Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 21.djvu/867

Rh SHORTHAND 841 by perseverance write with certainty at 150 words a minute. The best method of practice in the early period is to write at dictation from a book ; in public speaking the frequent pauses help the writer to regain lost time. The student should write on ruled paper, which checks the tendency to a large sprawling hand when following a rapid speaker. Taylor's, Gurney's, and Lewis's systems can be written without lines, but Pitman's only at a dis- advantage. Ink is preferable to pencil, jlia- Shorthand was first employed officially in the service mtary o f Parliament in 1802, when a resolution was passed that " the evidence given before all committees inquiring into the election of members should or might be reported by a person well skilled in the art of writing shorthand," and shortly afterwards W. B. Gurney was appointed shorthand- writer in this capacity to both Houses of Parliament. In 1813 a further resolution was passed by both Houses that the official writer " should attend by himself or sufficient deputy when called upon to take minutes of evidence at the bar of this House or in committees of the same." The lucrative office of shorthand-writer to both Houses of Par- liament is still held by the Gurney family. Of course most of the work is done by deputy. Some of the most efficient members of Messrs Gurney's staff are phono- graphers; others use Taylor's system. The amount of evidence given in the course of a tolerably long day's sitting may amount to 400 or 500 folios (72 words make a folio), which would occupy from 12 to 15 columns of the Times in small type. The whole must often be tran- scribed and delivered to the printers in the course of the night, and copies, damp from the press, are in the hands of the members and "parties" at the beginning of the sitting on the following day. Since parliament abolished election-committees and committed to judges the duty of inquiring into petitions against the return of a member, an official shorthand writer has to be in attendance upon the judge appointed to hear any particular case. He has often a small staff of assistants. Messrs Gurney or their representatives are also required to attend the sittings of the House of Lords as a court of appeal to take the judg- ments of the law lords. Finally, Government shorthand- writers are often employed in taking notes of important state-trials and inquiries conducted by the various depart- ments of Government, as well as of the proceedings of Royal Commissions, whenever the evidence of witnesses is taken. 1 The transcription of the notes may be accomplished in several ways, as by dictating from different parts of the notes to several longhand -writers simultaneously. 2 Not all the newspaper parliamentary reporters can take a perfect note, and cases occur in which the reporter enters the gallery without being able to write shorthand at all. FOREIGN SHORTHAND SYSTEMS. reign German. C. A. Ramsay's Tacheographia (Frankfort, 1679, and btems. several times afterwards until 1743) was an adaptation of T. Shelton's English system. Mosengeil (1797) first practically introduced short- 1 There is no full official report of the debates in the British Parlia- ment (as in most other countries), and technically no person has a right to report them. The House may be cleared at any moment of all strangers, including representatives of the press, by an order of the House as a whole. On seven occasions of note resolutions have been passed prohibiting the reporting of the proceedings of the House of Commons, the last on 25th March 1771. But times have changed, and members now frequently complain that their speeches are not reported. To supply the deficiencies of the newspapers arrangements have been made by the House with Mr Hansard for the special reporting of debates in committee and those occurring at an early hour in the morning, which are given only in the most summary form in the daily papers. Formerly all Hansard's reports were collected from those appearing in the newspapers. See further Mr S. Whitaker's Parlia- mentary Reporting in England, Foreign Countries, and the Colonies, with notes on Parliamentary Privilege (Manchester, 1878). 2 On the best methods of transcribing and dictating, see Mr T. A, Reed's papers in the Phonetic Journal, 1886, pp. 10, 33, 45. hand writing into Germany in an adaptation of the Taylor-Bertin method. Reischl's (1808) is a modification of Mosengeil's. On Horstig's (1797) are based those of an anonymous writer (Nurem- berg, 1798), Heim (1820), Tlion (1825), an anonymous author (Tubingen, 1830), Nowack (1830), Ineichen (1831), an anonymous author (Munich, 1831), and Binder (1855). Mosengeil published a second system (1819) in which Horstig's alphabet is used. On the Mosengeil - Horstig system are based Berthold's (1819) and Stiirk's (1822). On Danzer's (1800), a close imitation of Taylor's is based that of Ellison v. Nidlef (1820). Other systems are those of Leichtlen (1819) ; J. Brede (1827) ; Nowack (1834), a system in which the ellipse is employed as well as the circle; Billharz (1838); Cammerer (1848), a modification of Selwyn's phonography (1847) ; Schmitt (1850) ; Fischbiick (1857), a reproduc- tion of Taylor's ; and that of an anonymous author (1872), based on Horstig, Mosengeil, and Heim. Nowack, in his later method of 1834, makes a new departure in avoiding right or obtuse angles, and in endeavouring to approximate to ordinary writing. This system Gabelsberger considered to be the best which had appeared down to that date. F. X. Gabelsberger's Anleitung zur deutsche Rcdczcichenkunst (Munich, 1834) is the most important of the German systems. The author, an official attached to the Bavarian niinistry, commenced his system for private purposes, but was induced to perfect it on account of the summoning of a parliament for Bavaria in 1819. Submitted to public examination in 1829, it was pronounced satisfactory, the report stating that pupils taught on this system executed their trial specimens with the required speed, and read what they had written, and even what others had written, with ease and certainty. The method is based on modifications of geometrical forms, designed to suit the position of the hand in ordinary writing. The author considered that a system composed of simple geometrical strokes forming determi- nate angles with each other was unadapted to rapid writing. He does not recognize all the varieties of sound, and makes some dis- tinctions which are merely orthographical. Soft sounds have small, light, and round signs, while the hard sounds have large, heavy, and straight signs. The signs too are derived from the current alphabet, so that one can find the former contained in the latter. Vowels standing between consonants are not literally inserted, but symbolically indicated by either position or shape of the surrounding consonants, without however leaving the straight writing line. The proceedings of the chambers in Austria, Bavaria, Baden, Wiirtemberg, Saxony, Saxe- Weimar, Coburg-Gotha, Silesia, and the Rhine provinces are reported solely by writers of this method, and half the stenographers in the German reichstag use it. There are in Germany and Austria more than 540 societies containing over 20,000 members devoted to it. It is officially taught in all the middle class schools of Bavaria, Saxony, and Austria. It has been adapted to foreign languages to such an extent that legislative proceedings are reported by it in Prague, Agram, Pesth, Sophia, Athens, Copenhagen, Christiania, Stock- holm, and Helsingfors. On Gabelsberger's system is based that of W. Stolze (1840). There are nearly 400 Stolzean associations with over 8000 members. The system is officially used in the Prussian, German, and Hungarian parliaments, in the last two along with Gabelsberger's. Faulmann (Vienna, 1875) attempted in his Phonographic to combine the two methods. While Gabelsberger's system has remained unchanged in principle, Stolze's has split into two divisions, the old and the new. These contain many smaller factions, e.g., Velten's (1876) and Adler's (1877). Arends's (1860) is copied from the French system of Fayet. Roller's (1874) and Lehman n's (1875) are offshoots of Arends's. Many other methods have appeared and as rapidly been forgotten. The schools of Gabelsberger and Stolze can boast of a very extensive shorthand literature. Gabelsberger's system has been adapted to English by A. Geiger (Dresden, 1860 and 1873), .who adhered too closely to the German original, and more successfully by H. Richter (London, 1886), and Stolze's by G. Michaelis (Berlin, 1863). French. The earliest French system worthy of notice is that of Coulon deThevenot (1777), in which the vowels are disjoined from the consonants. The methods practised at the present day may be divided into two classes, those derived from Taylor's English system, translated in 1791 by T. P. Bertin, and those invented in France. The latter are (a) Coulon de Thevenot's ; (b) systems founded on the principle of the inclination of the usual writing, the best known being those of Fayet (1832) and Senocq (1842) ; and (c) systems derived from the method of Conen de Prepean (5 editions from 1813 to 1833). Prevost, who till 1870 directed the stenographic service of the senate, produced the best modification of Taylor. Many authors have copied and spoilt this system of Prevost. The best known are Plantier (1844) and Tondeur (1849). Zeibig thinks well of A. Delaunay's improvements on Prevost's system. On Coneu's arc based those of Aime- Paris (1822), Cadres - Marmet (1828), Potel (1842), the Duploye brothers (1868), Guenin, &c. Among amateur writers the Duployan method is best known, owing largely to vigorous pushing, but the profession class it among the least effi- cient of all. Of the forty writers in the official sendee of parliament XXI. 1 06