Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1900-04-03
THE PRETTY TYPEWRITER.
An Apparently Incredible Yet Aeon
rate Matbe I'M n flcaI C.p.uI. +s,-

| An Apparently Incredible Yet Aeon.
rate Mathematical Calculation.
Come with me-" said gentleman whose
bent OF mind is mathematical. to a Star
reporter. land I will show you something
of interest"
The gentleman led the way to a large
window in the front of a business house
not far from Pennsylvania avenue, where
he and the reporter observed a pretty
typewriter within who, unconscious of
their criticising scrutiny, was merrily ham,
n.ering the keys of her machine.
Look al her hands. 1t Is settled for
good that all typewriters Of the opposite
sex are pretty. or ought to be. SO we will
watch her hands, and I will surprise you.
she Is on long journey, but doesn't know
Now. watch closely her gait Observe
that she Is writing a double keyboard
machine; that is. there are two sets of
sisting of upper and lower case Of capt.
tails and small type. This Is important, as
you will learn, since the fingers of her
hands must travel just that much addi-
single keyboard machine. This girl is
unique. Many operators use but one finger,
the index, and some the index and the mid
die finger. Few write properly. using all
or the fingers and, the thumb in spacing
So much the worse for her. She uses the
middle finger only,g Doesn't 1t appear odd?
Bang. bang. bang. all. day with but two
fingers; what's the. ause of having ten?
That Keyboard is ask inches long by
eight inches wides The distance between
the center of thes keys Is one inch. The
distance from thesletters N to is six
inches. allowing each hand one-half of the
keyboard. Watch her fingers jump about.
In The Star the average line consists
OF forty-two letteRsf and spaces, or about an
average of eightsswOrds. typewriter
line on letter sizespaper consists of about
sixty-hve letters1 and spaces. There are
about twenty-five alines to a page. This
fVe pages an hours or forty pages day of
eight hours. By,using this single finger,
her hand travels mp and down, cris-cross
and all about from space board to the
upper row of typey pnGan average. say of
three Inches unnecessarily every time she
strikes key; purely wasted energy, eff
Tort and lost times but she works on a
salary and Is Indifferent.
If her hand travels three inches between
each key struck in this one finger manner,
1t covers 1875 inches unnecessarily each line,
or 1915 inches page. or "a ,375 inches an
hour, or 1876 900 inches a day. Every sig
days she goes on a digital tour of 97. 800
feet. in 80 days. 2925OOO feet, and In a
year Il times that distance, or IS, 100 GOO
feet. or about 6,6l7 miles.
These. 6647 miles represent needless
travelling of the hands by reason of the
use of but one finger of each hand In strik-
Ing the keys, since. If she used all of her
fingers and her thumbs. her hands would
as now. This computation does not take
into consideration the entire distance coy
cred by her in writing. bat only the wasted
energy and unnecessarily covered space,
Her hands travel thousands of additional
miles In the course of the year.
IF she knew how far she travels with
out knowing 1t. she would change her tim
erary, don't you think7"