Morning journal and courier., 1883-06-15
Women and the Type-WrIter. rFroro ua-Iar+u Ro,aar1

The nature of the work required in type writing and photography and the wide and rapidly increasing demand for it invest the subject with 8 special attraction for women who desire to earn living. An artist, un- less she possesses the very rare gift of gen. jus, usually encounters difficulty in selling her wares, and even the true daughters of the Muses often pine for lack of recognition. But typewriter operator or a photograph CT, or, best of all, woman who is both, may reasonably expect to find steady, com fortable and remunerativa employment.
 The business known as type-writing is only about eight years old, having been first brought into general notice at the time of the Centennial Exhibition. A small instrument fixed to stand about the size of sewing machine table is operated like 8 pianoforte by playing upon three or four banks of keyes
 with the fingers. Whenever key is struck letter of the alphabet is printed on sheet of paper, and these letters can be printed as fast as the keys can be struck Obviously this is very much faster than they could be written by the most practical penman. Ex- perience shows that skillful copyist tran scribes about twenty words @ minute, and that skillful operator on typewriter prints about sixty words minute, or three times as many as the skillful penman. A young wo- man sitting in front of the instrument dis poses herself as easily as when in front of her pianoforte. She plays on the notes, but neither uses her feet nor bends her back. The type writing machine occupies less room than the sewing machine and to operate it is very much less trying to nerves spine and soul. q have noticed with surprise" :" said 8 well-known business man recently, ''that our girls after seven or eight hours of work, perform their last half hours duty without apparent fatigue" The cost of the two in struments is about the same, the price of 8 first-class typewriter being from eighty to
 hnk ir, kx1n can earn enough to pay for your type writer by working on it only six or eight hours day.
 There are other things to be said in favor of the typewriter. It operates as legibly as & printing press-more legibly than some printing presses it's letters are two or three times as large as those of an ordinary news paper !; it's sentences are punctuated with the care bestowed by good copyist and the general effect of page of them is a refresh ment to the eye. If ''carbon" or manifold" paper is used, three pages are written simul- taneously at the end of your allotted task you have three copies instead of one. For whenever you strike note of the instrument the impress of the particular letter of the alphabet represented by that note strikes through the lowest of three superimposed sheets of paper and appears successively on the other two: On each of three sheets, placed one upon another, the impress of
 
 print duplicates than to print single sheet. If, therefore, the operator on a type-writing machine can copy page of MS. at the rate of sixty words a minute, or three times as fast as skilled penman can do it, she can take three copies of that page simultaneous ly, or in other words, can accomplish the work of nine skilled penmen. Put your nine skilled penmen in one room, and your skilled operator on the typewriter in anoth- CT at the end of the day the latter has pro- duced as much copy as her nine competitors; and while anybody who can read at all can easily read her copy, perhaps it will require an expert in penmanship to decipher what many of the words in her nine rivals copy really are. In all business offices, therefore, where much copying is required, the type writer is valuable assistant. It has been found by business men who have availed themselves of woman's work in type-writing that women possess the inestimable advan- tage of not being the rivals of their em ployers. A man acting the part of private secretary or confidential clerk may leave his employer at any moment and set up for him. self. With young women the case Is differ ent. For reasons which everybody recogni- zes, but which, perhaps, will not hold good forever, they are not regarded by business men as possible rivals
 In the next place, My private secretary" said well-known solicitor of patents the other day, nodding in the direction of 8 young woman who sat in front of a type writer, 'Ehas been in the office two years and has never lost day, nor an hour" The av- craze salary of such 8 secretary is $500 year. Sometimes a thousand dollars is earned. The use of the typewriter can be learned in week. and after a practice of three or four weeks a clever girl can write faster than a penman. Persons who can play on the pianoforte become proficient in a shorter time. In any case it is compara lively easy to become first-class operator. An hour or two hours day is as much as any young woman ought to practice when be- ginning. To become a tirst-class phono- grapher or shorthand writer is much more difficult. The young woman who begins at the age of twelve or ten years is likely to succeed the soonest.
 The best private secretary is one who can write shorthand and can operate @ type writer She is able to take down answers to letters, and then to make copies on the type writer from her photographic notes The business of firm of solicitors for patents has SO increased since the advent of the type writer (their days seom to have become Ion- ger, because so much more work can be done in a day) that they are training in their ot1ce two or three young women to become opera tors on it, who meanwhile make themselves generally useful, and receive for thelr serVl- l ees S5 or S1O month. After year so I spent these pupils will earn $40 month. Younp men, if applying at this office for | similar positions. would be told frankly that 1 experience has led the firm to prefer the ser | vices of the gentler sex. The rooms are | brioht and cheerful, and noticed that dur l ing an interval of her task one of the opera | tors had been refreshing herself with a nov | ell. in strict accordance with the privileges of l