what 
 follows instead of with the preceding part of the sen- 
 tence. Considering its diminutive size, nothing has 
 been more abused than the comma, the misplacing of 
 which has sometimes led to the most ludicrous misread- 
 ing of a sentence, and occasionally to serious results. 
 If the writer of a letter carefully reads it through when 
 written he will hardly fail to see where the comma is 
 really necessary to make the meaning clear. Generally
 
 60 Phonography in the Office. 
 
 speaking, the comma is harmless enough, but it may 
 sometimes work some curious feats, such as in the 
 familiar story of the parish clerk who gave out what 
 was understood as "a man going to see his wife, desires 
 the prayers of the congregation." What the uncon- 
 sciou humorist should have announced was, "A man 
 going to sea, his wife desires the prayers of the congre- 
 gation/' But if a slip of the tongue may thus occasion- 
 ally be amusing, a slip of the pen may be also, and not 
 so easily remedied. Take the following, which was 
 sometime since printed in a generally well-conducted 
 newspaper in its University intelligence : 
 
 "The Public Orator introduced the Home Secretary, 
 who was robed in a Latin speech." 
 
 In this case a secon,d comma was required after the 
 word "robed," or the placing of the words (who was 
 robed) in parenthesis would have been a clearer division 
 still. The following is another instance of the effect of 
 this inversion ; 
 
 " Mr Smith here handed the jewel to ]$r Johnson, 
 who was retained for the prosecution in a casket of 
 beautiful design and finish." 
 
 Though this may appear to be but a trick in the 
 arrangement of words, akin to the cross purposes of a 
 comedy, yet, with a person who dictates long and in- 
 volved sentences, ihese inverted clauses of a sentence 
 will not infrequently turn up, and the risk of obscuring 
 or perverting the meaning should be guarded against. 
 The moral of it is, that what natural affinity has joined 
 together in a sentence the writer should not put asunder. 
 Punctuation should make the meaning clearer, and not 
 make it obscure, still less pervert it. 
 
 The apostrophe is a point which is too often either 
 ignored or abused. It is most frequently misused in 
 that class of words some of which form the plural with, 
 and some without, the letter s. If the plural is formed 
 without the letter s the apostrophe will be properly placed 
 before that letter for the possessive case, as men's 
 thoughts, women's looks. If the plural is formed with 
 s in the regular way, the apostrophe will be before 
 the letter s for the possessive singular, and after it 
 for the plural ; as the boy's book, the boys' books. The 
 fact that the proper use of the apostrophe is often
 
 Iranscribing. 61 
 
 ignored sometimes leads to a stupid use of it when it does 
 turn up. In this direction sign writers who do not happen 
 to be blessed with any great amount of literary talent 
 sometimes produce some amusing instances. In one of 
 the home counties, a business man once had the fol- 
 lowing notice posted up conspicuously on the front of 
 his establishment : " Brougham's open fly's and dog 
 cart's for hire." Here the apostrophe is altogether 
 out of place. It is perhaps necessary here to point 
 out that the shorthand clerk in transcribing business 
 correspondence should not fall into the mistaken habit 
 one sometimes sees, of writing "Your's truly," for 
 " Yours truly." 
 
 The parenthesis, or the insertion of a clause in a 
 sentence in such a way that if removed the sentence 
 would still " read " or make sense, is now often placed 
 between dashes thus though it ig not always so but 
 this arrangement is most applicable where the parenthe- 
 tical words form something like a complete assertion, as 
 in the above instance. Where the parenthesis is merely 
 an explanatory word (or phrase) the marks here used 
 should be preferred. The dash is also used where there 
 is an abrupt turn in the sentence but enough has, I 
 think, been said to indicate the chief points to be at- 
 tended to in the punctuation of a business letter. 
 
 A well arranged letter is next in importance to a well 
 written letter. In the commencement of a letter the 
 figures for the day of the month should be written first, 
 next the name of the month, and then the figures for the 
 year, thus : 
 
 -24th May, 1886. 
 
 The two sets of figures are thus kept apart by the name 
 of the month. The name and address of the person 
 written to should appear in the left-hand margin of the 
 letter or they may be written in a similar position at 
 the foot and just beneath it, if so written, should ap- 
 pear the formal salutation, "Sir," "Dear Sir," or 
 " Gentlemen," as the case may be. The next matter 
 which is essential to clearness is, to divide the letter 
 into paragraphs according to the number of subjects to 
 be dealt with, giving precedence to the subjects in the 
 order in which they arise in the letter you are answer-
 
 62 Phonography in the Office. 
 
 ing. Suppose, for instance, the shorthand clerk finds 
 the following awaiting transcript in his note-book : 
 
 In the above extract, or letter, from the shorthand 
 note-book there are three subjects referred to (i) The 
 remittance to be acknowledged, (2) The collecting of 
 accounts, and (3) A suggestion as to rates of commission. 
 The transcript should accordingly contain as many divi- 
 sions or paragraphs, and, when written out in business 
 form, would appear as follows : 
 
 London, 1 2th Jan. , 1886. 
 
 Mr W. Brown, Manchester. 
 
 Dear Sir, We beg to acknowledge the receipt of your let- 
 ter of the nth inst. , containing remittance, value ^5 i6s. yd., which 
 has been placed to the credit of your account. 
 
 We do not undertake to collect accounts on commission for any- 
 one but our customers, whp are entitled to the information contained 
 in our monthly circular information which would be found of great 
 value to your friend on starting a new business. 
 
 In answer to the second part of your letter, the suggestion shall 
 receive our careful consideration, but more than this, of course we 
 cannot say until we have had an opportunity of comparing the rates 
 of commission on the basis you suggest, with those actually paid. 
 We are, yours faithfully, 
 
 [140 words.] DIXON AND Co.
 
 Transcribing. 63 
 
 In revising shorthand that is not paragraphed for 
 
 transcription, insert the sign | before the word that 
 
 should commence a new paragraph. Care should also 
 be taken in the transcription to fill out the line, avoiding 
 lines of unequal length, and without resorting to cramp- 
 ing or reducing the size of the last word in a line ; and, 
 at the same time avoiding dividing a word at the end of 
 a line, a practice which though frequently adopted in 
 the printed page, does not look so well in writing. In 
 the case of a long word coming near the end of a line, 
 however, a division cannot well be avoided, and care 
 ' should be taken to produce a natural division of the word 
 into its syllables, using the hyphen (-) at the end of the 
 line where the word breaks off (but not at the beginning 
 of the next line), as in a printed book. In business cor- 
 respondence the clerk will find it worth while to bestow 
 a little extra pains in acquiring a good style of finishing 
 off his letter. A little practice with some good models 
 on the customary form of conclusion, as "Yours truly," 
 "Yours faithfully," "Your obedient servant," etc., and 
 upon the name of the firm, will enable the corresponding 
 clerk to put a good appearance on his work at a point 
 where it tells most. It he is in the service of any com- 
 pany, society, or institution, he will generally conclude 
 his letters with the formal " Yours truly," "Yours faith- 
 fully," etc., and then, leaving space for a signature, add 
 the word " Secretary" or " Manager," as the case may 
 be, the intervening line to be filled up by the signature 
 of that official afterwards. He may sometimes be re- 
 quired to write a letter for, and sign it on behalf of, his 
 employer, firm, or company. In such a case he would 
 conclude the letter in either of the following forms : 
 
 Yours faithfully, 
 
 W. Smith, 
 
 pro Pixon and Co., 
 
 or, 
 
 Yours faithfully, 
 
 Dixon and Co., 
 
 per W. Smith. 
 
 The " W. Smith" in this case would, of course, mean 
 himself, the shorthand clerk.
 
 64 Phonography in the Office. 
 
 Facility in composition is an important item in the 
 qualifications of the shorthand clerk. Where this faculty 
 is not present as a natural gift he should do all in his 
 power, by practice, to acquire it. In the majority of 
 cases he will find frequent opportunities for the exercise 
 of it. What he has taken down from dictation cannot 
 always be transcribed literally, or without a certain 
 amount of polishing as the removal of a redundant 
 word, the addition of a word to make a sentence read 
 more smoothly, and occasionally the re-arrangement of 
 a sentence without altering its meaning. The mere fact 
 that shorthand is looked upon as a time-saving art will 
 often lead a business man who is perhaps hard pressed 
 with other engagements, or who is not blest with a calm, 
 deliberative temperament, into a random habit of select- 
 ing or arranging his words to convey what he wishes to 
 say in answer to his letters, with the tacit understanding 
 that the shorthand clerk will, when transcribing, put 
 the letter into proper business form and language. In 
 such a case the vital part of the work is therefore to 
 take care of the essential facts to be conveyed in a letter, 
 and, by a process of assimilation and a knowledge of 
 the business, to convey strictly what the employer wishes, 
 in as good a form and in as appropriate language as if 
 the letter were the more deliberate production of the 
 employer himself. 
 
 In this necessity for occasionally putting a hastily 
 dictated letter into good business form, the shorthand 
 clerk will find a set-off against the tendency of writ- 
 ing from another's dictation to degenerate into a me- 
 chanical act, and as he may in some cases occasionally 
 be called upon to conduct some part of the correspond- 
 ence for his employer, there is no reason why he should 
 not himself acquire the qualifications of a good business 
 correspondent, and every reason why he should seek to 
 do so. Much of the old gentlemanly style of business 
 letter-writing of the .past the cultivated style of writing 
 gracefully all round a subject has vanished with the 
 appearance of the "iron horse" and the telegraph. 
 The modern style is to go at once to the heart of the 
 subject and to condense what has to be said into the 
 narrowest limits that clearness will allow ; and what 
 such a style loses in grace and finish it gains in strength
 
 Transcribing. 65 
 
 and directness. There is no better school for acquiring 
 a good style of business letter- writing than that afforded 
 by the study of business letters themselves, especially 
 the models issuing from the best houses with which the 
 shorthand clerk will come in contact in the course of 
 his duties. 
 
 By approaching his task after the form of these models, 
 and in the spirit which he knows by experience would 
 animate his employer under any given circumstances, 
 he will be qualifying himself for the composition of a 
 good business letter, and for occasionally answering 
 letters on behalf of his employer in case of need. 
 . In the case of a brief communication between a busi- 
 ness house and customers, the third person is sometimes 
 used in the form of address. This is frequently the case 
 in notes received from ladies, and nearly always in the 
 case of such communications received from persons of 
 rank and title. The following may be taken as fair 
 samples of such communications : 
 
 Lady Blank would be obliged to Messrs Brooks and Lawrence by 
 their sending patterns of their newest spring dress materials. 
 
 Lord Blank presents his compliments to Messrs Smith and 
 Thompson and requests them to be good enough to send particulars 
 of their account just received. 
 
 Miss Barnard thanks Messrs Brooks and Lawrence for their prompt 
 attention to her orders, and would be glad if they would send her 
 patterns of the new shades of velvets mentioned in their catalogue. 
 
 This distant form of address may savour somewhat of 
 a patronizing air and of a disposition to hold the man 
 engaged in business at arm's length as an inferior, but 
 if the practice casts any reflection it is one that should 
 fall perhaps on human nature in general rather than 
 upon individuals. At any rate, the successful man of 
 business who could easily buy up some of his corres- 
 pondents of this class, will generally console himself for 
 any such possible reflection by the knowledge that " if 
 it amuses them it does not hurt him.'' In the majority 
 of cases, however, no such motive will be understood, 
 and, following the custom, the corresponding clerk would 
 be required to answer all such communications in the 
 same form, thus :
 
 66 Phonography in the Office. 
 
 Messrs Brooks and Lawrence have the pleasure of forwarding 
 herewith the patterns as requested by the favor of Lady Blank, and 
 hope they may be found suitable for her ladyship's requirements. 
 
 The above style of address is, of course, confined 
 chiefly to what may be called the memorandum form of 
 communications which frequently pass between large 
 business houses and influential customers. In the case 
 of a regular letter of more importance, or from a pro- 
 fessional man, the recognised formula of " My Lord," 
 "Your Lordship," etc., would be observed in the ad- 
 dress. 
 
 A business 'letter should be written grammatically, 
 and a word of caution may perhaps be necessary in res- 
 pect 'to one or two common errors which, from being 
 plausible in appearance, and which from often finding 
 their way into conversation, may 'very easily find their 
 way into writing also. The most familiar instance is 
 that of the misuse of number in respect to nouns and 
 their corresponding verbs, where a second noun inter- 
 venes between the nominative and the verb, as in the 
 following : " We have this day received the goods, but 
 regret to find that one of the samples arevery indifferent." 
 Here the close association of "samples" and "are" 
 may easily account for the error, but as only one sample 
 was indifferent, the error in saying " one are indifferent " 
 is clear enough. Collective nouns, of which the corres- 
 ponding verbs are sometimes used in the plural and 
 someiimes in the singular number, may be determined 
 in this way : If the essential idea is that of mimber as 
 an arithmetical factor, the verb should be singular, as 
 " the number of samples in the market was very large ;" 
 if the idea has reference to the individuals represented 
 by that factor the verb should be plural, as " a number 
 of samples were examined." 
 
 But whether it be in taking down shorthand notes, in 
 reading and transcribing the notes into longhand, or in 
 the composition of a letter, "a sound discretion is not 
 so much indicated by never making a mistake, as by 
 never repeating it."
 
 OTHER DUTIES AND OPPORTUNITIES. 
 
 [HAT has been said on the subject of taking down 
 in shorthand, and transcribing, business corres- 
 pondence has reference to the chief duties of a 
 shorthand clerk, but it is not the only direction in which 
 he will find opportunities for the exercise of Phonography 
 and for participating in the general work of an office. 
 Even though he may not fill one of those posts with the 
 stereotyped requirement of making himself " generally 
 useful," there will be directions in which he should seek 
 to acquire habits of work and usefulness, which, though 
 subordinate to the main purpose of his office, will, in 
 proportion as they are well formed and carried out, have 
 an important bearing upon his prospects of advancement. 
 If it is objected that the shorthand clerk ought not to be 
 called upon to perform duties or services other than 
 those of taking shorthand notes and transcribing the 
 same, the answer is, that he would be standing in his 
 own way to promotion and to mental improvement by 
 such an attitude. The writer has purposely connected 
 " Other Duties " with " Opportunities " in the heading 
 of this chapter, because the shorthand clerk's willing- 
 ness to meet other opportunities of service, which may 
 fall in his way, may be the means of his rising to a better 
 position than his Phonography alone might give him ; 
 and, in any case, the advantage of a more thorough 
 business training would be greatly in his favor. 
 
 The remarks in the previous chapter referred to the 
 writing of letters which are sent out from an office. We 
 left the shorthand clerk at the stage of his work when 
 he had completed the transcript of his letters. Having 
 carefully read through each letter as it was written, as 
 a check against any error that may have crept in, these 
 letters will next have to be copied at the press into the 
 letter book, and then they should be neatly folded, and 
 enclosed in envelopes addressed to their respective 
 destinations. If there are any enclosures to go with any 
 6 *
 
 68 
 
 Phonography in the Office. 
 
 particular letter, care should be taken that these are not 
 overlooked, and for this purpose each letter which is to 
 contain an enclosure should be endorsed " Enclosure," 
 or" Enc.," in the top corner of the front page, as a 
 reminder when making up the letters for the post. If 
 there is to be more than one such enclosure, the number 
 may be added to the endorsement. 
 
 Letters received should, as soon as answered, be 
 promptly folded, endorsed, and put away for future 
 reference. The usual plan of doing this is to fold each 
 letter lengthwise with the portion of the blank sheet 
 uppermost and upon this endorse the date, and the name 
 and address of the writer. The folded .letter thus en- 
 dorsed would appear as below : 
 
 1886. 
 
 April 10. 
 
 Smith & Son 
 
 Bradford. 
 
 The endorsement may also include the date when the 
 letter was answered. Letters thus folded and endorsed, 
 when tied up and .put away in bundles arranged 
 according to date, with the endorsement uppermost 
 can be easily referred to at any time. In offices receiving 
 a large number of letters from one or two particular 
 firms, it is sometimes necessary to carry this practice a 
 little further, and add to the endorsement a brief indi- 
 cation of the contents of the letter, thus : 
 
 
 
 
 
 n 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 B 
 
 
 C/) 
 
 d 
 
 u 
 
 o 
 
 
 
 n 
 
 Ul 
 
 
 o 
 
 VD 
 
 
 -J 
 
 i2 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 IB 
 
 OO 
 
 oo 
 
 l-t 
 
 EL 
 
 a 
 
 00 
 
 1 " 
 
 
 
 Woollen 
 
 C 
 
 fclo 
 
 5 
 
 s 
 I 
 
 o 
 O
 
 Other Duties and Opportunities. 69 
 
 Each pile of letters thus " briefed," bears on the face 
 of it, by simply turning up the folded letters, without 
 untying the bundle, an index to the names of an employ- 
 er's correspondents, and the subjects upon which they 
 have written, for the period which it covers. If there 
 is no strict rule in an office on this point and the 
 correspondence is so large that it does not allow time 
 for this formal docketing of letters, they may be kept 
 lying on each other in a pigeon-hole of the desk, and 
 afterwards be placed on a shelf, with the front edge 
 uppermost. The indexing of the letter-book should be 
 added to the foregoing, as one of the chief features of 
 the work which pertains to the correspondence of an 
 office. The value of this as a means of reference will of 
 course depend upon its being carefully performed. In 
 addition to the ordinary method of indexing alphabeti- 
 cally at the commencement of the book with a page or 
 more as may be required for the initial letter of the 
 surname of the person written to and the numbers of 
 the pages upon which the letters to each individual or 
 firm will be found, the plan should be adopted of making 
 each individual letter in the book a means of reference 
 to the one preceding and the one following it from the 
 same firm, by endorsing it in colored lead pencil with the 
 pages containing those letters. Thus, on the last letter 
 but one addressed to " Smith and Son," if the preced- 
 ing letter to that firm was on page 10 and the succeeding 
 one on page 25, the endorsement would be |, and the 
 last letter would bear the single endorsement ot the page 
 of the previous one. 
 
 In some large establishments an abstract letter-book 
 is kept, but whether the " briefing " of letters received, 
 as referred to above, or the summarising of the contents 
 of the letters in an abstract book, is required as a part 
 of the routine of an office or not, there is one direction 
 in which the shorthand clerk will find it well worth his 
 while to do a little precis writing on his own account 
 not only upon first entering an office, but for as long as 
 he may remain at his post namely, in keeping a private 
 summary or abstract book. Everyone who has had any 
 experience in an office, and more especially in the cor- 
 respondence department, is aware how frequently such 
 questions arise as " What did we offer Mr Smith ? "
 
 70 Phonography in the Office. 
 
 "What terms were offered to Brown and Co.?" 
 "When does Mr Brown's notice expire?" To the 
 shorthand clerk, through whose hands the correspon- 
 dence of the firm chiefly passes, these and similar 
 questions will naturally be addressed, and in proportion 
 to his readiness in answering them without delay ; will 
 he rise in the estimation of his employer. Whatever 
 therefore will tend to make him more apt in this way 
 should be zealously cultivated. To be obliged to look 
 up the answer to such points from the letter-book every 
 time they arose would, of course, be a clumsy expedient. 
 The point upon which information might be sought would 
 probably be very small in comparison with the length of 
 the letter containing it. Perhaps only the difference 
 between a commission of 2 or 2^ per cent, or the date of 
 a contract, or of the expiration of a notice. 
 
 In such cases as the foregoing the shorthand clerk 
 should therefore, to assist his memory and provide him- 
 self with a ready means of answering such questions, 
 adopt the practice of keeping an abstract book of his 
 own, into which he should enter the principal points, or 
 a " brief," of the letters he writes, or at least of the more 
 important ones, such as involve questions of contract or 
 liability upon which points might afterwards arise or 
 questions be likely to be asked. He may thus have 
 ready at his hand in a very small compass an epitome 
 of his correspondence, the perusal of which in moments 
 of leisure will be sufficient to enable him, in the great 
 majority of cases, to at once meet any such call upon 
 him as that indicated above, and thereby render a 
 prompt service to his employer, which the latter will 
 value the more highly for the pains taken. But the 
 writing of abstracts will of itself well repay the trouble 
 involved, for there is scarcely any kind <of mental opera- 
 tion required in an office which is so well calculated as 
 this to strengthen the faculties of judgment and dis- 
 crimination, and to promote a rapid assimilation of the 
 details of a business. All entries made in this private 
 abstract letter-book should, of course, be made in short- 
 hand, and, if necessary at any point, should be vocalized, 
 as the value of a reference of this kind will depend upon 
 i.ts being easily read at any time after it is written. 
 
 But while the above recommendation will be worth
 
 Other Duties and Opportunities. 71 
 
 acting upon at any stage of the shorthand clerk's career, 
 there is one other suggestion which applies when he is 
 entering upon his duties. It has been suggested that 
 he should endeavor to make himself familiar with the 
 names and addresses of the correspondents of the firm, 
 and that he should provide himself, if necessary, with 
 special contractions, and with a book for an abstract of 
 the more important letters he writes. To these should 
 be added the recommendation that, during his first year 
 or two, at least, he should keep a diary in which to jot 
 down daily as they arise, any points in the transaction 
 of his employer's business which it may appear desirable 
 that he should make himself familiar with. In this way, 
 and by the expenditure of a small amount of time and 
 \ rouble, he will gradually acquire a useful stock of infor- 
 mation and an insight into the peculiarities of a business 
 or an office, which could not fail to be of the greatest 
 value to him in the discharge of his duties ; and, of 
 course, the more methodically the entries were made, 
 and the more ground they were made to cover, the 
 greater would be their value. The plan of making such 
 entries in diary form may be varied by entering them 
 in a common-place book and classifying them accord- 
 ing to the, respective subjects referred to instead of 
 only by the date at which they occur ; each item of 
 fresh information being entered under its proper heading 
 in the classification. The advantage of such entries is 
 that a means of future guidance is afforded by the stock 
 of useful information which is thus gradually got to- 
 gether, and which will probably afford a precedent upon 
 a point which might otherwise involve doubt or difficulty. 
 The mental training involved in. the effort required for 
 such classification of information cannot fail to be of the 
 greatest advantage, and for this alone the result would 
 well repay the labor, even if there were no question of its 
 future usefulness as a means of reference ; but with both 
 advantages combined there will, certainly be sufficient 
 inducement whenever any new point or piece of informa- 
 tion arises, to follow the example of Captain Cuttle, and 
 " make a note of it." 
 
 It is quite possible that the young phonographer who 
 is seeking to fill the position of a junior shorthand clerk 
 may be inclined to think that these recommendations of
 
 72 Phonography in the Office. 
 
 extra duties look rather irksome, and he may feel in- 
 clined to ask himself, as others have done, " Why should 
 I do all this if I am not obliged to do it ? " The best 
 answer that can be given to such a question is, that 
 there is hardly a situation of any kind, and certainly not 
 in that of a shorthand clerk, in which a youth ever did 
 himself much good who started in life with the notion 
 that he was only going to do just as much as his posi- 
 tion obliged him to do, and no more. It is these little 
 voluntary acts of forethought and adaptation of means 
 acts of which it may be said that you would not lay 
 yourself open to be accused of any serious dereliction of 
 duty if you did not perform*hem which have a double 
 value in the case of a shorthand clerk. In the first 
 place, it is certain that they will not fail to bring their 
 own reward in the discharge of daily duties, for the 
 shorthand clerk cannot have too many aids to his work, 
 especially when, as a junior, he has everything to learn, 
 and has had little experience in transcribing notes. In 
 the second place these little voluntary arrangements for 
 increasing his own efficiency will enable him to anticipate 
 his employer's wants and to save his time. They are 
 the little straws which show which way the current of a 
 young man's business life is setting, and an employer 
 will be the first to recognize these signs of coming use- 
 fulness. They are, in fact, the young man's opportuni- 
 ties, and as opportunity is said to be " bald behind," 
 and, like Time, must be seized by the forelock if at all, 
 they should not be thrown away merely because to make 
 the most of them may mean occasionally doing some 
 little act more than one is obliged to do, for by their 
 means many a young man has risen to a position of 
 responsibility and influence who has not had the great 
 advantage which Phonography gives in such endeavors 
 to the corresponding clerk of the present day. 
 
 Sometimes, though not often, excepting in a solicitor's 
 office, the shorthand clerk's special qualification may 
 lead to his being employed for a certain class of casual 
 work which does not really belong to the ordinary duties 
 of the office in which he is engaged ; work by which his 
 employer would be benefited rather than himself. Of 
 this character was that which recently caused some dis- 
 satisfaction among regular shorthand writers who are
 
 Other Duties and Opportunities. 73 
 
 retained under the Bankruptcy Act, to take notes of 
 cases in the Bankruptcy Courts under the Board of Trade 
 regulations, and who entered a protest against the prac- 
 tice which it appeared some solicitors had adopted of 
 employing their own shorthand clerks to take notes of 
 cases in which they were retained, and of charging the 
 regular shorthand writer's fee, though the work was done 
 by the shorthand clerk, and presumably included in his 
 regular salary, with perhaps something of the nature of 
 a gratuity thrown in. The opinion of one of the judges 
 upon the practice is not likely, however, to lead to any 
 very extensive development of it, and professional short- 
 hand writers are generally alive to the importance of 
 protecting their own special interests, but it shows one 
 of the directions in which advantage may sometimes be 
 taken of the shorthand clerk's skill without his reaping 
 the full benefit of such service. It is quite possible that 
 an efficient shorthand clerk in a solicitor's office may be 
 competent for doing the work usually assigned to a pro- 
 fessional shorthand writer in such cases, but into the 
 merits of the recent controversy on that subject I do not 
 propose to enter. 
 
 Again, it may often happen, especially in a provincial 
 office, where a solicitor employs a shorthand clerk, that 
 the former is an agent for one of the political parties in 
 the State. At election times it may be a decided advan- 
 tage for the candidate for whom the solicitor is agent, 
 that he should be able to obtain a report of a speech by 
 his opponent, especially if he has to speak in the same 
 place before his opponent's speech has been reported 
 in the newspapers. In such a case the solicitor and 
 political agent would probably turn to his shorthand 
 clerk to take some notes and furnish a transcript of the 
 speech, and, whether the agent was able to legally 
 charge for the services of a shorthand writer or not, the 
 shorthand clerk would not be likely to get the full value 
 of his services. 
 
 In such cases as the above the attitude of the short- 
 hand clerk should, of course, be governed somewhat by 
 his circumstances. If he is a young man just starting 
 in the work, it will be worth while for him to consider 
 that, though, in such a case, he might be entitled to the 
 value of his services especially if rendered outside his
 
 74 Phonography in the Office. 
 
 regular office hours, yet it might not at first be to his 
 own interest to draw too sharp a line here. The full 
 value of cheerful earnest work can never be exactly 
 measured by the immediate return it secures from those 
 in whose service it is rendered, and any extra duty which 
 will add to his experience he will find it worth while to 
 perform, irrespective of whether his employer could fairly 
 expect it of him, and even if his employer did not 
 deserve the extra service, simply because the doing of it 
 will be adding to that stock of knowledge and efficiency 
 which is the capital by which he hopes to raise himself 
 and better his position in the future. 
 
 With regard to the opportunity of seeking promotion, 
 and the means most likely to attain that end, there is 
 unfortunately a natural tendency with a young man to 
 seek " a change," which happily declines with advanc- 
 ing years. The words ' ' unfortunately ' ' and ' ' happily ' ' 
 are used in this connection advisedly, because, in a confi- 
 dential position, such as that of the shorthand clerk, the 
 value of length of service in one place, whether as a 
 means of securing promotion in the same situation or as 
 a recommendation for a place elsewhere if a change is 
 considered necessary, cannot well be over-rated. To 
 the shorthand clerk who seeks to improve the advantage 
 which long experience gives, it will be necessary perhaps 
 to look a little beyond the advertising columns of a 
 newspaper. Many of the most lucrative situations never 
 figure in advertisements at all, but are filled by recom- 
 mendations from other offices, and if the candidate for 
 one of these will only seek to avail himself of the best 
 connections his official position affords him, and especi- 
 ally to fraternise in the associations of shorthand writers 
 of the first rank, the reward which proverbially comes to 
 him that can wait, will in due time be within his reach. 
 
 Overtime work in the office and employment in the 
 evening occasionally outside the office, may sometimes 
 be reckoned among the " other duties and opportunities " 
 of the shorthand clerk. Whatever may be the strictness 
 of routine which governs the duties of the other clerks, 
 the shorthand clerk will often find himself called upon 
 to vary that regularity, from the fact that his duties 
 depend more upon the personal inclination, and the 
 disturbing element of other engagements of his employer.
 
 Other Duties and Opportunities. 75 
 
 The time of departure of foreign or country mails and 
 the need for getting off particular letters by these, will 
 also sometimes interfere with that absolute regularity of 
 office hours which may prevail in other departments. 
 Though the shorthand clerk will generally find his office 
 hours specified, he must not therefore, excepting perhaps 
 in some of the very large establishments, expect every 
 day to regulate the minute of his departure by the clock 
 so much as by the completion of his task. In some 
 railway and other large offices it is the practice to pay 
 for any overtime that may be made, but this is not a 
 general rule in business houses. 
 
 Some shorthand clerks seek to turn their talent to 
 account by obtaining employment after leaving the office 
 of an evening, from professional shorthand writers in the 
 Law Courts and other places, who, after a heavy day's 
 note-taking occasionally seek and pay for. assistance 
 from others to whom they can dictate a portion of their 
 notes and thus relieve themselves of some of the labor 
 of the transcript. This kind of casual work is generally 
 more easily obtainable by, and the experience gained in 
 doing it is of more value to, the shorthand clerk who is 
 in a solicitor's office than to one engaged in a business 
 house. In the majority of cases in business houses it is 
 more to the point therefore that the shorthand clerk 
 should seek by every means in his power to improve 
 himself for his recognized position, and thus qualify 
 himself for a better situation elsewhere, or justify the 
 expectation of advancement where he is. It is, more- 
 over, a doubtful policy for a young man, who is not 
 driven by stress of circumstances to seek an addition to 
 his income, to deprive himself of all recreation. The 
 old axiom among capitalists against carrying all your 
 eggs in one basket is not without meaning when applied 
 to the distribution of energy, and whatever of mental 
 effort a young man feels equal to after meeting the 
 demands of his daily duties will generally be best applied 
 to something quite different from those duties. For a 
 shorthand clerk who is fully employed in the day to seek 
 shorthand employment in the evening is very much like 
 burning the candle at both ends. The facilities now 
 offered in most large centres by evening classes for the 
 acquirement of modern languages would form the best
 
 76 Phonography in the Office. 
 
 opening for any intellectual effort the shorthand clerk 
 feels capable of after leaving his office; and, if he is 
 employed in a commercial house, the result might be 
 very much to his advantage. 
 
 These remarks upon casual shorthand employment in 
 the evening will, of course, be understood as applying to 
 the shorthand clerk who has full employment for his art 
 during the day. But to the young phonographer who 
 enters an office fresh from phonographic instruction 
 books, especially in the case of a large establishment 
 employing a senior shorthand clerk, there may not be a 
 sufficient demand upon his shorthand during the day to 
 keep him thoroughly in practice as regards speed. In 
 a large establishment having an extensive correspon- 
 dence, it is not likely that upon entering the office he 
 would be entrusted with the more important correspon- 
 dence of the firm. This would fall upon the senior 
 shorthand clerk, and to the junior would be given only 
 such letters as were of a simple character and not very 
 long. In such a case it would be a pity for him to allow 
 his shorthand qualification to fall back when he had 
 gained the first round of the ladder, or to allow himself to 
 drift into a false security by imagining that because he 
 could meet the demand made upon him in his present 
 position, he could therefore consider himself as, hence- 
 forth, a fully competent shorthand clerk. Obviously the 
 best policy in such a case would be to practise freely 
 with his Phonography out of office hours ; and seek to 
 acquire facility in taking down business correspondence 
 and thus make himself ready for advancement whenever 
 it came. Where one individual fails for the want of an 
 opportunity, nine men fail through not being ready when 
 their opportunity comes, whether it be in the matter of 
 laying up capital for commencing a business or in the 
 accumulation of experience for the duties of a respon- 
 sible post. Therefore, be ready, and be thorough.
 
 WRITING MATERIALS, BOOKS AND 
 ROUTINE. 
 
 " ^f^S|A.N," according- to Carlyle, "without tools is 
 nothing, but if he uses his intelligence con- 
 
 is:-.,-a> sistently with his tools, he is all." To this 
 might very well be added that with equal skill and 
 application, the best tools will produce the best work. 
 Experience shows, however, that the selection of writing 
 materials is a matter that may be left pretty much for 
 the shorthand clerk to determine for himself, on the 
 principle that it is better for him to use such materials 
 as he finds he can do the best work with, than that he 
 should be guided absolutely by what has been found 
 most useful to another. The suitability of a pen, for 
 instance, often varies with different individuals, and 
 what may be most suitable for a " light " hand may be 
 altogether too flexible fora "heavy" hand, and vice 
 versa. 
 
 The above is not, in any way, intended as a recom- 
 mendation of experiments in the selection of a gold pen. 
 The junior shorthand clerk in his embryo state is not 
 exactly a Croesus, and there is generally sufficient 
 reason on this ground alone why he should not go out 
 of his way to spend extravagantly in writing materials 
 on his own account when he can get a good serviceable 
 kind in the ordinary office supply. Many prefer a gold 
 pen for shorthand writing, but the writer has generally 
 found a good steel pen to answer every purpose, whether 
 for note-taking or for transcribing. But this is of course 
 no valid reason why anyone else should not use a gold 
 pen if he feels so disposed. The writer would prefer to 
 look upon this as a matter of individual taste rather 
 than of necessity, either way, but if the acquisition of a 
 gold pen should lead a young phonographer to a feeling 
 of pride in possessing and using the best tools, and, con- 
 sequently, in the production of good work, he would 
 certainly have done well in obtaining one.
 
 78 Phonography in the Office. 
 
 The same remarks will apply to a great extent to the 
 kind of paper and stationery used. If the particular 
 kind in use in an office is found to be not quite suited to 
 the shorthand clerk, he has only to avail himself of the 
 first opportunity, and any reasonable requirement will 
 generally be met when fresh supplies are obtained ; for 
 the sufficient reason that it is just as much to his 
 employer's interest that he should have materials ena- 
 bling him to produce the best work as it is to his own. 
 
 There are several kinds of note-books now published 
 at a cheap rate specially ruled for phonographers and 
 shorthand writers, and of which all that need be said is 
 that there are two points which should be observed in 
 selecting the kind which is to be used for taking down 
 letters and other business matters from dictation. The 
 book should not be so small as to necessitate a very fre- 
 quent turning over of the leaves a letter may sometimes 
 be taken down without any turn-over. But on the 
 other hand the book should not be too large to go into 
 the pocket if necessary. The shorthand clerk may in 
 some offices more especially in a solicitor's office or in 
 that of a clerk to a public body occasionally find him- 
 self called upon to take down something away from the 
 office at a board room, a branch office, or the Law 
 Courts, and a note-book to fit the pocket will be the 
 most useful to take with him. For the same reason, 
 though a pen is certainly recommended in preference to 
 a pencil for general shorthand work in an office, the 
 shorthand elerk who is likely to be called upon for excep- 
 tional service of this kind should occasionally accustom 
 himself to note-taking with a pencil, which may come 
 in handy when doing anything away from the office. 
 
 The letters taken down in the note -book in shorthand 
 should be numbered and dated as they are written, and 
 when the shorthand is transcribed, the pen should be 
 struck through each page of the note-beok as it is 
 finished. When a note- book is full it should be endorsed 
 on the outside with the dates at which it commences - 
 and ends, and put away for future reference if necessary. 
 In case any particular note-book should contain notes 
 of anything of a special character such as those of an 
 interview and conversation between the employer and a 
 third party or anything which is likely to come up for
 
 Writing Materials, Books and Routine. 79 
 
 consideration again, it may be well to note this feature 
 of the contents on the outside of the book with the en- 
 dorsement. 
 
 A good dictionary, a gazetteer, a dictionary of abbre- 
 viations (a very handy book of this kind is published by 
 Griffith and Farran at a shilling) "Whitaker's Alma- 
 nack," a postal guide, and a list of proper forms of 
 addressing persons of rank and title, are among the 
 books of reference which should find a place on the 
 shorthand clerk's desk. With regard to the particular 
 books which a shorthand clerk should seek to become 
 acquainted with as a part of his education in the special 
 work of his office, it has already been suggested that if 
 he is engaged in the office of a business house he should 
 seek to make himself familiar with that phase of political 
 economy which deals with the laws governing the mar- 
 kets of the world and the distribution of wealth and 
 industrial products ; also with the commerce of those 
 countries with which such business house has connec- 
 tions, but the hint is obviously one which admits of a 
 broader and more general application. 
 
 All shorthand clerks are not employed in business 
 houses, and many are employed in offices having but a 
 remote connection with commercial transactions. But, 
 though it may be difficult for this reason to recommend 
 any particular books the reading of which will help the 
 shorthand clerk to a more intelligent understanding of 
 his work, there is one general recommendation which 
 will apply to almost every possible situation in which 
 shorthand is required. There is in these days of speci- 
 alists hardly a profession or trade of importance which 
 does not claim its special organ known as a trade or 
 class journal devoted to-its particular interests. Thus, 
 in a solicitor's office there will be the Justice of the 
 Peace, or the Law Journal; in a local government 
 office, the Local Government Chronicle ; in a mercan- 
 tile office, the British Mercantile Gazette, Economist, 
 British Trade Journal and others ; in a shipping 
 office, the Shipping Gazette and others ; in a School 
 ^Board office, the School Board Chronicle and others; 
 in a bank, the Bulliontst ; in an insurance office, the 
 Insurance Gazette and others ; in a railway office, the 
 Railway Record and ethers ; and so on for almost
 
 80 Phonography in the Office. 
 
 every profession or trade of importance. The shorthand 
 clerk should be a diligent reader and careful student of 
 the particular class journals which have a bearing upon 
 the business or profession he is serving, for in them he 
 will find concentrated, from time to time, much valuable 
 information which will not only be useful for the efficient 
 discharge of his ordinary duties, but if treasured up and 
 digested will materially enhance his prospects of ad- 
 vancement. He will thus have much that concerns the 
 business or professional interests of his office at his 
 fingers' ends, and, being able to answer a question in- 
 stantly, where another might be a minute or two looking 
 it up, he will be able to save the time of his employer, 
 and advance his own interests as well. 
 
 Routine, or the regulation of business details by a 
 system of fixed rules, checks and counter-checks, may 
 be described as the machinery of a business, and occu- 
 pies such an important place in regard to the functions 
 of those employed in an office that a few words on the 
 subject can hardly be out of place or unnecessary. The 
 fellow with " a soul above routine " had better reconsider 
 his plans even as to a shorthand clerkship. The man 
 who rises above routine in an office is generally a man 
 who has first thoroughly mastered routine and made it 
 his servant ; but the man who never rises above routine 
 is generally the man who has allowed routine to become 
 his master, and herein lies the chief distinction of the 
 effect and value of routine on the individual character of 
 those employed in business or an office. It is a good 
 servant which cannot be dispensed with, but a bad 
 master to those who can do nothing but what it bids 
 them. 
 
 The natural aptitude for the assimilation of routine 
 into individual habits is often very much a question of 
 temperament, and in this direction routine is liable to 
 an abuse which may lead to intellectual weakness. 
 There are not wanting, for instance, plodding useful 
 clerks who by constitutional temperament enforced by 
 habit, have become so wedded to routine as to dwarf 
 their mental stature until routine represents the mental 
 tether beyond which they cannot go, or the mental 
 tramway on which alone they can run smoothly. They 
 are the mere machine-minders of the conaern, and can
 
 Writing Materials, Books and Routine, 81 
 
 never expect to rise to the position of chief engineer of 
 the machinery which drives the business. It is theirs 
 to stand by and see that the wheels interlock at the 
 right moment until the habit becomes so strong as to 
 remind one of Oliver Wendell Holmes's amusing picture 
 of the faculty of calculation descending to the level of a 
 Babbage's. calculating machine; a thing "without 
 brains, without heart, too stupid to make a blunder ; 
 that turns out formulae like a corn-sheller, and never 
 grows any wiser or better though it grind a thousand 
 bushels of them." 
 
 The above is, however, the extreme, or mechanical 
 aspect of routine, with which the successfyl phono- 
 grapher is not so likely to content himself as some others 
 might be. Indeed, the danger in his case is more likely 
 to be the other way, for experience and observation will, 
 I think, justify the remark that the great majority of 
 phonographers, or, at any rate, of those who take up 
 the art in earnest and succeed with it best, are young 
 fellows of enthusiastic temperament, and a lively imagi- 
 nation ; and for these reasons they would be more likely 
 to feel the irksomeness of routine, but at the same time 
 to need more of its restraining influence. To what- 
 ever extent this may be true, to that extent will the dis- 
 cipline of routine be of value in checking that species of 
 mental activity which, though of the highest value to 
 carry an individual forward successfully in his general 
 course, may occasionally carry him too hurriedly past a 
 point at which the routine-made " machine-minder " of 
 an office just referred to, would have seen a danger 
 signal ahead, and would have escaped the risk of a 
 mistake by sheer force of habit. 
 
 To the youth on first entering a large office the com- 
 plicated points of detail which go to make up the routine 
 of the establishment may at first sight seem formidable, 
 but instead of rebelling against them as " a nuisance " 
 or unnecessary, let him pause and take cognizance of 
 the fact that the same thing has been required of those 
 who are occupying higher positions to which he -may 
 aspire, and that even if there were no question of obedi- 
 ence to the rules of an office, the individual who has not 
 yet grasped the whole cannot be expected to say what 
 part of the machinery can be dispensed with. It is true,
 
 82 Phonography in the Office. 
 
 no doubt, that the shorthand clerk may be a little less 
 bound by routine than a general clerk, but a youth who 
 enters an office for the first time must not expect to 
 escape any of its requirements, and should rather seek 
 to avail himself of the discipline it affords. Certainly, 
 in a large establishment, he will find that everything he 
 does will be hedged about by checks and counterchecks 
 checks against errors and checks for reference. The 
 routine of an office varies so much, however, in different 
 establishments that it is impossible to point out exactly 
 what the young shorthand clerk will be called upon to 
 meet in this direction. It is more to the purpose to 
 point out some general principle which will enable him to 
 understand what underlies the subject, and to get at the 
 soul of routine at the kernel instead of contenting him- 
 self with the mere forms which constitute the shell. 
 
 In giving point to any leading condition of success the 
 example of Demosthenes has often been copied in other 
 directions. When the great Athenian orator was asked 
 what was the chief part of oratory he answered action ; 
 when again asked what was the next part he again 
 answered ACTION ; and when again asked what was the 
 next, still answered ACTION. So to the youth who is 
 entering an office for the first time, without any previous 
 discipline or experience of business life, if the question 
 is asked what should be the chief and guiding principle 
 of action in regard to the accurate accomplishment of 
 his work and as a foundation to build upon, I think the 
 answer would be this verify, VERIFY, VERIFY. That 
 is, look over what you have done, and compare it with 
 the original from which it is taken or in the light of such 
 materials as you have to guide you. Do not trust to 
 memory entirely, however good your memory may be, 
 when you have the means of verifying close at hand ; do 
 not trust to a mere impression that you are right a 
 natural tendency with beginners when you are able 
 with a very little trouble to confirm that impression and 
 prove that you are so. Upon these rematks it follows 
 that- the chief importance of routine to the beginner in 
 an office is its value on the negative and lowest side of 
 business life as a means of checking error in execution. 
 Its checks and counter-checks may thus keep the be- 
 ginner from falling back, but, on the other hand, they
 
 Writing Materials, Books and Routine. 83 
 
 can never be the means alone of enabling him to go 
 forward. He can never hope to rise without routine, 
 and can never rise very high if he content himself with 
 it. Let him therefore remember that there is a positive 
 as well as a negative side to his work that while com- 
 pliance with the routine of an office will prevent his 
 losing ground, he will still need enterprise, judgment, 
 and discretion, in seizing opportunities of anticipating 
 his employer's wishes to enable him to go forward and 
 secure that position of responsibility and trust for which 
 Phonography in an office has given him so good a start. 
 Finally, the shorthand clerk who would get through 
 his work with comfort to himself and satisfaction to his 
 employer, cannot be too particular in the cultivation of 
 habits of neatness and order in the use and arrangement 
 of his materials. This is a point which is well worth 
 some attention, because upon it will depend not only the 
 excellence of his work but also in some measure the 
 favorable opinion of those whom he serves.
 
 SPECIAL PREPARATION. 
 
 JHEN the workman is about to commence a new 
 task he looks to his tools, and when the traveler 
 is about to start on a journey through a com- 
 paratively strange country he looks to his charts and 
 his instruments of observation, and lays in such provi- 
 sions as the probabilities of the case and the experience 
 of others seem to indicate as the most likely to be use- 
 ful. It has been shown in the course of these chapters 
 how great and increasing is the demand for shorthand 
 in an office, and that shorthand in an office practically 
 means Phonography in an office. An endeavor has been 
 made to show what are the kinds of openings for short- 
 hand, how they may be best obtained, what would be 
 expected of a person when he has obtained a situation, 
 and the best method of doing it. It has also been con- 
 tended that a large number who learn the art of Phono- 
 graphy in the hope of using it in an office fail to make 
 it of real use simply for the want of a definite aim, and 
 of special well-directed effort towards realizing the par- 
 ticular end in view. 
 
 As an essential part of the plan and scope of these 
 chapters, and for the benefit of the young phonographer 
 who is looking for an official career, it may now be 
 worth while to enter, with a little more detail, into the 
 point which has already been hinted at, namely, that 
 the remedy for at least some of the many failures which 
 have been referred to may be found in the learner of 
 Phonography who is anxious to turn his art to account 
 in an office, being provided with a special kind of 
 pcactice, when getting up speed, which will help to make 
 him familiar with the language of business and afford 
 a much fairer test of what he would be able to do when 
 actually engaged in the work of an office. For some of 
 the special exercises which are to follow, it is not claimed 
 that they contain anything which an intelligent short- 
 hand clerk with a ready faculty of observation and
 
 Special Preparation. 85 
 
 resource might not by experience learn for himself, but 
 the aim in view has been to meet some possible difficulties 
 beforehand, rather than, for the want of special prepa- 
 ration, to face them when experience may come too 
 late to make the remedy satisfactory. 
 
 The special exercises to follow are drawn up chiefly 
 in the form of business correspondence, in the language 
 of every-day business life, and their chief value will be 
 found in the fact that while each is directed to some 
 special or peculiar difficulty and its remedy, they can be 
 used for a preliminary practice in the work of business 
 correspondence, and, at the same time, as a test of speed 
 in that kind of composition which the phonographer 
 would be called upon to write when entering an office 
 as a shorthand clerk. Their full value cannot, therefore, 
 be extracted with the best results by merely learning 
 the correct outlines and transcribing them accurately. 
 The list should be written out from dictation, at first at 
 a rate at which the phrases can be taken down easily ; 
 and then, increasing the speed, they should be written 
 again and again until they can be written very rapidly ; 
 and if any particular sentence should be more difficult 
 than the rest it should be singled out for a special 
 "drilling." 
 
 " A breach is made in the fort by bringing all your 
 guns to bear upon a single point with terrible earnest- 
 ness." Even if it should seem tame work by repetition, 
 there is the encouragement of Abraham Lincoln's ex- 
 perience of the value of keeping on "pegging away," 
 and the young phonographer will soon have the satis- 
 faction of finding that he can take down business cor- 
 respondence with even greater facility than he would 
 an article from a newspaper. Such a course of practice 
 could not fail to give him confidence on entering an 
 office as a shorthand clerk, and would also give him a 
 great advantage in any preliminary test examination, 
 compared with an applicant whose practice had been 
 confined entirely to sermons and lectures, though it is 
 not recommended that the latter opportunities for prac- 
 tice should be neglected when getting up speed, because 
 the act of writing in the presence of others is in itself of 
 some value. 
 
 The number of words will be given at the end of each
 
 86 Phonography in the Office. 
 
 letter and the young phonographer may, when he has 
 acquired a degree of facility in taking them down accu- 
 rately, test his rate of speed and thus form something 
 like a definite idea of his shorthand ability. He is also 
 strongly recommended to accustom himself freely to the 
 practice of transcribing these and any other similar 
 exercises he may practise upon, bearing in mind the 
 hints and directions which have been given on the sub- 
 ject of longhand business letter-writing. By a steady 
 persevering practice of this kind he will have prepared 
 himself in the best way possible, short of actual experi- 
 ence in the work, for both sides of one of the chief 
 duties of a shorthand clerk, namely, the taking down 
 and transcribing of business correspondence.
 
 BUSINESS PHRASES AND CONTRACTIONS. 
 
 the language of business may, in different 
 departments, be marked by a special character 
 of its own, which at first might prove a stum- 
 bling-block to the young phonographer, there is another 
 side of the subject which will tell very much in his favor 
 later on. The language or phraseology of business cor- 
 respondence is capable of being expressed briefly in 
 shorthand to an extent which would be impossible in 
 other departments. In the case of shorthand for the 
 press, for instance, the form of language required to be 
 taken down is almost as various as the subjects which 
 come before the public ; and the newspaper reporter 
 may one night be reporting a lecturer who is discoursing 
 upon the unfathomable wonders of the starry Heavens, 
 and the next morning a discussion on the dietary of 
 paupers. The language which the shorthand clerk is 
 called upon to write, has, if not a limited vocabulary, 
 at least a certain groove in which it generally runs ; 
 and the proportion of phraseograms which may be used 
 in business, as compared with the total number of words 
 taken down, will be greater than in other departments 
 of shorthand work. 
 
 As soon as the shorthand clerk has made himself 
 familiar with the language of business, he may adopt 
 the practice of writing phrases freely, and of lilting the 
 pen at much longer intervals than he would at first have 
 thought possible. It is true that, in course of time the 
 taking down of correspondence may thus become some- 
 thing of a mechanical act, but the shorthand clerk will 
 probably find some opportunities for the exercise of his 
 art so as to keep up an all-round facility in its use ; if 
 not, he should seek them. The following is a moderate 
 specimen of what may be done without lifting the pen in 
 a business letter, and the practice may be carried fur- 
 ther still in actual work, after some experience has 
 been gained.
 
 88 
 
 Phonography in the Office. 
 
 -\. - 
 
 r 
 
 29 <W 1885 
 
 f 
 
 [172 words.]
 
 Business Phrases and Contractions. 89 
 
 TRANSLATION. 
 
 Bristol, 
 
 29 September, 1885. 
 Mr Blackmore. 
 
 Devonport. 
 Sir, 
 
 In reply to your letter, I am requested to state that the matter about 
 which you require information is being taken into consideration by this 
 Company. 
 
 The presumption contained in your letter is correct with regard to the 
 manner in which the financial statement has to be made. We shall be able 
 to give you any help which you may require in the compilation of your 
 returns, but of course it most be distinctly understood that we do not un- 
 dertake such work in the capacity of officials of the Company, and any 
 such service will of course be rendered only in cases in which you may 
 think it worth while to incur the expense of professional assistance. 
 
 With respect to the inquiries in the second part of your letter I am 
 awaiting further returns in answer to the letters I have sent to some of 
 our agents, and of course cannot answer till these returns have been 
 received. 
 
 I am, yours truly, 
 
 FRANK THOMSON. 
 
 One or two of the groups of words connected in the 
 above letter may perhaps be regarded as contractions 
 rather than phrases. Of this character are the first two 
 
 ^->/ and v ^j>, which, considering the frequency of 
 
 the occurrence of the words represented, may very well 
 be adopted for "in reply to your letter," and "I am 
 requested to state," respectively. The young phono- 
 grapher should get this letter dictated to him for 
 practice. 
 
 The following list of business phrases and contractions, 
 the words of which have been selected from a wide and 
 varied field of business correspondence, will be found to 
 cover most of the more frequently recurring groups of 
 words in general business letter-writing. Many of them 
 will be found to be of very frequent occurrence, and there 
 are very few of them in which the shorthand outlines 
 suggested will not prove useful to the shorthand corres- 
 ponding clerk. 
 
 According to agree- -^-& a n c i a ; m s 
 
 ment 
 Act of Parliament *~V expenses 
 
 account sales ^~^ always endeavor 
 
 additional expense *^-r^_ and if you can in- 
 
 V/-N form me 
 
 after due considera- -t another time
 
 3 Phonography in tm Office. 
 
 ***\ 
 
 any further 
 
 ^jb- 
 
 by telegraph 
 
 *~<-J 
 
 any inquiries 
 
 %r- 
 
 by their order 
 
 5" vc ~ 
 
 as a matter of course 
 
 ^\ 
 
 
 <r~^- 
 
 as a matter of fact 
 
 ^<-~ 
 
 by their request 
 
 L 
 
 at all events 
 
 iht 
 
 by which you will 
 see 
 
 L 
 
 at any rate 
 
 _v^ 
 
 by wire 
 
 y*-* 
 
 at his request 
 
 Vf 
 
 by wire at once 
 
 \-S-~ 
 
 at my request 
 
 ^/^ 
 
 by your letter 
 
 
 at their request 
 
 ^/-o 
 
 by your request 
 
 -JX-o 
 
 at your earliest con- 
 
 -> 
 
 cannot account 
 
 "5v*C^^__p 
 
 venience 
 
 - , **X' 
 
 
 i 
 
 at your request 
 
 
 cannot answer 
 
 \X-jf 
 
 Balance due 
 
 ^-T/ 1 
 
 cannot be forwarded 
 
 Vf 
 
 balance sheet 
 
 =3 
 
 cannot be sent 
 
 \1 
 
 be considered 
 
 } 
 
 cannot decide 
 
 v_^ 
 
 be good enough 
 
 
 cannot do so 
 
 \_0 
 
 being satisfactory 
 
 ) 
 
 
 Vh 
 
 best care and atten- 
 
 -* 3 
 
 cannot give any in- 
 form a*io 
 
 v? 
 
 tion 
 best of my ability 
 
 1 
 
 cannot say 
 
 v\ 
 
 best of our ability 
 best quality 
 
 ' 
 
 charter party 
 copy of my last letter 
 
 \fSL. 
 
 Bills of Lading 
 
 
 Declare a dividend 
 
 
 by goods train 
 
 i- 
 
 deliver at once 
 
 >i_P 
 
 by his own state- 
 
 
 deliver immediately 
 
 
 ment 
 
 
 
 V-XCo 
 
 by his request 
 
 !-_ 
 
 directors of the 
 
 
 
 
 Company 
 
 y7^ 
 
 by letter 
 
 1 xJ^V 
 
 directors' report 
 
 \~/ r ~ 
 
 by my letter 
 
 J-, 
 
 discount for cash 
 
 w-^ 
 
 by my request 
 
 ^ 
 
 dishonored accept- 
 
 y^vo 
 
 by our invoice 
 
 0,^0 
 1*^^\./ 
 
 apce 
 dissolution of part- 
 
 ^bi 
 
 by passenger train 
 
 9 *X 
 
 nership 
 
 ^zi 
 
 by telegram 
 
 U^x 
 
 does not in any way
 
 Business Phrases and Contractions. 91 
 
 "VI -> Early attention 
 
 I future time 
 
 -N^Q early consideration 
 
 I x 
 
 -\f _/ early inquiry 
 ^y\p early investigation 
 
 -a.^ Goods not to hand 
 goods train 
 
 ~\A early reply 
 
 *D great disappointment 
 
 s~ enclosed letter 
 
 n~v~^ grant my request 
 
 _^>v_-4 enter into partnership 
 
 t^ gross receipts 
 
 \J 
 
 ^-^Q enclosed please find 
 
 51 extraordinary meeting 
 
 \ Has been considered 
 
 \has been taken into 
 consideration 
 
 V Facts of the case 
 
 ^1 ^ as ^ een directed 
 
 > -\ financial affairs 
 
 
 
 \Q has to be considered 
 
 v financial statement 
 <r-f first instant 
 
 ^"Nq have been directed 
 
 . , 
 
 ^Tf^-V^ I am certain that 
 
 ^_-j nrst intimation 
 o ^-^ for one moment 
 
 ^_^^ you will 
 I I am directed 
 
 """'La I am directed to state 
 
 Sfor their interest 
 
 3 I am endeavoring 
 
 V for the trade 
 
 V ~ V ~V/^ I am extremely 
 
 V^ f r w bi c b y u require 
 
 ., anxious 
 '^ > ~q_/O I am extremely sorry 
 
 ^L^ for yourselves 
 / from my last letter 
 
 ^~"1L/^~ I am in receipt of 
 J_^ your letter 
 V I am obliged 
 
 \* S"^ 
 ^~ from the enclosed 
 
 _^^- x * s ^ I am rather surprised 
 
 W-c_ 4 letter 
 ^.^\, from the last report 
 
 ^~*/\ I am ready 
 
 \ /^~ from your letter 
 
 v ~^ / i I am requested 
 
 . ^ fully considered 
 
 v ~' v '' C ~fi I am requested to state 
 N ^^/ I am very sorry 
 
 ^ further consideration 
 N.^^ further examination 
 
 v *V'-Cv/ I am very sorry that 
 you should think 
 
 ""X further particulars 
 
 ^ ^-<_o I beg to enclose 
 
 Vo 
 
 ~N <~~t> further remarks 
 
 ^^-~ ~~^~f_ I beg to enclose cheque 
 
 V 
 
 "~\^, further reply 
 
 I I can assure you
 
 2 
 
 Phonography in the Office. 
 
 JL 
 
 I do not understand 
 
 \P I shall receive 
 
 
 I enclose account 
 
 T/~ I shall rely 
 
 V-X-/ 5 
 
 I enclose cheque 
 
 \f I shall require 
 
 ys-t-^ 
 
 I enclose herewith 
 
 X I think you cannot 
 
 * 
 
 
 ^-\ expect 
 
 s~ 
 
 -*-V 
 
 I enclose letter 
 I enclose copy of 
 
 I think you will re- 
 \f "V. ceive 
 v. ^Jt I trust you will re- 
 
 N 
 
 V^ <_O 
 
 letter 
 
 !/ v^ ceive 
 
 
 I enclose payment 
 I enclose receipt 
 
 -<l /\ I trust you will be 
 V \ able to 
 s/'"\/V I will be responsible 
 
 ^-^ 
 
 I have endeavored 
 
 y<J I will consider 
 
 v_ 
 
 I have no objection 
 
 v/^-1 I will endeavor 
 
 
 
 
 S~^~^r I will inform them 
 
 V ^_ 
 
 I have sent cheque 
 
 v s \ if we are informed 
 
 A^Q^v_^l 
 
 I have sent notice 
 
 ^ts 
 
 V 
 
 I have since received 
 I have the honor 
 
 v J? if we receive 
 V /*$ if we understand 
 \ / -"^ if you are in want of 
 
 jC 
 
 I have the satisfaction 
 
 V n o if you are successful 
 
 v^_^ 
 
 I have to inform you 
 
 ^><_- if y ou require 
 
 \ 
 
 I have to thank you 
 
 V_^V if you will oblige 
 
 vy,/^ 
 
 I hope you will find 
 
 ^\fj in addition to this 
 
 V~X- 
 
 I hope you will in- 
 
 * form me 
 
 ^~\ff in addition to whick 
 
 v-*- 
 
 M. 
 
 I hope you will re- 
 ceive 
 I hope you are 
 satisfied 
 
 *~^ in consideration 
 
 *B" in consideration of 
 U^ \ your 
 
 * 
 
 I shall be obliged 
 
 ^^f in exchange 
 
 y 
 
 I shall be pleased 
 
 ^J^-Q in the course of a 
 
 t> few days 
 
 N^ 
 
 
 ^_y-^_^^ in the course of a 
 
 \ 
 
 I shall endeavor 
 
 b few months 
 s in my last letter 
 
 
 I shall expect 
 
 S in my letter 
 
 ^A. 
 
 I shall expect to 
 receive 
 
 ^-^^^ in my opinion
 
 Business Phrases and Contractions. 
 
 93 
 
 _^^ 
 
 in my report 
 
 -fc, 
 
 may I ask you 
 
 -^\ 
 
 in my reply 
 
 s-0*-Pf 
 
 most unsatisfactory 
 
 
 
 o 
 
 character 
 
 "^-v^ 
 
 in reply to your letter 
 
 .^/*O D 
 
 my last communi- 
 
 N 
 
 
 X 
 
 cation 
 
 AV 
 
 in respect to your 
 letter 
 
 ^/^~ 
 
 my last letter 
 
 -*-/" 
 
 in the market 
 
 S~S~ 
 
 my letter 
 
 
 in the matter 
 
 -I 
 
 my own satisfaction 
 
 i- 
 
 into the matter 
 
 "S 
 
 
 ^w 
 
 in the same direction 
 
 r 
 
 f -~i f 
 
 my previous letter 
 
 
 in this case 
 
 y 
 
 my terms are cash 
 
 ^ 
 
 in this instance 
 
 *> 
 
 Necessary arrange- 
 ments 
 
 o 
 
 I ". 
 
 it gives me great 
 pleasure 
 
 
 necessary attention 
 no communication 
 
 ^ 
 
 it gives satisfaction 
 
 ^ 
 
 no such order 
 
 fcji 
 
 r\ 
 
 it has been considered 
 
 it is not expected 
 it will be considered 
 
 in which you will 
 notice 
 
 V 
 
 t, 
 
 \ yV ^*~~*< 
 
 no such order was 
 (or has been) received 
 
 Of this date 
 other companies 
 
 ^~N 
 
 in which you require 
 
 v^ 
 
 Per annum 
 
 "flO 
 
 in which you will see 
 
 y^ 
 
 Post Office Order 
 
 ^v^~ 
 
 in your last letter 
 
 7^ 
 
 railway companies 
 
 S ^V X " 
 
 in yonr letter 
 
 xV^ 
 
 respectfully request 
 
 -vw 
 
 in your reply 
 
 "~ in your reply to my 
 letter 
 
 &, 
 
 satisfactory reply 
 satisfactory report 
 
 \ 
 
 Just possible 
 
 Y^ 
 
 satisfactory answer 
 
 ^p 
 
 Managing director 
 
 c^> 
 
 some time ago 
 
 '"^-^--f 
 
 manufacturing in- 
 
 v^^^v 
 
 special manufacture 
 
 
 terests 
 many circumstances 
 
 \ / xT 
 
 x~ 
 
 To our satisfaction 
 
 ^4- 
 
 matter of course 
 
 VT 
 
 Under bill of sale 
 
 ^-v. 
 
 matter of fact 
 
 ^ 
 
 under writers
 
 94 
 
 Phonografihy in the 
 
 Office. 
 
 ^^~ 
 
 unless we receive /^-f^ 
 
 which are quite 
 
 ~R 
 
 unsatisfactory ar- 
 rangements 
 
 (T 
 KJ 
 
 satisfactory 
 which are quite 
 
 *<. 
 
 vVe are confident 
 we are in position 
 
 \ 
 
 which has been ta- 
 ken into consideration 
 
 si 
 
 we are not satisfied 
 
 \ 
 
 which has been con- 
 
 s\ 
 
 we are quite satisfied 
 we are satisfied 
 
 /% 
 
 sidered 
 which will be con- 
 
 ^^*D 
 
 
 
 sidered 
 
 j>^-\ 
 
 we are sorry to in- 
 
 
 which will be taken 
 
 &S^ Vi 
 
 form you 
 
 / . 
 
 ^into consideration 
 
 T 
 
 we are sorry to say 
 
 /~v^ 
 
 which you may require 
 
 ^ / 
 
 we beg to acknow- 
 
 lr~^- 
 
 which you will receive 
 
 ^ 
 
 <A ^<_o^ 
 
 c/^f 
 
 ledge 
 we beg to call your 
 attention 
 we beg to enclose 
 
 herewith 
 
 we enclose cheque 
 
 Oi 
 A 
 
 \ 
 
 will be considered 
 You are at liberty 
 
 your consideration 
 
 
 we enclose herewith 
 
 s~ 
 
 
 <A^- D ( 
 
 we enclose Post Of- 
 
 v^ 
 
 your last letter 
 
 '^ir-v^ 
 
 fice Order 
 
 V 
 
 your obedient servant 
 
 "\ 
 
 we have to thank you 
 
 fT* 
 
 \W 
 
 your reply to my letter 
 
 <AP 
 
 n> 
 
 we have the satis- 
 faction 
 
 _^ 
 
 you may rely 
 
 j^^ 
 
 we respectfully re- 
 
 , * 
 
 \ you may require 
 
 ^2-^ 
 
 x-^ 
 ,xi 
 
 quest 
 we shall expect 
 
 we shall require 
 we will thank you 
 were in good condi- 
 
 "^TSj 
 
 r\ 
 
 you may consider 
 you must consider 
 you will be sorry 
 you will consider 
 
 <s \j 
 
 tion 
 
 
 
 ts^^r- 
 
 were sent by mistake 
 

 
 Business Phrases and Contractions. 
 
 95 
 
 OFFICIAL NAMES AND TITLES. 
 
 2/ Great Eastern Rail- 
 way 
 Great Northern 
 
 Railway 
 ,-=_ Great Western 
 
 Railway Company 
 - Midland Railway 
 
 Company 
 
 ' Metropolitan Rail- 
 way 
 
 ^ London, Brighton & 
 
 South Coast Railway 
 
 f London, Chatham 
 
 and Dover Railway 
 
 4? London and North 
 
 Western Railway 
 
 - Bank of England 
 
 C. Bill of Sale 
 
 Bill of Exchange 
 Board of Trade 
 Bankruptcy Court 
 
 Chamber of Com- 
 merce 
 General Manager 
 
 Government stock 
 
 Income Tax 
 
 Limited Liability 
 
 Company 
 Promissory note 
 
 Stock Exchange 
 
 The foregoing are not all that may be adopted in the 
 way of business phrases, nor will every one be found of 
 equal value in different kinds of situations. There is no 
 finality in the practice of phraseography, and it is of 
 more importance perhaps that the young phonographer 
 s'hould know how to apply the principle underlying the 
 practice, than that he should merely commit a list of 
 phrases to memory, however well selected such a list 
 may be. The list which has been given should therefore 
 be taken as an indication of the direction in which the 
 writer may add others in his practice. The beautiful 
 phonographic form Is-^/" v for instance, is a key to a 
 long string of similar groups of words which may be 
 easily written without lifting the pen. In extending the 
 practice there are three primary conditions which must 
 be complied with. i. Words to be connected in a phrase 
 must be such as occur frequently together and have a 
 natural connection in the structure of the sentence. 
 Thus it would not do to write, " I am, however, glad to 
 be able, etc.," as s ""~ <r X etc., because it would read, " I 
 am very glad," instead of " however." 2. The phono- 
 graphic form selected for a phrase or contraction should
 
 96 Phonography in the Office. 
 
 be one that is easily written. 3. The phrase should be 
 easily read. If a phrase is deficient in these three con- 
 ditions it is better to write the words disjoined. 
 
 It does not "pay" to burden the memory with nu- 
 merous forms of phrases and contractions unless there is 
 a considerable saving gained by the practice. Authors 
 of the older systems of shorthand were very fond of 
 manufacturing ingenious phrases or rather symbols. The 
 learner was taught to write, perhaps, the words, "from 
 one end of the world to the other" by the suggestive 
 picture 0, only to find that he was not called upon to 
 write that 'particular group of words once in a year. 
 Phonography has no alphabetic shortcomings to apolo- 
 gize for in this way. In the foregoing list the alphabetic 
 principle of contraction has been adopted, to which may 
 occasionally be superadded the principle of intersecting 
 alphabetic forms, as in ^- (railway company), without 
 any sacrifice of phonographic consistency. All inge- 
 nious and artificial devices which .carry the pen far 
 above or below the line should be avoided. That Pho- 
 nography may be written in phrases without such unsafe 
 and unnecessary forms., and still give ample facilities for 
 writing without lifting the pen, may be seen by the pho- 
 nographic expression of the following string of purely 
 business terms : 
 
 [There is no inquiry in the market just now.] 
 
 which, though not recommended as a phrase, is a suf- 
 ficient illustration of the way in which Phonography has 
 reduced shorthand to safe and fluent alphabetic writing 
 on a scientific basis, and points the way to an almost 
 unlimited field .of phraseography without burdening the 
 memory with ridiculous analogies.
 
 BUSINESS OUTLINES. 
 
 IT after all, the vital part of the shorthand clerk's 
 ability in taking down business correspondence 
 will be his readiness to give rapid shorthand ex- 
 pression to individual business terms rather than to show 
 his skill in the compilation of business phrases. As a part 
 of the special preparation which the writer is advocating 
 in these pages, this point is one which deserves attention. 
 Every shorthand writer knows that all the words in the dic- 
 tionary cannot be written in shorthand with equal facility 
 even when of equal length. Indeed, it would be quite 
 possible to select two separate hundreds of words each 
 with the same number of syllables, and in the one case 
 the shorthand writer should be able to write the hundred 
 words in half the time that it would take him to write 
 the other. 
 
 Upon the above principle the author has selected from 
 Mr Isaac Pitman's " Phonographic Dictionary" an ex- 
 haustive list of the words frequently used in business 
 correspondence, and then, from this selected list, has 
 further selected such words as would be likely to pre- 
 sent, when suddenly arising in the course of dictation, 
 the most difficulty in the way of instantly remembering 
 and writing the outline. If the reader says that he has 
 his "Phonographic Dictionary" to refer to for such 
 words, I can only say that I hope he has, and that every 
 phonographer will get a copy of that really admirable 
 book, too, but the point is that you cannot carry a dic- 
 tionary in your head, and an employer of a shorthand 
 clerk will not expect you to pull him up to consult a 
 dictionary for words which are the very coin current of 
 business life. The following list of business outlines is 
 made up of words which, for the most part, it is abso- 
 lutely necessary that the shorthand clerk should be able 
 to write with as much facility as he would the ordinary 
 grammalogues of Phonography, and he will therefore 
 find it very much to his advantage to practise writing 
 them, again and again, until he has acquired that 
 degree of familiarity with them. 
 
 \ 
 
 Abstract 
 accommodate 
 
 accountant 
 accuracy
 
 * . Phonography in the Office. 
 
 *~*' accumulation 
 
 <>/v y^ certainly 
 
 L> additional 
 c, adequately 
 
 ^v..^ certificate 
 o/ v circular 
 
 f adjudication 
 
 c ] collector 
 
 advert 
 
 "^ commission 
 
 <L 
 
 I advertise 
 
 ^*f compensate 
 
 I advisable 
 
 \_o comprehensive 
 
 rL. alternative 
 
 ^-i i confidential 
 
 v ~ x ~^| animadvert 
 
 <L^\ conscientious 
 
 v_/o?^j announcement 
 
 &/ 
 
 ^p/\ answerable 
 
 <Q ~| consecutive 
 
 
 .q. consignment 
 
 y> arrangement 
 
 "L-j contradiction 
 
 ) / ^ x ascertain 
 
 ^"^5 con - espondence 
 
 J assets 
 
 i_ counteract 
 
 L N 
 <* assistance 
 
 d 
 
 I courtesy 
 
 Lj assurance 
 
 j^/ customer-ary 
 
 L attributable 
 
 J Declaration 
 
 X^ Bankruptcy 
 v_^ , beneficial 
 
 Q_ defalcation 
 1 default 
 
 c ~ c ~5 Calculation 
 
 \^f\ 
 V^ deficit 
 
 "~"\D-^ canvasser 
 
 1 
 
 ^ 
 
 \^~ deliberately 
 
 y capacity 
 
 t-v/ demurrage 
 
 s/^ capitalist 
 
 ^ departure 
 ' 
 
 _/*"" " catalogue 
 
 i 
 
 <Z_^ 
 
 ^p deposit 
 
 jx censure 
 
 \ 
 
 ^ 1 certainty 
 
 L depreciation
 
 Business Outlines. 
 
 99 
 
 a \ desirability 
 
 S 
 
 fraudulent 
 
 -o details 
 
 
 
 4- 
 
 Generously 
 
 \^ determine 
 
 TV 
 
 gratification 
 
 ^i^ disappointed 
 
 C\ 
 
 Illustrated 
 
 J^ disappointment 
 
 ^\ 
 
 impossibility 
 
 CTS disarrange 
 
 ' 1 
 
 J o disastrous 
 
 "X 
 
 improper 
 increasingly 
 
 >^*"^ 
 
 ^^ o 
 
 inexpensive 
 
 i_o disclose 
 
 ^C-i 
 
 Liquidation 
 
 o ~~ disconnect 
 
 ^^_ ft~-~*-s~~^ 
 
 . Maximum 
 
 o *< discontinue 
 
 D 
 
 ^-V^-N^-^ memorandum 
 
 <^?-^^ ? discountenanced 
 
 ^N^^N<^ 
 
 minimum 
 
 K 
 
 J discrepancy 
 
 ^ 
 
 Necessitate 
 
 ^(/~ disposal 
 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 negligent 
 negotiation 
 
 -% disqualification 
 
 "^^r 
 
 nominal 
 
 3 
 
 L-^" disregard 
 
 v^ 
 
 Obligation 
 
 I 
 
 n 
 
 occurrence 
 
 dissatisfied 
 
 /Vw 
 
 opportune 
 
 ^"^ Embargo 
 
 "5_- 
 
 ordinary 
 
 ^* embarrassment 
 
 <Sv 
 
 Persuaded 
 
 S enclosure 
 
 ^x 
 
 practicable 
 
 <-^ enhance 
 
 
 precisely 
 
 S- equivalent 
 o j exorbitant 
 
 v^-^ 
 
 preference 
 ' preferential 
 
 *Lj^f extensively 
 
 <-^> 
 
 proclamation 
 
 Sf Facilitate 
 
 "-1 
 
 protective 
 
 ^~J fictitious 
 ^/y foreclosure 
 
 \ 
 
 profitable
 
 100 Phonography in the Office. 
 
 tv/V' prohibitory 
 
 a ~ v - ; ] signature 
 
 >y proposal 
 
 ^^^ sincerely 
 
 *v 
 
 ^/\ speciality 
 
 X prospectus 
 b 
 
 >. speculation 
 
 \J^i, punctual 
 
 N/^ stipulation 
 
 ' 
 
 9^ straightfonvard 
 
 ^~__j Qualifications 
 
 n 
 
 ^| quantity 
 
 o_^ successors 
 
 ^-x 
 
 suitable 
 
 \ quarter 
 
 ^-^__p superintendence 
 
 ~s> Re-arrangement 
 
 V/^ superior 
 
 s 
 
 3 
 
 ~\ re-establish 
 
 V-, suspended 
 
 /*\ reciprocal 
 
 \J suspicious 
 
 /< recompence 
 
 
 6 
 j ^ recover 
 
 n 
 
 systematical-ly 
 
 ^ reference 
 
 ^ Tendency 
 
 /^/ registration 
 *<%, registrar 
 
 L?o transaction 
 TSj-L^ troublesome 
 S Unaccountable 
 
 / Q remittances 
 
 y unconditional 
 
 ^f^ resource 
 
 Q_>^ 
 
 
 ^-^ ^ unreasonable 
 
 /^_^ respectful-ly 
 
 ^ unexpected-ly 
 
 /i__ restriction 
 
 N unsuitable 
 
 ^~* salesman 
 
 P unwilling 
 
 satisfactorily 
 
 uncertain 
 
 b satisfies 
 Vo 
 
 ~~c/ v unworthy 
 
 ^. separately 
 
 Vacancy 
 
 J / shareholder 
 
 &*^* Warehouse 
 
 
 ^ workmanship
 
 THE USE OF FIGURES. 
 
 |HE use of figures in the ordinary routine of 
 an office, and in business life generally, is 
 so large and important an element that the 
 shorthand clerk who would be fully qualified to enter 
 upon the duties of his post should not only have some 
 knowledge of accounts, and be "quick at figures" 
 in the ordinary sense, but he should especially en- 
 deavor to acquire the ability of rapidly and accu- 
 rately combining his shorthand with figures. In the 
 majority of cases there is reason to believe that 
 learners of shorthand do not pay sufficient attention 
 to this point ; and, if they do attend to it at all, limit 
 their practice to convenient round sums which may be 
 partly expressed by a shorthand letter, as 5 C for .5,000. 
 This, though a convenient mode of expression, is not of 
 so much value as it may seem, because the figures 
 themselves may generally be written almost as quickly 
 as they are uttered, and there still remains the necessity 
 for writing all figures which are not in even round 
 sums, in full. 
 
 The principal difficulty to be overcome when taking 
 down passages in which figures occur freely is the ten- 
 dency to hesitation and halting at the point of transition 
 from figures to shorthand and vice versa. It is essential 
 that practice with figures should be thorough and 
 varied. Figures, like facts, are " stubborn chiels," and 
 will not be trifled with. The shorthand clerk should, 
 therefore, spare no pains in seeking to take down his 
 figures accurately, even if an unimportant word should 
 have to be omitted. For this there is the all-sufficient 
 reason that in transcribing figures it is a case of " every 
 tub standing on its own bottom." With ordinary phrases 
 or clauses of a sentence it has been shown that there 
 are several aids which may be called in to solve a doubt- 
 ful passage should the writer be careless or hard pressed 
 enough to write one, or you may even throw the Phono- 
 graphic Jonah overboard altogether, and convey what 
 is the obvious meaning by some other word. But with
 
 102 Phonography in the Office. 
 
 a figure no amount of knowledge of the business, no aid 
 from a friendly context, and not even the good offices of 
 a colleague, can be absolutely relied upon. Excepting 
 in the rare case in which the sum to be taken down is a 
 part of a total, or the total itself of which all the compo- 
 nent parts are given, there may be nothing whatever to 
 save the risk of mistake but the accurate taking down 
 of each figure. 
 
 While the author would always recommend the writing 
 of figures in preference to shorthand signs for figures, 
 and in a general way the writing of the whole of the 
 figures in preference to abbreviations for figures, there 
 are certain classes, and certain associations, of figures 
 with regard to which the principle of contraction recom- 
 mended in other directions may be applied with ad- 
 vantage where the shorthand clerk finds that figures 
 are likely to form a heavy part of his note-taking. 
 The writer has frequently adopted contractions in his 
 own practice, some of which agree with those recom- 
 mended by Mr T. A. Reed in his book on "Technical 
 Reporting."* For the sake of uniformity among pho- 
 nographers, and also because Mr Reed's rules for con- 
 tractions for the expression of figures will be found to be 
 complete, practical and safe, the writer is glad to insert 
 them here for the benefit of those who may find such 
 contractions either necessary or desirable in their work. 
 The following, with one or two unimportant omissions, 
 are Mr Reed's contractions for the expression of cer- 
 tain sets of figures : 
 
 The common fractions, , |, J, which, if they occur frequently, 
 are much too long for the writer, may be thus abbreviated : 
 
 by a straight stroke above the figure to which it belongs, as 
 2 = 24; 5 = 5i 
 
 by a straight stroke in the same position, with an initial tick 
 or hook, as ^7" = ij ; Z 2~=2}. 
 
 f by a straight stroke in the same position, with a final tick or 
 hook, as ~4?= 4f ; IE 7 = I ^l- 
 
 Other fractions should be written in the ordinary way, as -fa, 
 
 A- ; . 
 
 * See advt. at the end of this book.
 
 The Use of Figures. 103 
 
 In the common phrases, three or four, four or five, five or six, 
 etc., one figure may be placed under the other, so as to save the 
 expression of the word or ; thus, 
 
 J = three or four ; = nine or ten. 
 
 Hundreds may be written with a straight horizontal stroke 
 by the side of the figure to which it belongs, thus 4 = 40x3 : 
 16 = 1,600. 
 
 Thousands may be written with a straight horizontal or 
 slightly sloping stroke under the figure to which it belongs, 
 
 thus, 2 = 7,000 ; 120 = 120,000 ; 3- = 300,000 ; 
 
 1,500,000. 
 
 Pounds (whether in money or weight, the context distinguish- 
 ing) may be expressed by a dot following the figure to which it 
 belongs, thus : 
 
 \-=i or i Ib. 
 
 $ = $ or 5 Ibs. . 
 
 4 -"-=.400 or 400 Ibs. 
 J9^= 10,000 or 10,000 Ibs. 
 ^^= 300,000 or 300,000 Ibs. 
 %-r= 400 or $oo, or 400 or 500 Ibs. 
 %sf^= /5,ooo or ^"6,000 or 5,000 or 6,000 Ibs. 
 
 One advantage of this method is that when shillings follow 
 the pounds the dot serves as an ordinary dividing mark, thus 
 5.10 = ^5.10; i.3l? = i. 3- 6f. 
 
 If the writer, following very closely upon a speaker, writes 
 the horizontal stroke to represent thousands, and finds that other 
 figures follow he can write them under the stroke, instead of 
 erasing it, as, 
 
 5 = 5,240 ; $^\ = 3,061 ; %^g = 8,009. 
 
 Hundredweights, the phonographic outline for which is rather 
 long, may be written with two dots following the figure to which 
 it belongs, thus, 
 
 9:= 9 cwt. 
 
 2: = 2j CWt. 
 
 . 2: 3. 16 = 2 cwt, 3 qrs., 16 Ibs. 
 
 Per cent can be written with the phonographic letter \ / fol- 
 lowing the figure to which it belongs thus, 
 
 6 \ = 6 per cent ; j\ = z\ per cent.
 
 104 Phonography in the Office. 
 
 Per cent per annum may be written with two /'s \\. follow- 
 ing the figure, thus, 
 
 t+ ^ s = 4i per cent per annum. 
 
 It will be seen that Mr Reed has made no provision 
 for the expression of tons in connection with hundred- 
 weights, but in many cases such denomination would 
 frequently have to be written in this connection. Where 
 it has to be written frequently in this way I would sug- 
 gest the writing of a short thick dash after the figure 
 for the tons. By adding, for instance, 6 tons to the line 
 given above, it could then be taken down as 6- 2: 3. 16 
 = 6 tons, 2 cwt, 3 qrs., 16 Ibs. If, however, the reader 
 should wish to make use of these contractions for figures 
 it is obvious that he must practise upon them until their 
 use becomes " as familiar to him as A B C." 
 
 Let the young phonographer who has confined his 
 practice to platform and pulpit utterances get someone 
 to dictate the following letter to him until he can take 
 it down accurately at the rate of 120 words per minute 
 or more. Where two or more words are connected by a 
 hyphen (-) they should be written as a phrase : 
 
 Manchester, 26 May, 1886. 
 Messrs Johnson and Co. , Birmingham. 
 
 Gentlemen, We-have considered-the points raised in-your- 
 letter (of the) 2ist inst. , and-have compared the same with-the 
 sums included in-the financial-statement, which-has-been forwarded 
 to-you. 
 
 With-regard-(to)-the sums which-appear in-that-statement, we-find 
 that, when taken out from-the body (of the) statement the sums 
 which-you-require to be explained would-be correctly stated as 
 follows, viz. : 
 
 Special charges, ,45,000, or a fraction of nearly \ (of the) whole ; 
 general charges, 253,000 or a fraction of f ; making a total, in- 
 cluding the column for extras, of 298,946 IDS. 4d. altogether. In- 
 addition-to-this, there-would-have to be taken into account the sums 
 of 40,000 and 105,000, besides the balance (of the) establishment 
 loan amounting to 104, 196 8s. 3d., upon-which interest would still 
 be charged at-the rate of 3^ per-cent per-annum, amounting for- 
 the period you-mention to about 23,000, or in exact figures to 
 22,967 195. 3id. 
 
 We-shall-be-glad to-hear from-you, and to know that, upon 
 further-examination, you have found the figures correct as stated. 
 
 We-are, yours faithfully, 
 [262 words.] BARCLAY AND SIMMONS.
 
 The Use of Figures. 105 
 
 It will be observed that the difficulty to be overcome 
 in taking down a letter containing figures such as the 
 above is not only the transition from shorthand to figures 
 and vice versa, but also of getting over the habit of 
 abbreviating for the expression of round numbers 
 clashing with the necessity for writing odd sums in full. 
 The essential point in the use of figures with shorthand 
 is clearness absolute and reliable ; and the student of 
 Phonography should practise such passages again and 
 again until the transition between shorthand and figures, 
 and between round sums which may be abbreviated and 
 odd sums which must be written in full is both easy and 
 natural to him. It may be that the shorthand clerk 
 would not often have to take down so " heavy" a letter 
 as the above, but the principle it is intended to illustrate 
 will often arise in one form or other, and should be 
 grappled with. 
 
 Another minor difficulty which is common to the rapid 
 writing of figures arises through a sudden break in the 
 mental operation of running down from thousands to units 
 where one of these factors is represented by a nought. 
 Thus, a writer may be able to run easily through the 
 gamut from hundreds of thousands down to units where 
 each denomination is represented, but may still be 
 baffled by the rapid reading of such a sum as ^45,005. 
 Take the figures in the following extract from a life 
 assurance report : 
 
 Provident Life Office. Frotn-the report (of the) Provident Life 
 Office for-the-year ending Dec. 3151 it-appears that proposals 
 were received for new assurances amounting to .620,375 ; and 
 1,085 policies were granted for 520,851, of- which 10,000 was 
 reassured. The new premiums, including .3,159 received for single 
 payments, and-after deduction for reassurance, amount to 25, 146 
 as against 18,060 for-the previous year. Proposals for 99' 5*4 
 were declined or not completed. The claims were 203,075, and 
 exceed the amount for 1884 by 11,134. The annual income is- 
 now 323,780, showing an increase of 8,209 upon-the revenue for- 
 the previous year. The total funds (of the) office on-the 3151 Decem- 
 ber were .2,455,791, having increased during-the year by-the sum 
 of 66,835. The average interest realised was 4 45. 6d. per-cent 
 as against 4 45. 2d. for-the previous year. 
 
 [248 words.] 
 
 In not a few cases shorthand clerks are employed in 
 offices connected with the administration of the Public
 
 106 Phonography in the Office. 
 
 Health Act. The clerk to such governing bodies is 
 generally a solicitor, and in such a case the shorthand 
 clerk will, in all probability, have, besides the corres- 
 pondence, to take notes for draft reports, etc., or of 
 letters containing figures of the character given in the 
 following : 
 
 The annual rate of mortality in-the eight Scotch towns, which had- 
 been 24-4 and 24-1 per-thousand in-the preceding weeks, declined to 
 22 -9 in-the week ended December 28th. This rate, however, ex- 
 ceeded by 3 - 6 the mean rate during-the same week in-the 28 English 
 towns. 
 
 The rates in-the Scotch towns last-week ranged from io - 6 in 
 Leith and 187 in Dundee, to 24-9 in Glasgow, 26-6 in Perth, and 
 35 -2 in Paisley. The 560 deaths in-the eight towns showed a decline 
 of 28 from-the number in-the previous week. 
 
 In-all, there-were 43 deaths from-the principal zymotic diseases, 
 against 56 and 51 in-the preceding weeks. These 43 deaths were 
 equal to a death-rate of i'8 per thousand, which-was o - 5 below the 
 mean rate for-the-same diseases in-the 28 English towns. 
 [180 words.] 
 
 On the subject of the incorporation of decimals with 
 shorthand the reader is advised to write them exactly as 
 they are given in the preceding exercise. The decimal 
 point should be clearly shown, and placed well up be- 
 tween the figures thus, i'2. 
 
 In these days when so much of the business life of 
 the country is carried on by public companies, another 
 specimen of figures may be given for dictation practice 
 as follows : 
 
 Finsbury Pavement, London, E.G., 2 Jan., 1886. 
 Mr Chas. Smith, Liverpool. 
 
 Dear-Sir, At an extraordinary-meeting (of the) shareholders 
 (of the) Mining Company, Limited, held at-the Cannon Street 
 Hotel on-Monday Jan. ist, the following resolutions were submitted 
 to-the-meeting : 
 
 (1) To reduce the capital by 62,500, by cancelling-the paid-up 
 capital unrepresented by available assets, to-the extent of 55. per 
 share on each (of the) 250,000 shares which-have already been issued. 
 
 (2) To further-reduce the capital by 62,500, by reducing the 
 nominal amount (of the) remaining 250,000 shares from IDS. to 53. 
 each, thereby leaving the nominal capital (of the) Company at 
 125,000 divided into 500,000 shares at 55. each. 
 
 The chairman stated that if-the resolutions were-not passed, it- 
 would virtually mean no dividend for-the next two years, and pos- 
 sibly at a future meeting the shareholders would-be asked to sanction
 
 The Use of Figures. 107 
 
 the issue of ^50,000 more shares, but-that would-be in connection 
 with a contract which he himself would accept if-the shareholders 
 did not. 
 
 The resolutions upon being put to-the-meeting were carried 
 unanimously. 
 
 I-am, yours-obediently, 
 
 JAMES MACPHERSON, 
 [230 words.] Secretary. 
 
 With respect to the number of words in the foregoing 
 letters it may be of interest to state that in counting 
 figures for the purpose of testing speed in writing, the 
 principle adopted is, not to allow a word for a figure, or 
 a given number of figures, but to allow just so many 
 words as the person dictating has to pronounce in calling 
 out the figures. Thus " two hundred and fifty thousand" 
 would count as five words ; $ 133. gd. as six words, 
 and 2 -5 as three words. The fact of the number of 
 words being given will, the writer hopes, be taken as an 
 indication that all letters and extracts which have been 
 or may be given, are intended to serve the double object 
 of illustrating some particular point or difficulty, and as 
 dictation exercises.
 
 INFLUENCE OF LONGHAND UPON 
 SHORTHAND. 
 
 may not, perhaps, often be suspected by those 
 who labor under the disadvantage arising from 
 it, yet the influence of longhand, and especially 
 of the style generally employed in an office, has a 
 material bearing upon the subject of getting up speed 
 in shorthand. Indeed, between the flowing one might 
 almost say flying style of longhand which necessarily 
 finds favor with mos.t newspaper reporters in hurriedly 
 transcribing " copy " for the press, and the stiff, rather 
 upright, and solid style of the copying clerk, the differ- 
 ence is so great that even a person unacquainted with 
 shorthand might expect such an influence to exist. 
 
 Among learners of Phonography who are employed 
 as copying or as junior clerks in an office, and also 
 among those fresh from school, it is frequently noticed 
 that the peculiarities of the longhand betray themselves 
 in the character of the shorthand, and the virtues of the 
 one sometimes become the faults of the other. It is 
 found, for instance, among those employed as clerks in 
 an office that certain shorthand curves are often written 
 in too upright a position. These letters will generally 
 be V. C ~~\, $ar excellence the most perfect and 
 beautiful forms in the phonographic system, and forms 
 which, next to <-^ and ^~^, lend themselves most readily 
 to the acquisition of a high rate of speed. The same 
 want of freedom also leads to the letters \ and ^ 
 being written in too upright a position. 
 
 Another and more serious effect of the "copying" 
 style of longhand upon shorthand is that the solidity 
 and compact style of the longhand results in a too 
 heavy style of shorthand. The writer throws too much 
 weight into his shorthand, and the increased friction from 
 the resistance of the paper makes it a serious obstacle 
 to the acquisition of speed, to say nothing of the diffi-
 
 Influence of Longhand uon Shorthand. 109 
 
 culty of distinguishing thin and thick strokes. Con- 
 sidering the large number of clerks employed in offices, 
 who, in seeking to add shorthand to their qualifications, 
 may be supposed to labor to some extent under this dis- 
 advantage arising from their ordinary penmanship, the 
 following special exercise is recommended as a means of 
 counteracting the fault. It has been made the subject. 
 of practical experiment, and the writer is confident that, 
 at least, time will not be thrown away upon its practice, 
 and that a persevering use of it will be attended with fa- 
 vorable results where the remedy is needed. The writer 
 does not think it necessary to apologise for any lack of 
 meaning, as the paragraph is intended for a purely 
 manual exercise. In this letter, and all following ones, 
 words to be joined in shorthand are connected by hy- 
 phens. Words in parentheses are to be omitted in 
 shorthand. 
 
 [100 words.] 
 
 TRANSLATION. 
 
 I-am-aware if-there-were-no-more reformers in-the manufacturing 
 centre in-which so-many workmen are engaged in-the-manufacture 
 and-in-the mechanical manipulation of iron rails that-we-soon shall 
 come to a remarkable and-unsatisfactory-conclusion in-the-matter, 
 and-have-no-more-requirements for-the-\vork. At-the-same-time 
 there-is-no-more reason to-require me to-make any distinctions in- 
 the-matter if-we-are to-record in-the-Manchester minutes whatever 
 is remarkable or in-any-way peculiar in-the-manner of-those-who- 
 were most engaged in-the-work. 
 
 As the chief defect which the above exercise is intended 
 to remedy is a too heavy style of writing Phonography,
 
 110 Phonography in the Office. 
 
 the exercise has been so framed as to consist almost 
 exclusively of light curves. The use of double length 
 curves, and the selection of words and phrases which 
 favor a continuous flowing style of writing, will also 
 enable the writer to talce it down easily, aad by repeated 
 experiments upon it he will find his shorthand becoming 
 imperceptibly lighter, with a tendency to a freer sloping 
 of the letters. The rate of speed acquired in the writing 
 of such a passage will be much greater than upon an 
 ordinary passage, and it must not be used as a test of 
 speed, or the result will be very misleading. The young 
 phonographer who cares to practise upon this exercise 
 will, of course, first copy it a few times and then get it 
 dictated to him. The "sense" conveyed in the exer- 
 cise is not of much account, but the value of writing it 
 two or three times at every practice for getting up 
 speed is the principal consideration for giving it a place. 
 The experiment may be supplemented by the following, 
 which, though cast into the form of a business letter will 
 be found to contain similar characteristics when trans- 
 lated into Phonography. 
 
 Market Square, Manchester, 8th Dec. , 1884. 
 Messrs. , Neville and Vinter, Rochester. 
 
 Gentlemen, I-am-receiving many testimonials just-now, in- 
 reference to-my manufactures enumerated in-the ' ' Army and Navy 
 Magazine," many-of-which-will-be-circulated next-week. 
 
 You-will, I-think, see that I-have-the best reason to-make known 
 so-many matters of excellence connected with-them if-you-will-only 
 make a careful examination (of the) last pattern. 
 
 In-the-meantime, I-shall-be-glad to-receive your opinion respecting 
 any merits in-their manufacture which-you-may have noticed in-(the)- 
 first parcel I-have-sent you. 
 
 I-am, yours-truly, 
 [112 words.] JAMES MANSFIELD. 
 
 The above should also be written out several times at 
 a sifting. The value of a special practice designed for 
 a special purpose depends entirely upon persistence in 
 its use.
 
 AIDS AND HINDRANCES. 
 
 [HERE is one difficulty which often besets young 
 phonographers in applying their shorthand to 
 business, which, though not arising directly 
 from a lack of speed in writing, sometimes interferes 
 unpleasantly with the aggregate result of speed. It is 
 the occasional occurrence of a long word, such as a 
 proper name, for which there is no recognised contrac- 
 tion ; and, however easily the writer may have taken 
 down the ordinary part of a letter, up goes this danger 
 signal at the most unexpected moment and arrests his 
 progress. Like the last two lines of the impromptu 
 poem referred to by the author of the "Autocrat of 
 the Breakfast Table," the proper outline " won't come 
 on any terms," and so as a last and desperate resort 
 something goes down in his note-book which does not 
 bear a very striking resemblance to the name it is in- 
 tended to express. Such a difficulty may arise from the 
 name of a city or town, and at some inconvenient point 
 in a letter. Take the following instance : 
 
 London, 8th Feb., 1886. 
 To Mr James Smith, 
 
 care of Messrs Johnson and Co. , Berwick. 
 
 Dear-Sir, We-are-in-(re)ceipt-of-your-letter, containing inquiry 
 respecting non arrival of-goods ordered by-you on-the ist inst. 
 
 In-reply , we-beg-(to)-inform-you that-the-goodswere duly forwarded 
 to-you on and inst. via Northallerton and Sunderland, by Midland 
 passenger train from here at 10.30 a.m., and-they-were correctly ad- 
 dressed to-you ' ' care of Messrs Johnson and Co. " as advised in- 
 your-letter. 
 
 We-have made inquiries (of the) Railway-Company's officials at St 
 Pancras, and are assured that-there-was-no delay in forwarding the 
 goods from-their station. We-cannot therefore understand why 
 there-should-have-bee(n)-such delay, g,nd trust the parcels will-have 
 reached you safely before-you-receive-this letter. 
 
 We-are, yours faithfully, 
 [152 words.] BROWN AND MARTIN. 
 
 Unless the young phonographer has had some prac- 
 tice in writing proper names he would, in such a letter
 
 112 Phonography in the Office. 
 
 as the above, have a sudden "pull up " at the danger 
 signals of Northallerton and Sunderland, oblivious of 
 the fact that there are other facts close at his heels 
 which he carmot possibly ignore. The phonographer, 
 (like the fair creature in the proverb,) " who hesitates is 
 lost," and in such a case, if he cannot recall the short- 
 hand forms with sufficient rapidity, he should write as 
 many of the alphabetic characters -in the word as he 
 can, and trust to his memory for the name intended ; 
 and for the reason that the los"s of time over such a name 
 might lead to missing other essential words to which 
 there would not be so good a clue when transcribing. 
 This apologetic treatment of a weak point is not needed 
 because shorthand will not readily meet the case, but 
 because many a youth finds himself using shorthand in 
 business before he has reached even the elementary 
 possibilities of his art. 
 
 Closely connected with the above, and as one reason 
 for noticing the point raised, is the general subject of 
 accurately taking down names of persons and places 
 and other proper names, which arise much more fre- 
 quently in the work of the shorthand clerk than in that 
 of a shorthand writer in any department not connected 
 with business. Because it has not been necessary to 
 include such special matters in general shorthand in- 
 struction books, and I daresay for want of a little fore- 
 thought, many a young shorthand clerk has entered 
 upon his new duties in a business house, perhaps with- 
 out a very full knowledge of the geography even of his 
 own country, and at any rate without having troubled 
 himself about practising in shorthand the writing down 
 of the principal cities and towns, and also Christian and 
 surnames, the names of the principal railways, etc. It 
 may be quite true that the shorthand clerk would either 
 remember or have the means of furnishing a clue to any 
 difficulty over a proper name, but this does not quite 
 meet the case. The worst part of such a difficulty is 
 the tendency to stumble and hesitate when such a proper 
 name unexpectedly arises, thus causing a loss of time 
 which can be ill spared from other words which do not 
 admit of trusting to the memory. 
 
 The following letter will afford some idea of the kind 
 of exercise the young phonographer should add to his
 
 Aids and Hindrances. 
 
 113 
 
 ordinary practice, if he is thinking of obtaining a short- 
 hand clerkship in a business house having dealings with 
 provincial customers. If in the service of a professional 
 man, such as a solicitor, he would find it of less im- 
 portance, and in a business house having dealings with 
 the colonies or foreign countries the practice should be 
 varied so as to include names of places in, and the 
 routes to and from, those countries : 
 
 . London, 2oth Dec., 1885. 
 
 J. H. Foster, Esq., Blackpool, . 
 
 Dear-Sir, In-reply-(to)-your-letter just received I-beg-to-inform- 
 you that-the following are in-the-main the arrangements made for 
 our provincial tour, as-far-as they can at-present be determined : 
 
 In-(the)-first two weeks in January at Stockton and Darlington ; in- 
 the latter half (of the) month at Newcastle, Northallerton ,' Richmond, 
 and-the North Riding of Yorkshire. From February 4th to i6thin- 
 the West Riding, and from i6th to a8th at Carlisle and principal 
 places in Cumberland. During March and April, in-the principal 
 cities and towns of Lancashire, including Liverpool, Manchester, 
 Lancaster, Preston, Bolton, Warrington and Rochdale ; in May 
 and June in-the Midland counties generally, including Derbyshire, 
 Leicestershire, Warwickshire and Staffordshire, and-the towns of 
 Derby, Buxton, Chesterfield, Birmingham, and Leicester. 
 
 In July we-propose to visit some (of the) chief places in North and 
 South Wales, and-in-(the)-first week in August, Bath and Bristol. 
 From-the gth to-the i6th of-that month we-shall-be in-the Southern 
 counties of Hampshire, Berkshire, Sussex, Kent and Surrey, and-in- 
 some (of the) following towns for a second visit in September and 
 October, namely, Brighton, Chichester, Canterbury, Rochester, 
 Maidstone, and Croydon. In November we-shall-be in Essex, 
 visiting Chelmsford, Colchester and Ipswich, and-in-the-early part 
 of December in Norfolk and Cambridgeshire, finishing up before 
 Christmas in Hertfordshire and Middlesex. 
 
 I-have given-you the fullest information I possibly can at-present 
 in-order that-you-may-be-able-to-make-the necessary arrangements 
 for-the commencement (of the) tour on Jan. ist, and remain, 
 
 Yours-truly, 
 
 [286 words.] ALEXANDER BUTLER. 
 
 J Stockton 
 r \j Darlington 
 Newcastle 
 Northallerton 
 Richmond 
 Yorkshire 
 
 Carlisle 
 Cumberland 
 Lancashire 
 ' '\y Liverpool 
 
 Manchester
 
 14 
 
 Phonography in the Office. 
 
 C^ 
 
 Lancaster 
 
 ^ f, Sussex 
 
 ^~3 
 
 Warrington 
 
 /Chichester 
 
 I 
 
 Rochdale 
 
 
 ^/ Canterbury 
 
 iX 
 
 
 x^ Rochester 
 
 > 
 
 a 
 V? 
 
 n 
 
 Derbyshire 
 
 Leicestershire 
 Warwickshire 
 
 I Maidstone 
 " ) o Essex 
 /-^ Chelmsford 
 
 j 
 
 Staffordshire 
 
 ^ Colchester 
 
 #y 
 
 Chesterfield 
 
 \K^ Ipswich 
 
 
 
 ^V Norfolk 
 
 ^-^^-^ 
 
 Birmingham 
 Leicester 
 
 / Cambridgeshire 
 
 Z^ 
 
 Hampshire 
 
 y Hertfordshire 
 
 ^ 
 
 Berkshire 
 
 ^/^~ Middlesex
 
 SOURCES OF ERROR. 
 
 |HE two primary sources of error misunder- 
 standing what the person dictating has said, 
 and misreading what has been taken down in 
 the note-book have already been referred to, but in 
 some offices, such as a shipping business, or any busi- 
 ness in which there is a free use of proper names for 
 other purposes than that of distinguishing individuals, 
 there is a not uncommon source of error partaking of 
 both of the above characteristics, if by any chance a 
 necessary vowel is omitted where it would be a distin- 
 guishing element of a word. Thus, a proper noun may 
 possibly be misread for a common one, or a technical 
 word may be read as one with a general meaning. 
 Words representing number, quality, and denomination, 
 may also be possible sources of error, as zs. 6d. per 
 dozen instead of zs. 6d. per design, 5.5-. per score instead 
 of 5-r. per square (if the circle for square be written too 
 small). In such cases an error would make a consider- 
 able difference in the prices quoted, and would be some- 
 thing like that of the American stenographer who 
 describes a narrow escape from a mistake involving a 
 difference of four thousand dollars, by simply transcrib- 
 ing a quotation as per pair instead of per bar, and the 
 same writer pithily remarks that a little vowel is some- 
 times worth a fortune to the stenographer. 
 
 The obvious reflection of a too theoretical phonogra- 
 pher I dare say would be that in such cases as the 
 above the error should have been prevented by writing 
 the words in position. Writing in position, however, 
 ought not to be absolutely relied upon as the only 
 means of distinguishing a technical from a common 
 word. But while this is true on the one hand, it is 
 equally true, I am afraid, that there is too great a ten- 
 dency among young phonographers, as soon as they can 
 get free from the swaddling bands of an instruction book, 
 to disregard what that book has taught them and 
 foolishly throw overboard almost entirely the useful rule 
 of writing in position, and as they abandon the writing 
 of all vowels at the same time with amazing indifference, 
 y
 
 116 Phonography in the Office. 
 
 it is not surprising that such want of rule should occa- 
 sionally lead to a difficulty in transcribing in the direction 
 indicated above. 
 
 Upon this point of distinguishing particular words 
 either by position or by inserting a vowel, the phono- 
 grapher should bear in mind that the risk of error is 
 much greater in writing short, simple monosyllabic 
 words than in longer words, and especially if a number 
 of short words occur together. Apropos of the subject 
 of reading short words, the writer was once dictating a 
 letter to a junior clerk for practice, from Anderson's 
 Mercantile Correspondence, in which occurred the 
 following passage : 
 
 Should you have effected the insurance on these wines per Nancy, 
 please to cancel it and get it done on the vessel which you have 
 chartered, to your port only ; also ^300 on fruit ; say, on 300 boxes 
 of oranges, to be marked S on my account. 
 
 The transcript was made to read "300 Ibs. of fruit," 
 the figures having been taken down as " 300 V " and 
 the on ( ' ) being written like of (^) combined to 
 produce, not only a verbal mistake, but an essential 
 mistake as to the thing spoken of weight instead of 
 money. A general estimate of the subject of the letter, 
 namely, insurance, ought, of course, to have rectified 
 such an error. It is quite possible that a shorthand 
 clerk may be employed in the office of a' large business- 
 house in which denominations for weight would occur 
 almost as frequently as, and be mixed with, denomina- 
 tions for money in the figures which might have to be 
 written. The following letter will afford the young 
 phonographer an exercise upon this point of distinguish- 
 ing figures for money from figures for weight, and of the 
 use of the signs for figures and for weight included in 
 the paper on the use of figures. 
 
 Dear-Sir, We-are in receipt of-your-letter (of the) 24th June with 
 order for goods at prices quoted in our letter (of the) aoth, namely, 
 2 tons, 15 cwt., 3 qrs. , at 3 IDS. per ton, and will forward the same 
 per Great- Western-Railway as requested. 
 
 Sometime-ago, you inquired about a second quality (of the) same 
 goods, and we-have-now a lot by us which -we- think would suit you 
 well. There-is-about 5 tons, 16 cwt. , 3 qrs. , 23 Ibs. , for-which-we 
 would charge-you 2. 155. per ton. We-have-also a smaller lot very 
 similar, amounting to 2 tons, 13 cwt. , 2 qrs. , 20 Ibs., for-which-we 
 should charge-you 2 125. 6d. per ton.
 
 Sources of Error. 117 
 
 Please-inform us by return if-you-will-be-able-to take either or both 
 these lots. We should, of-course, allow you the usual 5 per-cent 
 discount for cash as on-other orders. 
 [173 words.] 
 
 Another source of error may arise where figures for 
 sums of money are freely interspersed in the shorthand, 
 if the figures are carelessly written. The most likely 
 place for an error of this kind to arise is at the point of 
 contact between the shorthand and the figures, which 
 will sometimes strengthen the resemblance of a figure 
 to a shorthand sign and vice versa. The paragraph of 
 insurance statistics which was given under the heading 
 of " The use of figures," for instance, contained the 
 following, "of which ^10,000 was re-assured." Here 
 the shorthand words for " of which " Q) if carelessly 
 written or placed too near the succeeding figures would 
 probably be read for a figure 7, and the passage would 
 be made to read " ^JIO^ (adopting Mr Reed's contrac- 
 tion) was re-assured " .710,000 was re-assured a tre- 
 mendous mistake 0^700,000, and yet one which a glance 
 at the paragraph quoted from will show would " read " 
 as well as the correct figures would do, because the 
 figures would have become disconnected from the con- 
 text and the clue to the correct reading. 
 
 The taking down of small sums of less than i is 
 another possible source of error, and for these sums the 
 phonographer should adopt the plan of shop-keepers in 
 marking their goods, as 2/, 2/8, etc., or it is possible if 
 the figures are badly written, and with no point between 
 them, they may be read for shorthand characters. For 
 instance, the author remembers a young phonographer 
 in transcribing a loosely written 6 ~] made it read as 
 three words, " sale of which," instead of 6/7. 
 
 The following letter contains an illustration of the 
 importance of thoroughly understanding the essential 
 point of a letter which has been dictated. 
 
 London, 8th Dec. , 1884. 
 J. Baker, Esq., Manchester. 
 
 Sir, We-have-this morning received a letter from Mr 
 Thomas Jones of-your city inquiring for prices of-our goods, as 
 advertised in-the Manchester Guardian. 
 We-have forwarded to-him by-this post copies of-our catalogue of
 
 118 Phonography in the Office. 
 
 prices in answer to-his request, and-have, at-the-same-time, referred 
 him to-you. We-have-informed him that all-our goods may-be 
 obtained from your establishment on-the-same terms as-if obtained 
 direct from our office in-London, and also that-we-shall-be pleased 
 to-receive any orders from-him through you. Please, therefore, 
 answer any inquiries he-may make to-you on-the-subject, and-oblige, 
 
 Yours faithfully, 
 [130 words.] MARSHALL AND WHITE. 
 
 In dictating the above letter to a pupil on one occasion 
 it was found that he had taken down every word of the 
 letter excepting the two words in italics, through you. 
 And in a letter of this kind by no means an uncommon 
 one in a wholesale house this would have been the 
 essential and sole point for which the letter would be 
 written, and the omission should be supplied by under- 
 standing the general sense of what the letter was about. 
 
 One of the peculiarities of Phonography is its great 
 concentration of consonantal power as expressed by 
 means of hooks and circles. Where these occur freely 
 in the middle of words they form, in the hands of many, 
 the slowest part of the system to write, but, as they 
 afford a compensating advantage, by adding immensely 
 to the legibility of the system, it is a pity that any young 
 phonographer should, for the want of a little more 
 thoroughness in practising upon them, fail to derive the 
 full advantage which they are intended to give him. It 
 has already been hinted that the ability to deal with 
 these hooks when combined with circles in the middle 
 of words is a weak point with many who practise Phono- 
 graphy. The peculiarity is, of course, a general one, 
 but the example given below will be found to contain 
 many words of this class which, from being of frequent 
 occurrence in business correspondence may, if written 
 repeatedly, serve as an exercise for overcoming what to 
 some is allowed to be a hindrance. 
 
 1885
 
 Sources of Error. 
 
 119 
 
 [180 words.] 
 
 TRANSLATION. 
 
 Cambridge, zqth October, 1885. 
 Dear Sir, 
 
 We regret having again to trouble you with reference to the 
 restrictions which we think have been improperly placed upon the increase 
 of proprietary rights, to which our correspondence with you in the present 
 month has had reference, but we cannot see that the proposal should pre- 
 clude the supposition that the depositors are not expressly provided for in 
 the declaration. We think it would be a retrograde policy to endeavor to 
 restrict or in any way to cripple or attempt to displace the directors of 
 the Company at the present time. 
 
 The subject of the Exeter branch has been already brought forward, and 
 we are informed that the proper forms and papers have been recently 
 placed in the District Registrar's Department, over which the corporation 
 has absolute control. 
 
 You will, we think, agree with us that it would be extremely unpleasant 
 just now to attempt repressive measures or to call an extraordinary meet- 
 ing of directors without any provisions for consulting the shareholders in 
 the matter. 
 
 We are, yours faithfully, 
 
 FRANKLIN BROTHERS.
 
 120 Phonography in the Office. 
 
 A little exercise upon a passage such as the above can 
 be confidently recommended from the fact that there is 
 scarcely any part of the rules of Phonography which will 
 so well repay a thorough course of practice upon, or 
 upon which experience shows that so many young pho- 
 nographers are found wanting when suddenly called 
 upon to apply these important rules in rapid writing. 
 
 To the regular shorthand clerk who has already 
 accustomed himself to the peculiarities of the work, or 
 who has acquired a good all-round facility in the use of 
 Phonography, it is quite possible that some of the helps 
 and suggestions contained in the foregoing chapters on 
 special preparation may appear, to him, unnecessary ; 
 and, in case any point should appear trifling, it should 
 be borne in mind that the writer's aim has been in the 
 main to benefit young phonographers who are seeking 
 to turn their Phonography to account in an office. In 
 pointing out some of the difficulties which are likely to 
 be met with, and the means of overcoming them, the 
 writer has not hesitated to keep the double object in 
 view of offering help and encouragement to the con- 
 scientious student of Phonography who is seeking to 
 make the best use of his art, and, at the same time, to 
 caution and discourage the careless and indifferent 
 against the folly of expecting to enjoy the advantages of 
 the art without taking the trouble to comply with, or fully 
 understand, its rules. If by means of anything which is 
 brought forward in these chapters, Phonography should 
 receive a better and more profitable treatment at the 
 hands of those wishing to make use of it in an office, it 
 'will be by the learner's not merely remembering but 
 acting upon what has been recommended to his notice. 
 The suggestions for special preparation, for instance, are 
 intended, not merely as so much general advice, but as 
 exercises for a special course of practice, and, with 
 those afforded in the business letters which are to follow, 
 they cannot fail, if honestly treated as such, to benefit 
 those for whom they are intended.
 
 BUSINESS LETTERS. 
 
 |N the course of the preceding papers it has been 
 urged that the best models for acquiring a good 
 style of business longhand, the composition of 
 a business letter, and for shorthand practice before 
 entering an office, are business letters themselves. The 
 shorthand clerk who is already in an office will have 
 frequent opportunities for availing himself of these, but 
 not so the young phonographer who is seeking to get 
 there. In the chapters which have been given on special 
 preparation this latter fact has been borne in mind, and 
 the letters given to illustrate certain points of difficulty 
 have been business letters, or letters the language of 
 which has been such as to make the practice of writing 
 them out freely as dictation exercises, one which cannot 
 fail to be of advantage in that direction. Having done 
 this the writer would recommend the taking down of 
 the following bond fide business letters in shorthand 
 from dictation again and again, and by reading the 
 notes and occasionally writing them out into good 
 business longhand, the phonographer will have the best 
 preparation for the use of Phonography in business and 
 for the composition of a business letter as well. Some 
 of the more difficult outlines will be given at the end of 
 each letter, and here and there an exceptional phrase. 
 These, and the phrases and outlines which have already 
 been given, should enable the writer to take the letters 
 down in shorthand with facility and despatch. 
 
 AGENT'S LETTER. 
 
 Manchester, 12 July, 1886. 
 
 Dear-Sir, In making up and forwarding you monthly account for 
 July, I-informed you that, owing, as I-supposed, to-some misunder- 
 standing, Mr Smith, (Certificate Nos. 6679-80) whose subscription 
 is paid yearly, had-not sent payment due on ist July for-the following 
 twelve months July 1886 to June 1887 inclusive and in-order-to 
 clear the debit against me on-your books I returned the receipts. 
 I-have-now to inform-you that by-the-next-post I received from Mr 
 Smith a remittance by-chequs, value jj \-js. od., with satisfactory 
 explanation for-the delay.
 
 122 Phonography in the Office. 
 
 Under-the above circumstances I should-be obliged by-your-re- 
 turning to-me the year's receipts to enable me to acknowledge the 
 remittance. The receipts may-be debited to-me in-the next month's 
 account, and in-order that-you-may-not lose interest on-the money 
 I-will at-once forward 5 on account, which-will, within a few shil- 
 lings, cover the amount received by-me, less commission. 
 
 Trusting this course will meet with your approval, 
 
 I-am, yours faithfully, 
 
 JAMES ROBERTS. 
 
 The Manager, Freehold Land Society, London. 
 [212 words.] 
 
 misunderstanding 
 
 certificate 
 
 inclusive 
 
 remittance 
 
 commission 
 
 faithfully 
 
 freehold 
 in order to 
 
 V\ by the next post 
 
 debited \_ A ,_ 
 
 by your returning 
 
 LETTER TO AN AGENT. 
 
 London, 26 Aug. , 1884. 
 
 Dear-Sir, In-reply to-your favor (of the) 24th inst. , I-will forward 
 the parcels under cover to-you for Mr Richards as you-request. 
 
 With-regard (to) your-remarks as to obtaining new business, there- 
 is-no reason why you-should refrain from soliciting or accepting 
 orders for new business from persons not already our customers 
 which-may-come in-your way in-any part of-your district. What we 
 do-not expect our agents and canvassers to-do is, to interfere with 
 existing connections obtained through another agent. 
 
 We-do-not make allowances for advertising. We advertise very 
 largely from this office, and consequently in a systematic-manner. 
 No fixed allowance is made under-the head of postage, but while- 
 the Directors do-not object to refund the expense of posting circulars, 
 etc. , they expect the amount expended in-that-way to bear a fair 
 proportion to-the-amount of business procured. 
 
 I-will send the supplies which-you-require, and-trust you-will-be 
 successful in working up a profitable agency in-your district. 
 I-am, yours faithfully, 
 
 H. C. BARKER. 
 
 Mr W. D. Smith. Secretary. 
 
 [200 words.]
 
 Business Letters. 
 
 refrain 
 
 yo postage 
 
 soliciting 
 
 / x circulars 
 
 canvassers 
 
 o 
 
 existing connections 
 
 <? expended 
 
 advertising 
 
 profitable 
 
 and consequently 
 
 / agency 
 
 systematic manner 
 
 fixed V/^ Barker 
 
 LETTER ON DISMISSAL OF A REPRESENTATIVE. 
 
 London, i6th Jan. , 1886. 
 Mr Johnson, Kentish Town. 
 
 Dear-Sir, We-regret that defalcations have obliged us to dis- 
 charge Mr Brown, our late traveler and-collector, who-is-no-longer* 
 authorized to-collect money or act on-our behalf. 
 
 Your account stands at 5 i6s. 9^. on-our books. If-not correct 
 please inform us by-return. We-shall at -once make arrangements 
 to-be better represented, and hope this affair will-not interfere with 
 our business relations. 
 
 We authorize our carman, W. Jones, to-collect cash for-the- 
 present, and our Mr James Wilson will take-the earliest opportunity 
 of seeing you in-this matter. 
 
 All orders forwarded to-our city stores will-receive immediate 
 personal attention. 
 
 We-are, yours faithfully, 
 [132 words. * (downward /).] WILSON & Co. 
 
 ^} 
 
 defalcations 
 
 traveler 
 
 collector 
 
 authorized 
 behalf 
 
 SOLICITOR'S LETTER. 
 
 Chancery Lane, London, 
 14 Feb., 1886. 
 
 Dear-Sir, We-have-seen our client on-your-letter (of the) i8th 
 instant. He refuses to modify his offer, and-insists on-his costs 
 being paid as-well-as-the ^25. Your client will understand that-this- 
 is-in-addition-to what had-been agreed upon with Mr Mansfield. If 
 any actual rights-(of)-way are vested in-any other persons, which- 
 we-do-not for a moment apprehend, we-shall-be prepared to waive 
 our original objection. We-will look into-the point. 
 
 The deeds as-to-the ground-rents in-the Broadway and-the City 
 Road are in-the custody (of the) London and County Bank. Per- 
 haps you-could make appointment to see them with Messrs Bailey
 
 124 Phonography in the Office. 
 
 and Roberts, Solicitors, Bedford Row, London. The other deeds 
 we hold and can produce at any-time here on appointment being 
 made. 
 
 The sum of five guineas costs we mentioned to-you, of-course, 
 only included costs up to-our last interview, and-they-will-be more 
 if-the-matter goes on. 
 
 Kindly let-us know what your client intends to-do. 
 
 We-are, yours faithfully, 
 [200 words.] SMART & THOMPSON. 
 
 modify 
 insists 
 in addition to 
 
 apprehend 
 
 custody 
 
 appointment 
 
 solicitors 
 
 Mansfield mentioned 
 
 interview 
 rights of way 
 
 intends 
 Thompson 
 
 INSURANCE LETTER. 
 
 Railway Passengers' Assurance Office, 
 a6th June, 1886. 
 
 Sir, I-beg-(to)-call-your-attention to-the advantages offered by- 
 the Railway Passengers' Assurance Company in-its system of 
 Assurance against Accidents of-every description as shown in-the 
 accompanying Statement. 
 
 The Company has a large subscribed Capital, a numerous and 
 reponsible Proprietary, and enjoys the confidence (of the) Public. 
 All bona-fide claims are promptly and liberally met, and ^2,000,000 
 has-been paid as Compensation since-the Company commenced 
 business in 1849. 
 
 As-the Company's Agent, I-shall-be-glad-to-receive your instruc- 
 tions to-prepare a Policy according-(to)-the annexed rates of Premium, 
 if-you-will-fill up and return-to-me the accompanying Form of- 
 Proposal duly signed at foot. 
 
 I-am, your-obedient-Servant, 
 [140 words.] A. KINGSTON. 
 
 v \_ c , I beg to call your 
 attentio 
 
 accompanying 
 
 T attention 
 
 proprietary -^ 
 
 V\ your obedient ser- 
 annexed ^ vant 
 
 SURVEYOR'S LETTER. 
 
 Glasgow, 26 Oct., 1884. 
 
 Dear-Sir, Mr Furguson has handed me your account and asks 
 me to certify the same as correct. This I certainly cannot-do imits
 
 Business Letters. 125 
 
 present form, as no deduction has-been made for-the diminished 
 size of service pipes and fittings, the deduction for- which should - 
 have-been at-least ten per-cent. 
 
 With-regard-(to)-the second-part of-your-account, namely, for-the 
 replacing of sewers, I-observe that in-your-letter of 25th Feb. last, 
 in-answer to-my inquiry, you informed me that-the cost would-be 
 about 255. per section. The account you send in makes it just 2 
 per section, and-there being 500 sections the difference is a considera- 
 ble one. I-can, of-course, understand that, after-the slight deviation 
 from-the plans agreed upon between us, there-may-have-been some 
 small amount additional per section, over and above-the amount 
 estimated, but how you-make-the price run up 15*. per section I- 
 cannot understand. 
 
 I-shall-be-glad to-have a reply at-your earliest convenience stating 
 what deductions you-are willing to-make, as-the other accounts are 
 nearly all settled , and-it-is desirable that-the-matter should-be-closed 
 altogether and handed over to-the authorities at an early date. 
 
 I-am, yours-truly, 
 [232 words.] JAMES MACDONALD. 
 
 V-Q^ 
 
 Furguson 
 
 U deviation 
 
 ^ 
 
 deduction 
 diminished 
 
 y'" yours truly 
 
 ^^ 
 
 replacing 
 
 1 Macdonald 
 
 
 LOCAL GOVERNMENT LETTER. 
 
 H. L. to Editor 
 
 Local Government Chronicle. 
 
 Sir, The Urban Sanitary Authority of H appoints at a fixed 
 rate an officer to-collect rates and rents for water supplied by-the 
 Authority to-the ratepayers of a contributory place in-its district. 
 The person is appointed solely for-this-purpose. Will-the appoint- 
 ment require-the sanction ^of the) Local Government Board ? Will- 
 the bond he-is required to-give be liable to stamp duty, and-if so by 
 whom should the cost be defrayed by-the Authority or-the officer ? 
 From what fund should his salary be paid ? 
 
 Answer. The appointment does-not require the sanction (of the) 
 Local Government Board. The exemption from stamp duty of 
 bonds given in pursuance (of the) Orders and Regulations (of the) 
 Local Government Board does-not seem to be applied by Section 9 
 (of the) Public Health Act of 1875 to securities given in pursuance 
 of-this Act. The cost would-be paid by-the officer and-not by-the 
 authority. The salary appears to-be properly chargeable on-the 
 Common Fund, unless the Local Government Board declare it to be 
 a special expense. 
 
 [195 words.]
 
 126 Phonography in the Office. 
 
 s^ urban I o~7> exemption 
 
 w 
 
 V 
 < 
 
 sanitary 
 ratepayers 
 contributory 
 defrayed 
 
 pursuance 
 regulations 
 securities 
 chargeable 
 
 SHIPPING TRADE LETTER. 
 
 London, 26 April, 1886. 
 James Martin, Esq. 
 
 Dear-Sir, We-are-in-receipt-of-your esteemed favor and are flat- 
 tered by-your confidence in asking our opinion (of the) prospects 
 in-the shipping trade just-now. But-we-are-sorry-(to)-inform-you. 
 that-the depression still continues. Efforts have-been made to con- 
 struct some kind of organization which-would control the freight 
 market by fixing minimum rates, but-the interests involved being so 
 numerous, it-has failed in-its object. 
 
 For-months past shipowners have-been unable to sail their vessels 
 with a reasonable margin of-profit, and-the depression has lasted so 
 long that a number of firms have been obliged to succumb, causing 
 many boats to-be thrown on-the market under forced sales, and 
 disposed of at heavy sacrifices or placed under different management. 
 
 With-respect-to reforms, an important modification has already 
 been introduced by-the insertion (of the) Negligence Clause in 
 charter-parties and bills-of-lading whereby shipowners are relieved 
 from-the liabilities incurred through-the improper navigation and 
 errors of judgment of-their-servants in-respect-(to) loss of cargo and 
 which merchants or-their under-writers have, in so-many-instances, 
 forced the shipowner to pay. 
 
 Should any sign of improvement arise, we-will-not fail to apprise 
 you of-it, and-beg-(to)-assure-you that in-this as-in other matters 
 your interests will always command our best-attention. 
 
 We-are, your-obedient-Servants, 
 [253 words.] ROBINSON, BLAKE & Co. 
 
 organization 
 shipowners 
 
 insertion 
 
 negligence 
 liabilities 
 
 - navigation 
 
 succumb v_ - 
 
 J^Vs of their servants 
 modification 
 
 best attention
 
 Business Let'ters. 127 
 
 RAILWAY LETTER. 
 
 Please refer hereto 
 
 Ex. 87/16.655. 
 
 I-beg-(to)-acknowledge receipt-of-your-letter (of the) I3th inst. com- 
 plaining (of the) late arrival of -your evening newspapers on-Saturday 
 last, and-will-have inquiry made with-reference thereto. 
 
 With-regard-to Mr H 's newspapers, if-you- will-be-good-enough 
 to inform-me the dates upon-which his daily papers arrived late, 
 inquiry shall-be-made. There-are no alterations in-the rates for 
 parcels conveyed over-the Company's lines, and-consequently the 
 stamps you-are using are sufficient for-(the)-purpose. 
 [86 words not including standing reference No.] 
 
 complaining ~N arriyal 
 
 N ~>. newspapers 
 
 I/I 
 
 Saturday 
 
 alteration 
 
 FOREIGN AGENT'S LETTER. 
 
 Bergen, 12 Dec., 1885. 
 Messrs Phillips and Brown, London. 
 
 Gentlemen, I-enclose herewith account sales of -your consignment 
 of hardware goods receeived per Royal George as advised in-my- 
 letter (of the) 3rd inst. Notwithstanding-the depressed state of-our 
 market, of-which I warned you in February last, I-was able-to-place 
 them at close upon-the figure you estimated, and to obtain a nett 
 sum of .253 lew. sterling, which amount I-now have-the-pleasure of 
 forwarding in-my-draft at three months date upon my friends 
 Messrs Johnson and Co. of-London, by whom it-will, I-am-sure, be 
 duly honored. 
 
 Our markets have-been in a more depressed and-unsatisfactory- 
 condition than has-been experienced for-many years-past, owing 
 principally to-the decreased buying power (of the) population and- 
 the more-than adequate supplies which-have continued to-come 
 forward during-the-year. The market was already overstocked with 
 goods of all descriptions at-the end of 1884, and-the heavy arrivals 
 thrown, during-the twelve months, on a falling market, served to 
 depreciate prices still-further. 
 
 During-the last three-months in-the-year business almost came to 
 a standstill, as dealers at-last lost confidence owing to-the progres- 
 sive decrease in prices, and were frightened to operate, with-the 
 possibility of having their purchases left on-their hands in-conse- 
 quence of a further decline.
 
 128 Phonography in the Office, 
 
 Th.ere-are, however, at-last some signs of a return to a better state 
 of things, and, as opportunity offers I-will-not fail to advise you 
 of-the class of goods most -likely to-find favor in our market. 
 
 Yours faithfully, 
 [297 words.] H. BRUNT. 
 
 k 
 
 hardware 
 
 A_ 
 
 principally 
 
 advised 
 
 k, 
 
 depreciate 
 
 depressed 
 
 'X n 
 
 
 
 
 progressive 
 
 and unsatisfactory 
 condition 
 
 ^ V 
 
 frightened 
 
 experienced 
 
 X 
 
 possibility 
 
 LETTER TO A TOWN COUNCIL. 
 
 Metropolitan Police Office, 4 Whitehall Place, S.W., 
 
 23rd December, 1880. 
 
 Sir, With-reference-to your-letter (of the) 27th ult. , the Com- 
 missioner of Police (of the) Metropolis has to acquaint you that-the- 
 subject in-question received his close-attention, and he hopes that 
 the practice of conveying any prisoners on foot through-the streets 
 of your city will be remedied. 
 
 Undoubtedly it-is a matter directly affecting the police ; but -there- 
 is one feature (of the) existing arrangements intimately-connected 
 with-the Corporation, and to-which-the Commissioner wishes to- 
 call-attention. 
 
 It-appears that-the evils (of the) present practice sought to-be 
 remedied are increased by-the absence of cells or places of detention 
 and waiting-rooms at-the Town- Hall, rendering the transit between 
 that building and-the Police Station more frequent, and-the waiting 
 for documents to be completed for-the attendance of witnesses, and 
 for bail, and so forth, productive of inconvenience ; besides adding 
 to-the expense that must attend the proposed improvement. The 
 Commissioner, therefore, while thanking the Council most sincerely 
 for drawing his attention to-the-subject, desires in-his-turn to-learn 
 what changes, if any, are likely to be effected at-the Town Hall in- 
 relation (to) increased accommodation. 
 
 In-the-meantime he-is in communication with-the Superintendent 
 with-the object of-making a change in-the police conveyance of- 
 prisoners with-as little delay as possible. 
 
 I-am, Sir, your-obedient-servant, 
 
 JAMES ROBERTS, 
 [254 words.] Assistant Commissioner.
 
 Business Letters. 
 
 129 
 
 metropolis 
 
 commissioner 
 
 prisoners 
 
 remedied 
 
 undoubtedly 
 
 corporation 
 
 I detention 
 
 /^* rendering 
 
 v 
 
 1 productive 
 
 f council 
 
 *^_> superintendent 
 
 assistant 
 
 PUBLISHER'S LETTER. 
 
 London, 8th Dec., 1880. 
 Mr Robertson, Manchester. 
 
 Dear-Sir, We-are-obliged by-your post-card this morning, and 
 hope-you-will succeed in obtaining a few subscribers in-your city for 
 our new Directory. We-are-sorry however to-receive your intimation 
 that-you do-not-think of-having your-own business announced in- 
 the-work in a more extended entry than-the one we give gratis, and 
 would ask-you to reconsider your decision. 
 
 Our Directory will-be altogether in advance of anything (of the) 
 kind yet published and will undoubtedly be-the standard work of 
 reference for professional and commercial men. We-are sure therefore 
 it-would-be a mistake not to allow your various patents to appear in- 
 its pages. You-should, at -least, have a subscriber's entry at z\s. t 
 which-would-give-you the right to a copy (of the) work. 
 
 The sentence in-my-circular to-which-you-refer means that-we 
 intend to include every firm of any importance, and-that-those-who 
 do-not wish to occupy more space will-have-the free entry of two (or) 
 three lines only. Considering-the great -advantage of a fuller entry 
 of-proprietary articles such-as-yours, we certainly trust you-will-not- 
 be-one-of-that number. 
 
 Of-the first edition 3000 copies have already been taken, and our 
 subscribers include the heads of public-schools, bankers, commission 
 agents, clerks to public bodies, hotels, hospitals, and similar institu- 
 tions throughout-the country just those classes, in-fact, amongst 
 whom your patents would-be-the first to be recognized. 
 
 Trusting that-we-shall hear from-you further on-the-subject soon. 
 We-are, your-obedient-servants, 
 
 BLACKMORE, EDWARDS & Co. 
 ['j8o words. ] 
 
 \ postcard 
 o %, subscribers 
 I <j directory 
 
 announced 
 
 f extended 
 
 ^ *] entry 
 ^ reconsider 
 
 standard 
 professional 
 
 10
 
 130 Phonography in the Office. 
 
 commercial 
 
 patents 
 
 articles 
 
 bankers 
 
 hospitals 
 institutions 
 recognized 
 Blackmore and 
 
 Edwards 
 
 The use of the hyphen, indicating phrases, has already 
 been explained, and the reader will notice that where 
 the connecting phrase "of the" occurs in a suitable 
 way for omission, those words are placed in parentheses. 
 
 If any further practice upon business letters is required, 
 a useful variety may be found in " Routledge's Com- 
 mercial Letter Writer." But the same recommendation 
 will apply here as in the case of books for reading. If 
 the phonographer finds that his Phonography is likely to 
 be required, or he may wish to use it, in connection with 
 any particular branch of commerce or department of 
 official life, he should select any further dictation prac- 
 tice accordingly; and the " Class Journals " would come 
 in useful, and the list given in a previous paper may be 
 referred to again with advantage. The taking down of 
 business letters being the chief duty of the shorthand 
 clerk, it may be here remarked that the easiest kind of 
 correspondence to take down, and especially to tran- 
 scribe, will be that of an office or business house having 
 dealings chiefly with home correspondents and custom- 
 ers, and the most difficult kind that of an office or 
 business house having correspondents chiefly in other 
 countries, even if such correspondence is conducted in 
 English, for the reason that foreign letters are of 
 necessity much longer than inland letters for which 
 there are more frequent mails, and also because foreign 
 letters will be necessarily mixed up with shipping tran- 
 sactions and will include a larger proportion of proper 
 and technical terms. This difference will be worth bear- 
 ing in mind whether in choosing a situation or in pre- 
 paring for the work, and special preparation should be 
 made a special means to a special end.
 
 GENERAL HINTS-CONCLUSION. 
 
 I HE young phonographer who has followed me 
 thus far and has acted upon the recommenda- 
 
 tions given by carrying them into practice, will 
 
 have discovered that the aim of the writer has been to 
 seek to inspire a high standard of excellence of short- 
 hand work in an office ; to show that whatever may be 
 the amount of shorthand ability possessed as regards 
 speed, it should above all things be thorough and reliable 
 in practice ; that the phonographer should strengthen 
 his shorthand ability by all the knowledge he can gain 
 of the office or business he serves ; that the only satis- 
 factory test of his phonographic ability is that which 
 will show him what he would be able to do in the par- 
 ticular direction in which he is seeking to use his art. 
 He may take down a sermon at 120 or 150 words a 
 minute, but in seeking to become a shorthand clerk he 
 must measure his ability by what he can do with business 
 correspondence, and if he should find that it reduces his 
 ability to less than it was with the sermon, let him accept 
 the decision as final and without any appeal but that of 
 practice and perseverance in raising the standard. 
 
 Do not trust to making your Phonography fit in with 
 the office work after you get there, but practise the 
 special exercises which have been suggested, and any- 
 thing else of a similar kind, before you commence the 
 use of your shorthand in business. Do not seek at first 
 a situation which you conscientiously believe to be above 
 your powers, but seek to do all that you would like to 
 profess rather than profess all that you would like to be 
 able to do. In advertisements where shorthand is re- 
 quired one sometimes sees such an intimation as this : 
 " A high rate of speed not so much an object as a good 
 clear handwriting," and a business man, notwithstand- 
 ing the pressure of modern times, would often rather 
 sacrifice ten or twenty words per minute of shorthand 
 speed if he can have absolute accuracy in what is done. 
 Among general qualifications, always accustom yourself 
 to the exercise of mental arithmetic. Fe-v things are 
 10*
 
 332 Phonography in the Office. 
 
 more valuable in an office. There is not time to settle 
 many points which may suddenly arise in the business 
 of an office, by working out an arithmetical problem on 
 paper after the fashion of school work, and to be able to 
 answer such points readily by mental arithmetic is a 
 very useful if not an essential qualification. 
 
 Do not be indifferent as to the correct spelling of the 
 names, or the correct initials for the Christian names, of 
 the correspondents you are writing to. Few things are 
 more provoking to some men than error of this descrip- 
 tion. There should be no need perhaps for a word of 
 caution against the stupid blunder of putting a horse at 
 each end of the cart in the use of " Mr" and " Esq.," 
 but it has been done by young beginners before now. 
 The point to be observed in the use of this compliment- 
 ary addendum is this: if "Esq." is to be used in 
 addressing a man, the initials of the Christian names 
 should take the place of "Mr," thus making "Mr 
 J. W. Smith " into "J. W. Smith, Esq." In such a 
 case the initials for the Christian names should always 
 
 be ascertained if possible, for to have to write " 
 
 Smith, Esq." would not be at all satisfactory, and the 
 same remark would apply to names of the clergy, for 
 
 " Rev. Smith " instead of " Rev. J. W. Smith " 
 
 would be equally unsightly. 
 
 Always seek to understand the character and the 
 motives which guide a man with whom you come chiefly 
 in contact, whether it be of the principal, or the head of 
 a department in a large establishment. You may find 
 it necessary to show deference to what you may re- 
 gard as his prejudices, and even if his motives are not 
 always such as would commend themselves to you, the 
 knowledge of them will be of use to you. To know your 
 employer's manner of meeting difficulties, of protecting 
 his interests, or of settling points in dispute with cus- 
 tomer or client, will the better enable you to take his 
 place and act for him in case of need. If there are any 
 rules drawn up, or if any strictness of routine is observed 
 for the guidance of the clerks, make a point of master- 
 ing them and of strictly and cheerfully complying with 
 them at the outset. However natural the tendency for 
 each one to think his own method the best, your business 
 is not to convert the firm to your methods so much as to
 
 General Hints. Conclusion. 133 
 
 serve them by observing theirs. The importance of 
 punctuality should need no enforcing, for the evil of not 
 being punctual would often be multiplied by the amount 
 of other people's time you may be wasting besides 
 your own. 
 
 "Affected despatch is one of the most dangerous 
 things to business that can be. * * * Therefore 
 measure not despatch by the times of sitting, but by 
 the advancement of the business." So wrote Bacon 
 the essayist, and according to Carlyle, and the busi- 
 ness code of the best men, "arrangement simplifies 
 the execution of anything that has to be done," and 
 it is but a commonplace to say that hurry, or a waste 
 of energy upon two things at a time will result in 
 nothing being well done. No higher compliment was 
 ever paid to this peculiarly English faculty of ar- 
 rangement and well-ordered method than the testimony 
 of Lanfrey to the effect of the great Duke of Welling- 
 ton's methodical arrangements in preparing for his 
 great battles. " His tactics were less brilliant than the 
 rench ; they dazzled nobody, but he defeated us." 
 The importance of personal character is so unques- 
 tionable for all seeking to fill positions of trust and re- 
 sponsibility that it will be at once admitted without being 
 here insisted upon. It is worth while however to bear 
 in mind that personal character means more than punc- 
 tual attendance at an office and the proper discharge of 
 duties while there ; at least to the youth who hopes to 
 rise to a confidential and responsible position ; and that 
 personal conduct and habits of life outside an office will 
 have an effect upon the chances for such a promotion. 
 The extravagant spending of money or the spending of 
 your leisure in questionable company or places, even if 
 it do not interfere with the regular discharge of duty, 
 is sure in the end to stand in the way of promotion, 
 and perhaps of a satisfactory recommendation. An em- 
 ployer will judge of your fitness for promotion to a more 
 responsible post by what he sees and learns of your 
 ordinary habits and conduct as well as by your short- 
 hand, arithmetic, and general efficiency when at work ; 
 and provident habits and the appropriation of leisure to 
 wholesome recreation or intellectual improvement will 
 therefore bear the double fruit of self culture and better
 
 134 Phonography in the Office. 
 
 prospects. In the physical world it may be sometimes 
 true, as a popular writer has said, that fine towns are 
 approached by dirty suburbs, but in the work of life and 
 in the building up of character it is emphatically not so. 
 Success here will never be reached through mean actions 
 to those around you, or by ignoring the fact that truth- 
 fulness is not merely a question of words but of the 
 whole character. 
 
 The choice of a congenial recreation has an important 
 bearing upon the cheerful discharge of the day's duties, 
 but whatever form of recreation you favor when out of 
 office, let it be as far as possible an entire change from 
 your ordinary duties if the latter are at all laborious, or 
 unless you have good reason to do it for the sake of 
 increasing your shorthand efficiency. No apology is 
 needed for adding to this hint on the subject of recre- 
 ation a passing reference to the kindred subject of 
 health. The desire of so many to fill some "genteel 
 situation," to which reference has been made, not 
 unfrequently results in placing a youth of indifferent 
 physical stamina in the confinement and sedentary 
 occupation of an office who really needs to "search in 
 fields for health unbought " instead of having to "fee 
 the doctor for a nauseous draught." There never was 
 a time when, in this country at least, success in life 
 depended so much upon the physical basis of a good 
 circulation and a good digestion as at the present, or 
 when the conditions of business life were so trying to 
 individuals having a weakness in this direction. We 
 have plenty of brains to conduct the business of the 
 nation but not enough digestion. It is not likely that 
 with such conditions to face the most careful attention 
 to bodily regime would enable us to reach the ideal 
 combination of the mens sana in corpore sano which 
 was the aim and in some measure the result of the cul- 
 ture and civilization of ancient Greece, but on the other 
 hand there are too many instances in which the young 
 man breaks down in the race simply because, instead of 
 fortifying himself against the exhausting conditions of 
 our modern haste and worry in business, he contracts 
 habits which help to aggravate such conditions. The 
 strain upon the shorthand clerk is not generally of so 
 severe a character as that which has to be met by the
 
 General Hints. Conclusion. 135 
 
 professional shorthand writer or in many cases by the 
 newspaper reporter, but the drawbacks of a sedentary 
 occupation in a crowded city are drawbacks neverthe- 
 less, and if he is fully occupied in a responsible post the 
 work will be sufficiently exacting to make the advantage 
 of good health as important as some of the other general 
 qualifications and "helps" which have been referred 
 to. " No man ever made an ill figure who understood 
 his own talents, or a good one who mistook them," 
 says Swift, and, in this matter of health, as in the case 
 of shorthand or any other qualification, the young short- 
 hand clerk should know his own weak point, whatever 
 it may be, and, like a good general, bring up to that 
 point all the reinforcements he can muster. 
 
 With respect to the locality where a shorthand clerk 
 might expect to be employed, it may be presumed that 
 this would be chiefly limited to the metropolis and the 
 large cities and centres of commercial activity in the 
 provinces, but the field would not always be thus limited, 
 and will be extended as time goes on, to say nothing of 
 the openings in America and our colonies. On the 
 subject of London v. country offices a word may be said 
 here. If the phonographer is desirous of acquiring a 
 good all-round experience of office work and to qualify 
 himself for rising to a responsible and confidential po- 
 sition, he would probably find a first rate country office 
 much better, for gaining this general experience, than a 
 London office where the work naturally gravitates into 
 special departments. It may be that while gaining this 
 experience he would not find so full an occupation for 
 his shorthand as in a London office, but the experience 
 gained would be of the greatest value in seeking to 
 improve his position by a better or more lucrative situa- 
 tion. There is therefore no need for the whole army of 
 phonographers to look to the metropolis and to one or 
 two other crowded cities for a suitable opening to com- 
 mence with. 
 
 The degree of close personal and confidential service 
 which Phonography enables a competent shorthand 
 clerk to render in conducting correspondence is pecu- 
 liarly favorable for placing him in a position to act oc- 
 casionally as deputy for his employer, and it is here 
 that the weakness of a too mechanical discharge of
 
 136 Phonography in the Office. 
 
 duty may tell against him. His discharge of duty may 
 have been scrupulously exact while simply obeying the 
 established rules of the office, but directly he is called 
 upon to take the initiative and is thrown back upon his 
 own resources he will require something more than this 
 something of the faculty which interprets those rules 
 and applies them to the varied circumstances of busi- 
 ness. The great advantage of seeking to rise to a 
 broader and more intelligent conception of your duties 
 and opportunities than that required for taking down 
 and transcribing shorthand notes, would in such a case 
 become invaluable, and prove, if necessary, that the man 
 who would rise should always seek to be greater than 
 his post. 
 
 One of the most important qualifications for acting as 
 deputy for an employer when necessary is obviously the 
 cultivation of a good style of address, and the shorthand 
 clerk who aspires to such a confidential position should 
 see to it that in this as in other respects he is able to 
 represent his employer creditably if called upon to act 
 for him when coming in contact with men of education 
 and culture. The clerk who in his address violates a 
 common rule of grammar probably confusing the singu- 
 lar and plural number as applied to verbs and repre- 
 sented in such common conversational mistakes as " you 
 was" for " you were " and " wasn't you ? " for " weren't 
 you?" etc. the clerk who never rises above such 
 noticeable defects of speech cannot of course represent 
 his employer with credit to himself, and the more es- 
 pecially if the duties of deputy are connected with any 
 public office where verbal explanations have to be given 
 frequently. Many a clerk employed in an office has 
 found himself carried by the natural gravitation of long 
 service into responsible duties of this kind who has ab- 
 solutely stood still in those qualifications which would 
 have enabled him to take the place of his employer as 
 the latter would wish, and he is still as much a man of 
 one idea of work as if he had never left the ledger. It 
 is true no doubt that the position of a medium for ex- 
 pressing the wishes of another may tend to make the 
 shorthand clerk's duty in some measure a mechanical 
 duty, and his aim should therefore be to see that while 
 length of service and personal contact with an employer
 
 General Hints. Conclusion. 137 
 
 are building up a connection which may place him in 
 the responsible position which has been referred to, he 
 is not forgetting those other qualifications which may 
 counteract this tendency to mechanical effort and pre- 
 pare him for the calls which may be made upon him, 
 whether in the intelligent apprehension of a difficulty, 
 the adaptation of the rules of the establishment to new 
 circumstances, or in the important matter of a good and 
 correct style of address. 
 
 Employers are not always models of patience in their 
 dealings with those employed in an office, and the 
 shorthand clerk who may happen to find himself in the 
 service of a man of hasty temper may, like others, come 
 in for a harsh word which he feels is unmerited, but if 
 his employer is in other respects a fair and considerate 
 man he should bear in mind that the pressure of many 
 business cares and the hurry and rush of modern busi- 
 ness life are not the best calculated for the improvement 
 of temper, and any little reflection which is occasionally 
 uttered under such circumstances and which is felt to 
 be undeserved should not be taken too seriously by the 
 young clerk. It would be worse to feel that he deserved 
 it, and he may safely conclude that a single hasty ex- 
 pression is no more a true measure of the employer's 
 estimate of his worth than a street disturbance is a 
 measure of an Englishman's respect for law and order. 
 
 Finally, do not, when commencing a shorthand clerk- 
 ship, presume upon the exceptional position which your 
 Phonography may give you as compared with others 
 employed in an office. Do not let ambition o'erleap 
 itself by any eagerness on your part to force the value 
 of your accomplishment t unduly under the notice of your 
 employer, unless circumstances, in course of time, war- 
 rant your doing so as a matter of business. In nine 
 cases out of ten, business men take the blessings of 
 modern progress in a very matter-of-fact sort of way. 
 They pay their penny for the morning paper, their six- 
 pences for telegrams, and their subscription to the tele- 
 phone, and by virtue of these payments they become 
 " shareholders in the concern " and consider themselves 
 entitled to whatever " dividends " the progress of art 
 and science may bring, and no amount of sentimental 
 rhapsody about the mysterious far-reaching agency
 
 138 Phonography in the Office. 
 
 which produces the "map of busy life," or the subtle 
 agency which gives wings to his thoughts will ever pre- 
 vent the business man from obtaining these advantages 
 at a lower rate for cash if he sees half a chance. It is 
 true there are many offices of high standing and 
 repute in which there are good openings for shorthand, 
 where this genius for a bargain is not quite so dominant 
 a characteristic where the rules of work and the ar- 
 rangements of the establishment show a very consider- 
 ate regard for the comfort and welfare of the clerks 
 themselves. Moreover, to do even the keen man of 
 business justice it must be admitted that he, too, is 
 generally willing to pay for what a thing is worth in 
 the market! 
 
 If, therefore, the candidate for a shorthand clerkship 
 cannot keep out of the crowd in competing for places, 
 or if he succeeds in obtaining a situation in a less exact- 
 ing way, he must, and certainly may safely, allow his 
 Phonography to be judged by this standard of " what it 
 is worth in the market." Though much might be said of 
 it as a beautiful art, as a handmaid of progress which 
 has already conferred, and is destined to confer, untold 
 blessings upon the world of commerce, yet and really 
 in consequence of this Phonography is quite capable 
 of facing this Philistine standard of utility. Spare no 
 pains, then, to make your Phonography in the office 
 subservient to that end for which it is so eminently 
 fitted, to the promotion of the highest of business virtues 
 usefulness. Spare no pains to make yourself, as a 
 phonographer, necessary to your employer. Do this, 
 and you will not fail of an adequate reward, for "there 
 is a kind of good angel waiting upon diligence that ever 
 carries a laurel in his hand to crown her."
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 In the chapter on " Books," etc., certain works of reference 
 were recommended ; but the recommendation need not be taken 
 too literally if others are found to answer equally well. But 
 there is a class of information, varying frequently, such as rates 
 of postage, the correct names and spelling, styles and titles of 
 public men and institutions at home and in the colonies, which 
 can only be obtained from publications having a periodical issue, 
 as a Postal Guide, Whitaker's Almanack, etc. Other kinds of 
 information for reference, such as abbreviations, and forms of 
 addressing persons of rank, are more permanent in their char- 
 acter, and it has, therefore, been thought well to add a short list 
 of these as an Appendix to what has gone before. 
 
 ABBREVIATIONS USED IN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 @ At (as " @ 35. 6d. per yard ") 
 
 % or acct. Account 
 
 A.D. (Anno Domini) In the 
 
 year of our Lord 
 A.M. (Ante meridiem) Before 
 
 noon 
 
 Amt. Amount 
 B.E. Bill of Exchange 
 B/L. Bill of Lading 
 C or Cap. (Capuf) Chapter 
 Cent. Centigrade 
 Comm. Commission 
 C.B. Cash Book 
 Co. Company 
 co. County 
 V. Care of 
 
 C.O.D. Cash on delivery 
 Cr. Credit, creditor 
 Ct. Cent 
 D.B. Day Book 
 D/D. Days after date 
 Deft. Draft, Defendant 
 Dis. Discount 
 Div. Dividend 
 Do. Ditto, the same 
 Doz. Dozen 
 Dr. Debtor, Doctor 
 D/s Days after sight 
 D. V. (Deo volente) God willing 
 E.E. Errors excepted 
 
 E.g. (Exempli gratia) For ex- 
 ample 
 
 E. & O. E. Errors and omis- 
 sions excepted 
 
 Etc. (t ccetera) And so forth 
 
 Ex. Exchange, Example 
 
 Exr. Executor 
 
 Exd. Examined 
 
 Fahr. Fahrenheit 
 
 Fo. Folio 
 
 F.O.B. Free on Board 
 
 Gov. Governor 
 
 G.P.O. General Post Office 
 
 Ib. or Ibid, (Ibidem) In the 
 same place 
 
 Id. (Jdtm) The same 
 
 I.e. (Idest) That is 
 
 Inst. Instant, the present 
 
 Int. Interest [month 
 
 I.O.U. I owe you 
 
 Jno. John 
 
 Jr. or Jun. Junior 
 
 L.C. Letter of Credit 
 
 L.S. (Locus Sigilli) Place of 
 the seal. Often placed on 
 official announoe-y 
 ments thus 
 
 Memo. Memorandum
 
 140 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Messrs. Messieurs 
 
 M /d Months after date 
 
 Mo. Month 
 
 MS. Manuscript (plural 
 
 MSS.) 
 
 N.B. (Nota bene) Mark well 
 Nem. con. (Nemine contradi- 
 cente) No one contradicting 
 No. Number [or opposing 
 o/a On account of 
 O.H.M.S. On Her Majesty's 
 O.S. Old style [Service 
 
 % Per cent 
 Oz. Ounce 
 P. Page (plural pp.) 
 "ty Per (as " per doz.") 
 P/c Price current 
 
 Per. By the (hand of) 
 P.M. (Post meridian) After- 
 noon 
 P.O. Post Office, and Postal 
 
 Order 
 
 P.O.O. Post Office Order 
 Pro and con.' For and against 
 Pro tern, (pro tempore*) For 
 
 the time being 
 
 Prox. (proximo) next (month) 
 P.S. (post scriptum) Postscript 
 P.T.O. Please turn over 
 Q.v. (quod vide) which see 
 Sen. Senior 
 
 Ult. (ultimo*) the last month 
 Viz. (videlicet} namely ; or, 
 to wit 
 
 ABBREVIATIONS FOR NAMES AND TITLES, ETC. 
 
 Abp. Archbishop 
 
 Adm. Admiral 
 
 A.M. or M.A. Master of Arts 
 
 A.R.A. Associate of the Royal 
 Academy 
 
 B.A. Bachelor of Arts 
 
 Bart. Baronet 
 
 B.D. Bachelor of Divinity 
 
 B.L. Bachelor of Laws 
 
 B.M. Bachelor of Medicine 
 
 Bp. Bishop 
 
 Capt. Captain 
 
 C.B. Companion of the Bath 
 
 C.E. Civil Engineer 
 
 Col. Colonel 
 
 D.C.L. Doctor of Civil Law 
 
 D.D. Doctor of Divinity 
 
 F.A.S. Fellow of the Anti- 
 quarian Society 
 
 P.M. Field Marshal 
 
 F.R.C.P. Fellow of the Royal 
 College of Physicians 
 
 F.R.C.S. Fellow of the Royal 
 College of Surgeons 
 
 F.R.G.S. Fellow of the Royal 
 Geographical Society 
 
 F.R.H.S. Fellow of the Royal 
 Historical Society 
 
 F.R.S. Fellow of the Royal 
 
 Society 
 
 G.C.B. Grand Cross of the 
 Hon. Honorable [Bath 
 
 J.P. Justice of the Peace 
 K.C.B. Knight Commander 
 
 of the Bath 
 
 K.G. Knight of the Garter 
 Lieut. Lieutenant 
 LL.B. Bachelor of Laws 
 LL.D. Doctor of Laws 
 M.D. Doctor of Medicine 
 M.R.C.S. Member of the 
 
 Royal College of Surgeons 
 N.P. Notary Public 
 Ph.D. Doctor of Philosophy 
 
 H.C. Queen's Counsel 
 .A. Royal Academician. 
 
 Royal Artillery 
 R.A.M. Royal Academy of 
 
 Music 
 
 R.E. Royal Engineers 
 Rt. Hon. Right Honorable 
 R.N. Royal Navy 
 V.P. Vice-President 
 W.S. Writer to the Signet (in 
 Scotland, equivalent to 
 Solicitor in England)
 
 APPENDIX. 141 
 
 MODES OF ADDRESSING PERSONS OF RANK. 
 
 I. Letter commences ; 2. Concludes ; 3. Address. 
 
 The Queen 
 
 I. Madam, may it please your Majesty ; 2. Your 
 Majesty's most faithful and devoted subject ; 3. To the Queen's 
 most Excellent Majesty. 
 
 Sons and Daughters of Sovereigns 
 
 I. Sir, or Madam, may it please your Royal High- 
 ness ; 2. Your Royal Highness's most dutiful and humble ser- 
 vant ; 3. To His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales. 
 
 To a Duke or Duchess 
 
 I. My Lord Duke, or my Lady, may it please your 
 Grace ; 2. Your Grace's most devoted and obedient servant ; 3. 
 To His Grace the Duke of 
 
 To a Marquess or Marchioness 
 
 I. My Lord, or My Lady, may it please your 
 Lordship, etc. ; 2. Your Lordship's most humble and obedient 
 servant ; 3. To the most Noble the Marquess of 
 
 To an Earl or Countess 
 
 I. My Lord or Lady ; 2. Your Lordship's most 
 obedient and humble servant ; 3. To the Right Honorable the 
 Earl of 
 
 To Viscounts and Barons the same. 
 
 In the address to the widow of a Nobleman the word Dowager 
 is added, as, To the Right Hon. the Dowager Countess 
 
 To Baronets 
 
 I. Sir ; 3. Sir , Bart. 
 
 The chief officers of the Army and Navy have their rank 
 before their title in the address as, General, the Right Hon., etc. 
 
 Judges are addressed as Lords ; as also are Lord Mayors. 
 
 Archbishops 
 
 I. My Lord Archbishop ; 2. Your Grace's most 
 obedient Servant ; 3. His Grace the Lord Archbishop of 
 
 Bishops 
 
 i. My Lord ; 2. Your Lordship's most, etc. ; 
 3. The Right Rev., the Lord Bishop of .
 
 142 APPENDIX. 
 
 The rest of the Clergy are addressed as Revd. Sir, in the 
 letter, and Rev. on the envelope, excepting that an Arch- 
 deacon is styled the Venerable Archdeacon ; and a Dean 
 
 the Very Revd. 
 
 Ambassadors are addressed as " Your Excellency " and " His 
 
 Excellency " in the letter and on the envelope respectively. 
 
 Officers of State are addressed as the Right Hon. ; to the Right 
 Hon. Her Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for . 
 
 Mayors of Corporations, Sheriffs, and Aldermen of London, 
 are addressed as Right Worshipful ; Justices of the Peace as 
 Your Worships and Worshipful ; County Court Judges as Sir, 
 Your Honor, to His Honor Judge . 
 
 Ladies of all ranks are addressed " Madam " in commencing 
 letters. 
 
 Before taking leave of his task there is one point upon which 
 the writer of these pages finds it almost necessary to add one 
 word. The use of Phonography in business is not confined to 
 England ; its field is the ever-extending world of English speak- 
 ing peoples, but different countries may have slightly different 
 methods of work. In America most leading phonographers find 
 the type-writer almost a necessity, and though its use has not 
 become so general in this country, it may be in the future. If, 
 therefore, the phonographer is ambitious and has the means and 
 inclination to use one, he may find the type-writer a useful 
 auxiliary.
 
 TECHNICAL REPORTING : 
 
 COMPRISING PHONOGRAPHIC ABBREVIATIONS 
 
 FOR WORDS AND PHRASES 
 
 COiMMONLY MET WITH IN REPORTING LEGAL, 
 
 SCIENTIFIC AND OTHER TECHNICAL 
 
 SUBJECTS. 
 
 BY 
 
 THOMAS ALLEN REED. 
 
 The book consists of 60 pages, and is divided into six parts, 
 namely : 
 
 1. Phonographic Abbreviations for Mechanical Words, and 
 Phrases. 
 
 2. Abbreviations for Medical, and 
 
 3. Legal Words and Phrases. 
 
 4. Abbreviations for Figures, etc. ; 
 
 5. For Latin Quotations, and 
 
 6. French Words and Phrases. 
 
 An English equivalent is given for the Latin quotations and 
 French words and phrases. 
 
 Price, cloth, Two Shillings ; paper, One Shilling and Sixpence. 
 
 LONDON : 
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 BATH: 
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 OP LEGAL BUSINESS AND COEEE8PONDENCE. 
 
 BY ISAAC PITMAN. 
 
 Price Sixpence. 
 
 A PHONOGRAPHIC AND 
 
 PRONOUNCING DICTIONARY 
 
 OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE ; 
 
 Containing the Shorthand forms for 50,000 Words and 5,000 
 
 Proper Names. 
 
 BY ISAAC PITMAN. 
 Fifth Edition. Cloth binding. Price Four Shillings. 
 
 See Isaac Pitman & Sons' complete Catalogue of Publications 
 which will be forwarded gratis and post-free on application. 
 
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