The republic., 1851-01-02

PHoNoGRAPHY AND REPoRTING.-For almost
every winter, for some years past great commo-
ton has been made about the beauty and excel
lence Of the photographic system of reporting, and
its virtues have been cxtoled to the skies by per-
sons who have managed ere this to make snug
living out of the verdancy of young men. 1t
has been stated, and again, that it is 80
simple that child can learn it; that after prac
tce of month or two the student will be able to
report the most rapid speaker, and that its superb
ority over stenography is admitted by the best
porters in the country.
The whole of this is nothing but humbug. Pho
biography has il advantages, and so has steno-
graphy Some OF the best reporters in the United
States, living and dead, and were stenogra.
piers. Neither system will make young man
reporter who has not peculiar mental Abilities
which not possessed by all men. Every per-
learn to speak. but how few our ora
tors Every person can learn to paint, but how
few Raphaels there are Every person can learn
to act, but how few Keans there are Every per-
son can learn stenography or phonogaphy, bat
how few good reporters there are-we mean
porters who will follow rapid speaker for two
three hours with precision and accuracy How
many young men, of the numerous classes in pho
biography, that we have heard of within the last
few years, have turned out to be good reporters?
Not one out of a class on an average.
The truth is, there is a, vast deal of humbug in
prasing system of reporting another.
Some OF the best reporters in the English Para-
ment use neither photography or stenography, but
an abbreviated system of long hand writing. This
shows that II Is not the system alone, whatever 1t
may be, that makes reporters We venture to say,
too, that, take five hundred young men, and teach
them either photography or senography, and let
them spend two three hours a day for two
three years in practising, not ten of the lot will
make reliable and accurate reporters. Reporting
will always be confined to the members of the
press, whose business keeps them in constant prac-
tice; and ifyoung men ndulg the hallucnaton that
there is any royal road to this department of know
ledge, they will discover in the end that they are
little mstaken-that, besides drudgery, something
else is required. We have had something to do
with and reDOrtiuU. and q know what
we speak of in this respect, Neio York Herald.
GoLp AND DEArH.-Three millions of gold and
list of than thousand deaths, the
latest Inportations from California! Let those who
would have gone to the mines long ago, if they had
possessed the means, kneel down and thank God
for their poverty. AS yet we have only the begin
ming of the end. The cholera has scarcely yet
taken hold of the i'll clad, badly fed multiudes
the placers, and the still more squalid horde
approaching the confines Of the mining districts
overland. Wo to those seekers Of gold when the
pestience shall overtakc them in the wilderness
The spades and nattocks with which they hoped
to exhume the buried treasure, shall be used for
a more mournful purpose, and thousands, we fear,
will sleep their last sleep, entombed among the gilt
tcrng dust that has lured them from home and
family
The misery and suspense of the friends and rela-
tves of the emgrants, at home, is scarcely less
painful to contemplate than the sufferings Of the
gold hunters themselves. The fate of many Of the
latter will never be known to those they left be-
hind Among the lists of deaths, the words
''stranger'' and .unsnown" frequently occur, and
hundreds have died and will die in that far off
land, of whose decease not even these anonymous
memoranda will be made The story of the
land emigration for the present year has been
half told. Thousands are yet struggling through
the grassless and unwatered plains between Coun-
Gil Rufs and California, as the first crusaders
struggled through ,ne marshes of Hungary, and
their line.of march like that of the crOises, will
hereafter be known by the graves and bleaching
skeletons in their track-NeW York Star.