The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1893-04-05
HANDWRITING OF TODAY.
Like a Great Many Other
Things. It's Not Like
1t Used To Be-"
sHAKEsPEARIAN CHARACTERS.
Number Of Lines Which His Lead
J ing Heroes and Heroines are
Made to Say.


1t is true that handwriting is grow
ng worse all the world over? This is
the statement of Mr.. jackson in his
.sTheory and Practice of Handwrit-
ing" Official reports seem to confirm
Mr.. Jackson's belief. On the other
hand, persons of considerable expert
ence in reading literary manuscripts
and examination papers of the higher
orders can hardly agree with him.
As a rule, the MSS. OF novels and OF
examination papers are legible and
even rather pleasing. The exceptions
are scarcely four per g in examina-
ton papers; in novels an author fool
ishly sends in a mere rough draft,
with erasions and additions tackled on
by pins or waste ends OF postage
stamp paper. But these examples OF
handwriting are the work, except as
regards many novels, OF highly
educated persons, and they throw no
light on the hands OF people far
from literary.
The letters of servant girls and of
Otl6E UGODl0 M1tl1Oot o5RtAR pAOAAo ~
culture are often penned in excellent
and characteristic hands, and on the
whole we do not think that the age
writes ill, as a general rule. Naturally,
people who have to write great guam
titles of copy for the press or for
other purposes find their hands, if
Roman and fine at first, gradually
disappearing in scrawl due to fatigue.
A number of popular and prolific
authors are suffering from writers
cramp,n and their hands must have
been degenerating in the progress OF
the malady.
To do the work with the minimum
of fatigue is the authors object, and
certainly it seems as If the men and
women with the most slovenly hands
suffer least from writer's cramp. Mr..
Jackson, however, thinks that writ
ing is very bad, that it's badness is
due to bad teaching, promiscuously
selected models The prefers examples
on the black board to headlines), and,
above all, the error is in sloping as
opposed 80 perpendicular or vertical
writing. The natural man, he thinks,
sits upright to his work, and would
write perpendicularly, but for the pre-
valence of sloping copies. From
these comes the habit of sprawling
sideways at the desk, and that habit
is bad for the eyes. bad for the spine,
badtor discipline In school las it facil-
itates tattling} and finally bad for the
handwriting. The slope keeps on
running down hill, till it loses itself
in an undecipherable scrawl.
History proves, Mr.. Jackson thinks,
that all writing was originally verti-
cal. We do not see Egyptian hero
glyphics on the slope, they are drawn
upright, and so are the o elaborate
pictures of the Aztec .'scrift," of the
Mayas, of Easter Island, the Sanskrit
hand, the Phnnician witness the
Moabite stone), the Greek, whether
on inscriptions IN stone, on vases, or
in writing on papyri; but not, we
think, in the Italic hand copied from
the writing of Musurus in the editions
of Aldus. The Italic hand is ON a
slope 1900. Mr.. Jackson says that
all writing in Europe was vertical,
upright, till the age of Elizabeth. The
Aldine texts, in Italics, seem to sug-
gest a doubt ON. this point.-1he
Nea0ark Daily Advertiser.
Too UnseiAsh Mothers.
Many a mother has given herself SO
wholly to her little ones that she has
become exhausted by the time they
most need her. It is the very young
children that can be left with least
danger. Details cannot be conquered
individually. As has been said, the
demands of the modern home, espec-
tally in cities, are too much for any
woman to cope with in detail. In the
first place, then, she should have cour-
age to dispense with many things.
She should reduce resoiutely the num-
Der Of details. The home life must be
made simple.-NeDaT6 EUenfng NeaoS.
sh~akespearian Characters.
Some tables recently published in
England by L. NJ. Grifdths. giving the
number of lines spoken by each char
acter in Shakespeare's plays, furnish
a basis for sundry interesting compar-
lsops and contrasts.
The leading male characters have
much more to say than their female
counterparts. As might have been
guessed, Hamlet is by far the most To-
quacious-using the-word in this
arithmeticaI sense-of the men. His
share in the dialogue is 1850 lines
the lines in the tables being those of
the Globe edition, and parts of lines
at beginning and end of speeches be-
ing counted as whole lines. Next to
the ROYAL Dane come Richard III
with /, ISL, and Iago follows hard upon
him with LII. Henry v, in the
magnificent monologuen of q play
named from him, speaks 1903 lines.
These four characters are the only
ones that have more than 1000 lines
apiece.
AT some distance behind them
comes Othello with 888. Cariolanus
with 1888, the Duke, in Measure for
Measure" with $50 and Timon with
1863. Antony, in Antony and Cleo
patra,n is the only other man with
more than 800. his reckoning being
1929. Between 800 and 200 we find Lear
{77O). Brutus. in Julius Caesar" (720,
Falstaff in 20 Henry ~" gen, Titus
Andronicus (718), and Macbeth (705),
and between TOO and GOO fat Jack
again, in Il Henry ~" $685.. Leontes
{6o1), Prospero {665). Biron (62D, Rom
co (618), and Prince Henry in II Hen
ry IV" (616). The others above 500
are Menenius $685., Petruchio $3.50,
Hotspur $685., the King, in Hamlet
(522), and Cassius (50D.
Amonp the women there are but