Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 18.djvu/151

* SHORTHAND. 117 SHOKTHAND. serted. Both Harding and Odell also used a few arbitrary cliaracters, but very few. The peculiarity of Jlavor (1789) was that, ■with a consonantal alphabet of his own, he em- ployed comma marks for a, e, and i, in three dif- ferent positions alongside the consonants, and dots for 0, 11, and y ; but the commas were found to be clumsy and slower than the dashes. Mavor's system, however, became quite ])opular, and sur- vived most of the systems in vogue at the time. Between the time of Mavor and the rising of 'phonography.' in 1S37, some 130 ditt'erent au- thors published shorthand treatises of greater or less value, a few being original, others being only modifications of preceding systems. But it is needless to particularize any that would not throw light on present-day expedients either as helps or as beacons of warning. Two of this number gained considerable repute at the time for methods that were at least novel, if not use- ful. In 1800 Samuel Richardson produced an ingenious contrivance, namely, the use of dots for all letters, which were distinguished merely by their relative position between the bars of a music stall'; this plan was modified and ex- tended some years later by Hinton, Moat, and Tear. Again, in 1802 Eichard Roe brought out what he called 'radiography,' or easy u-ritiiig, which was notedj as he says, "especially by the singular propert}' of the characters sloping all one way. according to the habitual motion of the hand in common writing." Over thirty years after, the same principle was taught by C'adman in his ScJiool Stotoflrapliy, in which we are told that "lineality is the distinguishing feature of this system," and that "it is impossible for the student to get away from the line — he cannot go WTong." Some modern systems cling also to this feature of shorthand. It was during this period that James Henr.v Lewis made a name for him- self, especially by his Historical Accoiiiit of Shorthand, which is a work of considerable merit: but his reputation was not a little marred by his style of advertising the Ready Writer, which he is vain enough to speak of as "the we phis ultra of shorthand; the most easy, exact, lineal, speedy, and legible method ever yet dis- covered, whereby more may be written in forty minutes than in one hour by any other system hitherto published." And he adds: "The un- paralleled success which has attended the dis- semination of the above system precludes the necessity of descanting on its peculiar advan- tages ; it is amply sufficient to observe that it has completely superseded all others, in the courts of law, and in both Houses of Parliament ; that it is universally adopted in every respect- able seminary of education throughout the United Kingdom; and has passed the approbation of both our universities in a manner which can only be equaled by the liberality of those cele- brated judges of literature wlio liave pronounced it 'the best they have ever seen.' " This turgid style is continued at some length in rhyme, and, as in advertising other cheap v.ares, may be re- garded as a species of poetic license, others hav- ing evidently failed to discover these wonderful virtues and testimonials; for the system never became popular. Throughout the past two eras of shorthand his- tory, as we have considered them, the art can hardly be regarded as anything more than a play- thing, being confined almost entirely in its use to (icople of leisure. Mavor himself speaks thus of it: "1 was in the constant practice of writing in my system and i)f correspondhig in it, with such ladies and gentlemen as did nie the honor of sul)mitting their proficiency to my inspection." It is noticeable that a few inventors of .systems at this time professed to follow the sound of words rather tluiii the spelliiifi; still the practice was never established, particularly in regard to the vowels, on a scientific basis of phonetics until the publication of ^tenofiraphic Soiind-IIund in IH.'iT — renamed by the author I'honiKiraphy :ibout three year.s later. Whatever mighl be the cause or causes, the practice of the art took a sudden and mighty leap at the same time, giving reason to suppose that phonetics had more or less to do with this progress. Though it has ever con- tinued to be a recreation, it now became much more. It came to be the handmaid of literature and industry — an imlispensable wheel in the vast machinery of the business world. Isaac Pitman's earlier publications were very small and imper- fect, but they contained the rudiments of the more fully developed system as now presented in the Twentieth Century Instructor. The first treatise was but a four-penny tractate of 12 pages, and the second was but a penny folio slieet, 8 inches by 6%. The author took every advantage of the experience of those who had preceded him. He arranged his alphabet on ap- proved scientific and phonetic principles, em- ploying the shortest signs, consistent with dis- tinctness, for the various sounds of the language, Table II. ' THE PHONOGRAPHIC ALPHABET. ^BY ISAAC I'lTMAN.) CONSONANTS. EXPLODENTS P T I CH / K — B  D I J / G — KASAI-S. M -—- LIQUIDS. L N CONTINUANTS. F ^ V V. TJ^ ( TH ( s ) z ) SH J ZH J - KG w R "A COALESCENTS. V o^ Y t^ ASPIRATE. H cT' ^ ,„x.^ VOWELS LONG. 1. AH 2. EH 3- EE 1. AW 2. OH 3- OO DIPHTHONGS. V I ^ OW lah i 1 {ay e 1 tea i J taw

1 toe u -1 too 56 _| OI SHORT. as in p^t ,, pt-t „ P't „ ntft ,, n«t ,, ioot U ^ WI devoting the most convenient ones to the most frequently recurring sounds: he paired those that were cognate in sound, shading the stronger ones; he made simple dots and dashes, with very small curves, both light and shaded, detached and in three positions, do the whole service for