The Roanoke times. [volume] (Roanoke, Va.) 1890-1895, 1894-06-28
-YPEWRlTERs.
Opinions OF Them Dictated to Ono OF Them
by m Accomplished Stenographer.


by IN Accomplished Stenographer.
Moro trash and nonsense arc written
about typewriter girls by people who
do not understand what good typewrit-
ing Is or how to dictate to typewriter
than about any other profession or any
other business i'll which either men or
women arc engaged today. The fact of
tho matter is that typewriting is worth
anywhere from SO q week up to $40 or
$25, which is sometimes paid as a week.
ly salary to expert typewriters who have
no knowledge of shorthand.
1t Is no unusual thing for typewriters
to earn at folio work from dictation by
stenographers 50 IN hour and over and
the finest experts are worth every cent
OF that amount Of money. Among stenog-
raphers 81 Oh hour is the ruling rate,
and for that 81 good typewriter with
ON expert dictator will transcribo from
30 to 40 folios an hour Of testimony.
In some cases even 40 folios OIL hour of
solid matter have been dictated Forty
fol1os Is two columns of The Sun, and
OF the men who write about debating
to typewriters as though they knew
about it there are probably not half q
dozen In tho country who can dictate so
much.
Many years ago tho writer was en-
ployed as shorthand amanuensis by
George Alfred Townsend, we'll known
as Gath, who habitually dictated to
him in shorthand two columns an hour
and did it every day in the week two
hours a day for months Mt a time. in
dicating every full stop, semicolon.
quotation mark and paragraph. If
Gath" dictates to n typewriter now
and has one of the best i'll tho business,
no doubt he can dictate from II column
and half to two columns an hour of
original matter. and the writer knows
of no other man who can do that Of
course thero arc plenty of incompctents
who poso as typcwriters and who bring
tho BUSINESS into discrcdit by their poor
work. For many years the writer has
been thrown i'll contact with expert
typcwritcrs in his business as an official
stenographcr. III view of the many gibes
and snecrs in which newspaper writer's
indulge on the subject of typewriter
operators of tho feminine gender, it is
matter Of simple justice to say that the
women with whom he has been associ-
atcd i'll his business have been without
exception we'll educated refined, capa-
bio of doing rapid and accurate work,
who attended strictly to business and did
not waste time with frivolous remarks.
1t seems unfair to judge of any bust
ness or profession by the weaklings en-
gagged therein, whether tho work be
law, medicine, tho ministry, shorthand
or typewriting, and any ono who cannot
accomplish twice as much debating to
good typewriter operator as with n
pen is unable to do that either because
no does not know how to dictate or be-
cause he has an inferior operator. 1t
took just eight minutes to dictate this
article to a typewriter who does not
claim to special EXPERIENCES and whose
charge was 20 cents
CThe above was not altered in any re-
spect by the editor, and the printers
were requested to follow COPY. The
reader may therefore judge of the ao-
curacy both of the dictator and the
typewriter. New York Sun.