The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-08-09
MACh...E SHORTHAND. Description of Ingenious Device Re- gently Exhibited in London.

C~ANA8 AAAAADAhG9 An A<O@AoDAAs
 London Times.
 Tn another field of activity mere man. ual dexterity is threatened with dis possession by mechanical ingenuity. At last a machine has been devised for writing shorthand-a machine so sim pie that any one can master 1t, and so efficient that even the highly-trained stenographer cannot hope to do more than rival it. The "steno-typer." as this wonderful contrivance is called Is in bulk and weight a mere fraction of the standard typewriter. and can read fly be worked on the operators knees It has just six keys, and by permuta tions and combination of these six keys. taken two or three together a complete alphabet Is built up-an all phabet of dot and dash, similar in kind to that of the Morse code. The learn CT has simply to commit this alphabet to memory and the machine will do the rest, With Iess diligence than Is often devoted to theInere aeeuisition of a mere parlor game. any ordinary per son should be able to write "steno- typy" at quite a serviceahle speed.
 This new shorthand is not based on phonetics. Its units are not single sounds. but cyllables many of which can be formed by one touch of the hand on the keyboard. As if playing the piano. the operator simply strikes a chord and imprints a character de- cipherable to the trained eye at a glance. sUnessential vowels and conso- nants can be dropped out, for the grouping of the symbols indicates how they are to be read Thus the second conspicuous advantage of the steno- typer is attained--that@ the note" which 1t writes Is legible. not only to the operator. but to any one else who has mastered the alphabet
 There have been shorthand writers in the old way who could not always read their own notes, and few have been those who could read the notes of oth- ers for the reason that the stenogra- pher invariably "adapts" his system un- til 1t becomes a mass of more or less arbitrary and corrupt outlines mean ingless to any eye but hIs own. Will full idiosyncrasies and accidentally im- perfect outlines can not be introduced Into "stenotypy." The note Is necessa . rily correct in form and, therefore, leg ible to all stenotypists and at any dis- tance of time. The third great advan- tage of the machine Is that 1t can be used with equal facility for any lam guage-provided that the operator knows that language.
 At private demonstration the other day the same stenotypist correctly re- ported unfamiliar or improvised pas sages dictated in English. French. Ger man, Latin and Hebrew. With pain and travail the. ordinary photography can be adapted to other tongues: but this machine Is, so to speak. a natural polyglot Even a debate on Macedonia or the Kin-chau Railway would have for the stenotypist neither terror nor dif1culty. The construction Is of ad- mirable simplicity. The keys print on paper that Is self-feeding from an end less roll. A spring lever and few cogwheels make up the essential work ing parts. There Is none of the me- chanical intricacy of the typewriter and therefore. there Is nothing to go wrong. The machine Is so easily port able and works so silently that there Is no reason why 1t should not be used in ordinary reporting work; but for commercial purposes It's usefulness is still greater: for the notes taken by one operator can be distributed for transcription among any number of clerks. After witnessing a demonstra- ton of the steno-typer's capacity no one who has learned and practiced shorthand in the old way can help wishing that, for the comfort of his days. he had been born a little later into the world. It Is distressing to think of the time now lost forever. which might have been proftably de- voted to the cultivation of Shake speare and the musical glasses'