The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1893-09-11

casionally shadow letters, that is, blur
their outlines, by holding the key down
too long or by striking it sideways. Per-
haps the idiosyncrasies of punctuation
are the most trustworthy earmarbs OF
all The force Of habit impels operators
never to vary from their own practice in
given cases Take the sentence: When
did you go there MondayP One man
would put a question mark after there;
another a comma; still another dash,
a semi-cOlon, a comma and dash, semi
colon and dash might also be used.
skilled man always follows his own usage
in such cases.
zone Of the most remarkable things in
connection with the individuality Of q
typewriter is his sense Of feeling in
touching the keys. In this respect he
almost equals the sensibility of an ex-
pert piano player. The machine, after a
weeks usage. will be adjusted to his
stroke, and that adjustment the expert
carries with him to all other machines.
Some like loose and others a tight adj
iustment, and each will as stoutly advo.
cate the advantage of their ideas in thi2
respect.
TRICK OF AN OPERATOR.
"To illustrate this point let metell you
of a little incident that occurred up in our
club rooms not long since. One of the
regular attendants at the rooms was an
expert stenographer and typewriter. He
particularly prided himself upon his speed
and accuracy upon the typewriter While
discussing this point one evening several
of us decided TO put up job on him, as
we very well knew his ability was not
overrated by himself. The next day we
took the machine he always used and
placed the letter "a on the letter IS bar
and the latter letter on the formers bar.
These letters, it is hardly necessary to
say, are used about as frequently as any
in the alphabet. We next took machine
and brother expert endeavored to get
adjustment exactly in touch with the
doctorcd one. In this he thought he sue
ceeded
"The next evening the discussion as to
accuracy and speed was renewed and we
made a wager Of an oyster supper that
the expert in question could not average
speed of one hundred words minute for
ten minutes We also knew he had ire
quently done better work than that. OF
course he accepted the proposition and we
gathered around the expert with our
watches IL was agreed that every mis-
take was TO count as lost word. Like
all experts he never once looked al MS
work. as he knew he was doing 1t per-
fectly How the keys did hum. His speed
was something remarkable.
cat the expiration of ten minutes we
took the copy before the expert had had
chance to see it and went over to another
table to count up. OF course the expert
followed US and was astonished to see his
work, it being full of mistakes, as we in
tended it should be. While the expert
had his back turned the other machine
was substituted for the doctored one.
With mistakes accounted for he had only
averaged about sixty-five words a min
ute
HE would hardly believe US when we
told him the result, but the evidence was
there and could not be impeached. He
went over to the machine, raised the car
rage and examined all the letters. They
were correct. His face took on puzzled
look Then he began 10 write a few
words and instantly his face frightened.
With a smile he said:
Boys, that was a good one, but I've
got you. You rang in doctored ma
chine on me- This is not the machine the
test was made on, and would you believe
it his sense of touch was so accurate that
the almost imperceptible difference in the
adjustment of the two typewriters was
easily noticed by him. We then acknowl-
edged the joke and we also paid for the
oysters"