416 Defence of Sir William Jones' [Aug. 



[ee, oo and oo]. This, to say the best of it, is an extremely clumsy contrivance 

 and in the business of nations and course of ages it would lead to an immense 

 unnecessary expenditure of time and money. That this is the case, may be seen 

 by taking the example of a single sentence, 



Bees tees moorghabee huen toomharee peechee, 

 which in Sir William Jones' orthography would be, 



Bis tis murghabi hain tumhari pichi. 

 " There are 37 letters in this sentence written according to Dr. Gilchrist's plan, 

 and only 30 if it be written according to Jones ; that is to say, in only 6 words the 

 former exceeds the latter by no less than 7 letters. Apply this to a book, and con- 

 ceive the waste of types, paper, and valuable time which must result from it. Sup- 

 posing an octavo volume, printed according to Sir William Jones' plan, to consist 

 of 500 pages, and each page to contain on an average 304 words, the total number 

 of words in the volume would be 1,52,000 ; and if the same volume were printed 

 according to Dr. Gilchrist's plan, then at the rate of 7 additional letters for every 

 6 words, the number of extra letters will amount to 1,77,000, which would make 

 an addition to the book of 1 1 6 pages, and instead of consisting of 500 pages it would 

 consist of 619. Apply this to the entire literature of half the world through a 

 succession of ages, and conceive the result, if you can. If this average is consi- 

 dered to be above the mark, I have no objection to suppose that every six of Gil- 

 christ's words contain only half the number of double letters which those above 

 instanced do, and at this rate the book printed according to Gilchrist's plan 

 would exceed what it would be if printed according to Sir William Jones' 

 plan by 58 pages. 



"Lastly, there are three characters in Gilchrist's alphabet which do not belong 

 to English or to any other language under the sun which we have ever heard of. 

 These are oo, ue and uo. With the exception of the pupils of Dr. Gilchrist who, 

 from early associations and respect to their master, may naturally be expected to 

 be admirers of his scheme, these three characters are utterly barbarous to every 

 description of people ; and it is therefore impossible for them to secure a general 

 recognition for themselves in the breasts either of Englishmen, European foreign- 

 ers or Indians. Sir William Jones' plan, as has been before stated, contains no 

 arbitrary sounds whatever, but is in every respect in strict accordance with the 

 Latin and Latino-European languages. Even the au, of which no example is to 

 be found in English, is perfectly familiar to every Scotchman and Irishman who 

 knows Latin ; and if a youth at Dublin College, or the High School at Edinburgh, 

 were to pronounce causa like cawsa, he would be immediately corrected and told to 

 sound it cowsa, and the same of course every where on the continent of Europe. 



"It should be borne in mind that Sir William Jones and Mr. Gilchrist 

 both drew from the mine of English letters, and that the only difference between 

 them is that one appropriated the dross, while the other culled the pure gold. Gil- 

 christ chose the most corrupt and imperfect parts of our system, while Jones 

 selected those which were consistent with true principles and coincided with the 

 most perfect alphabets both of the East and West. The i in police is almost as 

 well known in English as the double ee in feel. The u in pull is certainly better 

 known than oo, which is pure Gilchristian. The H in rule is as familiar as the 

 double oo in cool. The ai in aisle is assuredly far more common than ue, which 

 is another arbitrary sign to be found no where except in the books printed by Dr. 

 Gilchrist himself. The au in causa (Latin pronunciation) is also better under- 



