Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1897-01-09

learn shorthand and typewriting, get en-
ployment in offices, and proceed to drive
their employers mad either by being unable
to read their notes or to put them into
proper shape.
Lacking in Skill.
"A gentleman to whom l sent young
woman stenographer the other day came
tearing in here the day after, and began
to abuse me up hill and down dale. didn't
greatly blame him. 1t seems that he spent
the whole day debating an accumulated
mass of correspondence the young wo-
man. and then found out that she couldn
read word of her notes. His time was
money to him, and he was mad. This does
not often happen, however, for in most
cases we try the skill ct applicants VINO
seek positions through this office, but, for
some reason or other, in his particular
case the trial was neglected.
THE stenographers and typewriterS who
half learn their business injure the trade
greatly by cheapsning it, They are enl-
pIoyed for s. OF So a week. and contriVe
to do their work In some way, Invariably
bad. The work that some of them do is
both heartrending and humorous. Private
employers, however, are beginning TO recog-
nize the bad policy of giving employment
to these incompetents. They not only cause
neuraesthenia and premature age, but they
produce what is known as the laugh on
the employers. The only thing for the half
learners to do is to sit down aud begin all
n.
ish in them to waste their time for small
salaries when a comparatively short period
of dead earnest study would put them i'll
the way of making great ceal more
money.
Some Department Salaries.
Good amanuensis stenographers in the
departments here are paid ali the way
from 81, 200 to 81 800 year. Those not SO
good get from 500 to 81, 600. The good de-
partmental stenographer is given a better
show than any other class of government
clerk to try his spurs and to make hit,
and he is always in demand. When 1t be-
comes known to the big officials In a de-
partment that some new stenographer,
recently appointed, is a tip-top' man in his
business, they are all clamorouS to get hirl
in their respective divisions. II they can
secure him outright they borrow him on
especial occasions, and he puts in some of
his days all over the building. The stenog-
rapher who starts to work in some OBJ
scure division of department is soon dug
out of his obscurity If he shows good met
tie, and 1t Is not long before his legs are
under q desk in the room of an assistant
secretary or even of Secretary, and such
stenographers belong to the 81 600 and
81 800 classes.
1.-The good anaanuensis shorthand writer's
employed in the offices of lawyers AMI
other professional and business men in
Washington are paid from so to $40 a
of my house all of last year in a High
School uniform who is now drawing $40 a
week as stenographer in a patent attor-
ney's Office although can't get out Of the
habit of calling him sBub.' He studied
shorthand systematically after school
hours, so that when he left school he didn't
have to take his place in the $6-a-week
class. but jumped right to the front from
the start.
"Typewriting is, Of course, nowadays an
absolutely essential adjunct of stenography
and there is nothing in typewriting to scare
anybody, but all the same there are lot
of atrociously bad typewriters running
around looking for positions. A good many
of them come here. 1 put them at a ma
chine, and they spell remember with four
MS. can't very well send them to q
man who wants good machine operator.
IF they know how to spell, they have never
heard of a comma or paragraph. If they
know how to spell and to punctuate, some
of them pick out key once minute, and
If anybody here is looking at them, get rat
tied, go all to pieces, and that is the finish.
There is no necessity for this kind of thing.
Any man or woman who has ten fingers
and who has had a tirst-rate common
school education can become a .first-rate
| typewriter operator, able to take dictation
at the rate of fifty words minute, within
two months If he or she practices the ma
chine consistently. But Npewriting is an
| other thing that can't be learned while you
watt