SHORTHAND 



415 



language and the means of representing them made 

 the reading of shorthand extremely difficult and 

 uncertain. 



In the 18th century three systems were pub- 

 lished, by Tiffin, 1750; Lyle, 1762; and Holdsworth 

 and Aldridge, 1708 ; and in the 19th century 

 five systems appeared, by Row, 1802 ; Towndrow, 

 1831 ; Pitman, 1837 ; De Staines, 1839 ; and Bell, 

 1857, based on the phonetic principle ; but, except- 

 ing phonography, they were wanting in all the 

 main requisites of a shorthand system simplicity 

 of construction, facility in execution, and elegance 

 in effect. 



The shorthand of the Romans, practised by Tiro, 

 first the slave and afterwards the freedman of 

 Cicero, was really an abbreviated longhand. The 

 Roman letters were shorn of their just proportions, 

 initial letters often served for whole words, and 

 terminations, in which Latin abounds, were either 

 abbreviated or omitted. By systematising these 

 mutilations Tiro constructed a system of swift 

 writing, which served him as Cicero's amanuensis 

 in good stead, and doubtless we owe to it much of 

 what remains to us of the writings of Cicero. 



The history of shorthand properly so called, with 

 an alphabet of simple signs as substitutes for the 

 ordinary letters, dates from the reign of Elizabeth. 

 Dr Timothy Bright(e. 1551-1615), aleamed man, the 

 author of several medical works and the compiler 

 of an abridgment of Fox's Book of Acts and Monu- 

 ments of the Church, in the year 1588 published 

 Characterie ; an Arte of Shorte, Swifte, and Secrete 

 Writing by Character. In this ingenious work 

 Bright claims the invention of the art of shorthand. 

 His claim may justly be disputed, for his system 

 is not shorthand in the present sense of the word. 

 It is not based on a shorthand alphabet, but is a 



system of arbitrary marks for words : thus J 



abound, ', about, \ accept, ^ accuse, J ad- 



vance, &c. 



Two years after the appearance of this work 

 Peter Bales published The Writing Schoolmaster. 

 This system also was composed of arbitrary char- 

 acters. In the year 1602, a little above threescore 

 years before Wilkins published his celebrated 

 /// towards a Real Character and a Philosoph- 

 ical Language (1668), appeared The Art of Steno- 

 graphy, or Short Writing, by Spelling Character*/, 

 invented by John Willis, Bachelor in Divinity. 

 The author intimates in the title of the work the 

 grand distinction between it and the previous 

 attempts that had been made in the art by 

 describing it as 'spelling characters, ' the others 

 having been verbal charactery. John Willis's 

 alphabet is : 



klmno 



a b odefghij 

 A n f~ I ~1 < I __ loK> 

 pqritnTwx 



y z 



y 2 



The inadequacy of this alphabet is proved by 

 the fact that not one of its letters was used in 

 the same sense by the inventors of systems in 

 the following century, when shorthand began to 

 be popular. Sixteen years after the publication 

 of John \ViIli.i' system Edmund Willis published 

 An Abbreviation of Writing by Character (1618). 

 This system exhibits a considerable improvement 

 in its alphabet, and 15 of its letters were adopted 

 by subsequent shorthand authors. 



The next name on the roll of shorthand authors 

 deserving of mention here is that of Rich, 1654- 

 69. His system was used by Dr Doddridge, 



who reprinted it for the benefit of his theological 

 students, and strongly recommended its adoption 

 by young persons. Mason followed in 1672-1707. 

 The alphabet had now become much simplified. 

 Mason's system was adopted by Thomas Gurney 

 in 1750, and has since been known as Curacy's 

 shorthand. 



The principal shorthand authors of the 18th cen- 

 tury were Macaulay, 1747; Angell, 1758; Byrom, 

 1767 ; Taylor, 1786 ; and Mavor, 1789 ; and in the 

 19th century, Clive, 1810; Lewis, 1815; Moat, 1833; 

 Isaac Pitman (q.v.), 1837; Fancutt, 1840; Bradley, 

 1843. Of these systems, except Pitman's phono- 

 graphy, the one that has obtained the greatest 

 amount of popularity is Taylor's, and a few private 

 persons and reporters use it to the present day. Its 

 alphabetic signs are well chosen, but it fails to 

 supply signs for three consonant sounds heard in 

 the English language, and it makes no pretension 

 to express all the vowel and diphthong sounds. 

 The following is Taylor's alphabet : 



b c dfghjklmn 



_ _ / \ ) / ) 



P q 



ch sh th 



~ r 



I o 



I- * 



The publication in 1837 of Isaac Pitman's system 

 of shorthand, entitled 'Phonography,' in which 

 the stenographic signs or letters represent the 

 sounds of the English language, marks a new era 

 in the art. The legibility which this principle 

 secures has led to the very general use of short- 

 hand in merchants' and lawyers' offices, and in 

 railway and ordinary correspondence ; it has also 

 promoted the establishment in England of a dozen 

 shorthand periodicals. A vigorous propagandism, 

 and instruction books at low prices, have aided in 

 giving to this system its wen-merited distinction 

 above all others in public estimation. At the end 

 of the 18th century the price of a treatise on 

 shorthand was a guinea, and a course of lessons 

 in the art cost five or ten guineas. In contrast 

 with this, Pitman's system is published in a com- 

 pendious tabular form for a penny, and its inventor 

 organised^ Phonetic Society, extending throughout 

 Great Britain and Ireland, whose members invite 

 learners to send their lessons through the post for 

 gratuitous correction. 



Before giving a brief description of this system 

 of shorthand we may note the conditions on which 

 alone Peter Bales's reasonable anticipation of the 

 future universal practice of shorthand can be real- 

 ised, and then it may be seen whether phonography 

 fulfils these conditions. 



Given a language, say the English, it is required 

 to provide signs for its expression which may be 

 written at the rate of speech in a public assembly, 

 which ranges from a very slow utterance of 60 

 words in a minute, with frequent pauses, to a rapid 

 flow of 180 words in a minute. The average of 

 public speaking is a mean between these extremes 

 i.e. 120 words a minute, or two words per second. 

 A dexterous penman can make 180 separate simple 

 strokes or dots in a minute. The required system 

 of shorthand must, therefore, represent two words 

 by three strokes (or dots), or by one and a half 

 strokes per word. Let the reader try his hand 

 upon sucn signs as 



(the last two struck upward), and he will fee} 



