The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1849-12-18 00:00:00

Dec, 18, 184,,

TO GEORGE GREEN HORNBY, ESQ.

m y attention was, this morning, called to your
l, addreakassed in the Liverpool Times newspaper of Thursday
rt,gddressed to Mr. Joseph Kitchen, relative to St.
f"one is Dispensary ; and, as the remarks therein are most
ungenerous to all concerned, I, as one of the committee,
net bound to give you my opinion on the subject. By
',Tat right do you assume the name of " Liverpool
Xsri
sPensaries" in perpetuity for the Northern and Southern
e ? As well might the name of " The Liverpocl
Docks" beepplied alone to those completed before the
Year 1800. As the town increases in population, so
Nht the means of relieving the poor, without making
thempaupers to be multiplied; and, if properly managed,
'le Liverpool public will not be wanting with their aid.
If tried by an impartial jury, I question whether those
witose interests you advocate have latterly a right to be
Vied Liverpool Dispensaries at all—as, since the with-
fawal of the grant from the parish, they systematically
;lose medical advice or medicine to any parishioner of
taverpool. You had better therefore,
,propose that they
1)e called the " Strangers' Dispensaries. ' I find amongst
the
St. Anne's Dispensary recommendation-papers many
Nom the Infirmary, iudorsed thus—" Reconimended to
tne Dispensary from the Infirmary. Charles 11. Wilson."
-111 the lvonse-surgeon's book are registered cases of at-
tendance on members of the police, to dress wounds,
Many of them of a serious character, and to attend to
!filth bo has often been called up in the night.
bottnatise this dispensary as a " pet scheme," you
°mg forward the Rev. Fielding Ould's having made a
collection at Christ Church purposely for it ; so he did,
and 5o likewise did the late Mayor get up the fancy fair
and bazaar, the profits to be given in aid of the charities,
'and the Liverpool dispensaries got no part of the pro-
Ceeds ; but the Rev. F. Ould, a few Sundays after the
'particular collection, in accordance with the wish of the
venerable Archdeacon Brooks, made another collection,
ytceetling, a little, the amount for the St. Anne's, which
Was paid into the general fund from the amounts received
on the thanksgiving day, and of which our treasurer has
now received one-fifth leaving the Zion's share. I know
ttot anything about the late Eastern Dispensary. I pre-
sume the committee will have to pay for what they ordered.
I was, very much against my own inclinations, induced to
take upon myself the duties of a committee-man of the
dispensary, thetime I devote to it having to be teken from
Illy family, or made up by early and late hours at my bu-
siness. This I know, that everything left at Rose-hill was
valued bran appraiser, and theamount paid to the Chairman
of the Eastern Dispensary. Thus far in your letters we
merely disagree in opinion ; but I now come to a clause
towards its close, which I hope, on mature consideration,
Y,.01A will fechsorry that you ever penned. viz :—" The latter
'laving beers got up by a few individuals who have found
themselves -better able to afford their time and trouble
than -their money, the money having beenfound by the
tr, d eupte who have executed their orders." Ask
Messrs. T. Eyre and Co. (Seel-street), Reay and Robin-
son (Cirurch-street), Arrowsmith and Callaghan (plas-
terers) end Mr. Hogg (joiner and builder, Soho-street),
Mr. Jarvis, Samuel Hulse, Abraham Woolfe (Richmond-
lowl, and any others, what money they have found, and
then'tell me if you do not withdraw such a statement. For
myself and those other members of the committee who have
earnestly attended to the affairs of the institution since its
'commencement, I will only say that, during the altera-
tions and furnishing of the new institution, each of them
`Presented unostentatiously whatever building materials
:and spare furniture they had suitable for the purpose,
with cartage, men's work, &c., amounting in value to a
sbonsiderable sum ; and I believe i may say for all, that
we never give a recommendation to one of our own men,
not considering them eligible, being in the regular receipt
of weekly wages, and most of them connected with benefit
clubs, with regularly-appointed medical men.
In conclusion, I would remark, that the Committee of
the St. Anne's Dispensary hope that they will find no
great difficulty in obtaining from the friends of the Insti-
tution the amount necessary for current exFenses, the firs
heavy expenditure having now been provided for.
I am, Sir, yours resctfully,
EDWARD SMITH.
Liverpool, 34, Comus-street, Dec. 8, 1849.

LECTURES ON PHONOGRAPHY BY MESSRS.
BENN AND HENRY PITMAN.

On Thursday and Friday evenings of last week, two
lectures were delivered by Messrs. Benn and Henry Pit-
Man, in the Concert-hall, Lord Nelson-street, on the
Phonetic system of writing, termed Phonography.
Notwithstanding the unfavourable state of the weather,
the hall was filled on each evening long before the com-
mencement of the lecture by a most intelligent and re-
spectable audience, a fair proportion of the fair sex being
Present. Previous to the commencement of the lecture,
the attention of the audience was fixed upon a large chart
containing the phonographic system, and many of the
younger auditors were busily employed in taking s copy of
the phonographic alphabet. Precisely at eight o'clock the
chair was taken by
HARMOOD BANNER, Esq., who said that, like those he
had the pleasure of addressing, he had come as a listener,
to learn something of phonography. The art of phono-
graphy, he believed, had in many places made considerable
progress; but in Liverpool he thought it was compara-
tively a novelty. He hoped, however, that it would not
long remain so, for it was a novelty of no insignificant im-
Portance. The phonetic system would have the effect of
entirely reforming the representation of our language—a
reform of no less extent and importance than many of the
political and scientific changes which
Thhe ad marked the
the age
In which P lion_ (Applnsi) n
introduced—
Mr. BENN PITMAN, who commenced his ;lecture by
observing that he stood before them to advocate the adop-
tion of the Phonetic principle to the written and printed
representation of our language. He should, however,
chiefly confine his explanations to Phonography, as the
new system of Phonetic writing was termed. After afew
introductory observations on the signs of progress which
characterised the present age, Mr. Pitman proceeded to
skew that no corresponding improvement had been offered
in the means of representing language. The Roman
alphabet, it was clearly shewn, was not adequate to the
representation of the English language, there being only
26 letters to represent 40 sounds. Some striking incon-
sistencies in our present method of spelling were pointed
out by the lecturer. For instance, the first letter of the
Roman alphabet, A, was shewn to be the representative
of -different sounds in each of the following words :—fate,
fat, fall, father, any, want, &c. It was evident from this
example that the Roman alphabet was inadequate to rep-
resent all the sounds of our language. The letter s was
also instanced as containing different powers in the words
so, his, sure, measure, and in the word isle no sound at
all. -dome words, said Mr. Pitman, were spelled with
certain letters and pronounced with others, as .cause, in
which not a single letter was sounded. Many other
illustrations of the absurdities of English orthography
were given by the lecturer, some of them being of a very
ludicrous description. .So far, however, from being a
subject of amusement, said Mr. Pitman, it was a matter
of serious reflection with thousands of thinking minds
how they should remedy the evils which he had pointed
out. He had found, by numerous experiments with the
Phonetic alphabet, that children and adults could be taught
to read the English language in one-twentieth of the time
at present required.
Mr. *Pitman then proceeded to speak of the desirable,
ness of possessing some mode of communicating thought
upon paper, with something of the ease and rapidity of
speech. That such was •not ,the case with the present
long-hand was shown by instancing the letter m, which
though ,tittered by a single effort of the vocal organs, yet
seven deflections of the pen for its formation upon paper.
Phonography possessed all the requirements requisite to
form a perfect system of writing ; it being the briefest
system of short-band ever invented, and as legible as
common long-hand. With the assistance of a suitable
writing material, and a large slate, Mr. Pitman explained
in a very clear manner the various parts of the phonogra-
phic system, commencing with the vowel's sounds, and
afterwards giving the consonants. He then wrote the
alphabet•on the slate, and showed the method of joining
the consonants together, and of forming words. Various
examples were next written down by the lecturer, all of
which were easily read off by the audience. This portion
of the lecture proved particularly interesting, and was
warmly applauded. Every one who had writing to per-
form, said Mr. Pitman, must desire to possess a system of
short-hand that would enable them to write down
thoughts as rapidly as they arose in the mind. Phonog-
raphy furnished such a method of writing; for, as would
presently be shown, it might be written as rapidly as lan-
guage could be expressed. The astonishing spread of the
phonetic system throughout the country, said Mr. Pit-
man, was some proof of the value of the art. In Man-
chester alone, he and his brother had lately instructed
upwards 0f2,000 persons in the phonetic art.
At the conclusion of the lecture Mr. Henry Pitman
came forward and gave convincing proof .of the brevity
and completeness of phonography, and of ,his dexterity in
writing the art. Its applicability to verbatim reporting
was tested by his writing passages read at a -rapid rate of
utterance, and reading the same with ease and_correctness.
Sentences in German and Welsh were also written by the
Same gentleman, and with equal correctness. These ex-
Periments were warmly applauded, roc
a to afford
the greatest pleasure to the audience. The lecture con-
cluded by a unanimous vote of thanks to the Messrs. Pit-
.man.
The second and concluding lecture was delivered on the
'following evening, when John Smith, Esq., presided, and
gave his unqualified approval of phonography and tpbono-
• tyry. The attendance was larger than on the previous
evening, several hundred persons having to stand during
thejecture. Mr. Pitman again explained phonography to
his eudience, and went farther into the system, showing
on NCiat a beautiful principle the double consonants were
formed. We must say that we never heard a more plea-
sant or successful lecturer than Mr. Benn Pitman. On
each evening his lecture was listened to with the deepest
attention, only broken by the hearty applause of the vast
assembly. We think the visit of the Messrs. Pitman to
Liverpool most opportune, and hove no doubt the classes
Which, they intend opening for instruction in phonography
Will be numerously attended.

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