The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1898-04-14
KEYB0ARDS OF ALL KINDS
Variety and Extent OF the Usefulness of
the Typewriier-Amcrcan Ingenuity
Once More COrquers the World.
From the Sun.

From the Sun.
The typewriter is one American product
which has never suffered foreign boy
Cott. The click Of the American type
| writer IS heard around the world. The
tourist fnds 1t turning UP i'm all sorts Of
out-ot-the-way corners, from Iceland to
Van Dieman's Land. With the Dongola
and Ashanti expeditions it has penetrat-
ed into the heart of the African wilder
ness; with Lieutenant Perry it found its
way to the Arctic regions; the Russian
government has sent it all through ST.
IBERIA; IL is to be found in the homes Of
the missionaries in India. The czar of
Russia has richly engraved gold-plated
white enamelled, ivory-keyed typewriter
for writing both English and Russian
Queen Victoria has one in her household
ana so have the queen regent of Spain
and the khedive of Egypt. in the wreck
of the battleship Maine was found a
typewriter and should the Russian east
crn squadron's flagship suddenly sink in
the Yellow sea an American typewriter
would be found in the captains cabin
The universal use of the typewriter is
due TO its easy adoption to almost any
language capable of being printed.
Typewriters have been made to write
Greek, German, Hebrew, Siamese Telegu
and Russian. The accents, so important
part of other languages than English,
are written with dead keys. which do
not move the cylinder CARRYING the pa
per. The dead key device has recently
been ingeniously applied i'm solving a diff
lcult problem in typewriter construction
An English missionary in India. DR.
Jacob Chamberlain at Madanapalle Mad
ras Presidency, wishing to translate the
scriptures for the natives wrote to an
American typewriter company asking if
Il typewriter could be made to write the
TeleSu language. lie had been using an
English-writing typewriter, and one day,
when 1t was smashed by plaster falling
in his bungalow, the idea of a Telegu
typewriter occurred to him The Telegu
language is peculiar in that every char
acter represents a syllable. The mis-
slonary resolved the language into 2iO
| characters, but upon further study found
that these characters were built up from
much smaller number of basic forms
Ihese forms were hand cut in India un-
der the missiOnary's direction and sent TO
the Typewriter company: With the aid
of the dead keys it was found possible TO
build up all the composite characters Of
the Telegu language upon a standard
Keyboard. The typewritten words look
ike a Chinese laundrymans efforts, a
confused mass of curlycues, spots points
and assorted Crescents. The missionary
found his Telegu typewriter so valuable
III Christanizing the heathens that other
missionary sent orders for similar ma
chlncs. With them large portion of the
Bible has been distributed in duplicate
among the natives.
HEBREW KEYBOARDs.
An English student of Hebrew sent an
inquiry to the same company Tor a He
brew typewriter. None had ever baan
made, but Hebrew keyboard was
planned and the order filed Hebrew. il
must be remembered, is written from
right to left and from the bottom of the
page to the top. The Hebrew typewriter
made for the student has the mechanism
OF the ordinary typewriter: to have re-
versed ii would have been a costly nm
lertaklng' The owner consequently has
to write backward. Should there he a
sufficient demand for Hebrew typewrlters
they would be made to write from the
upper righthand corner to the opposite.
The German government recently ordered
the use OF only German letters i'm the
government business. For several wears
German typewriters with Roman letters
have been in use, but to meet the new
order German keyboard has been ar
ranged. change has also been made
In the Greek typewritcrs. The first Greek
typewriter wrote a slanting letter, but a
new vertical letter having become much
in favor in Athens, an American type-
writer company has equipped a machine
with this style of type.
King Chulalongkorn !. Of Slam, while
travelling I'm Europe not long ago, first
saw the typewriter He was so Interested
in the machine that he Immediately gave
command that typewriter be added to
the equipment Of the royal household.
The Siamese language had never been
written with a typewriter, but an Amer