I shall exhort all young men to learn that most useful art, shorthand writing, an art which I believe will one day be studied as universally as common writing, and which will abridge the labour of penmanship to a degree that will materially quicken the intercourse of human thought.

Then follows the preface which, after dwelling on the merits of Harding's improvement of Taylor, contains the following remarks on shorthand generally:

It would be superfluous in the present day to insist at any length on the importance of the art. There are, perhaps, no parts of the daily paper more eagerly sought after than those which record the proceedings of Parliament, the Courts of Law, and public meetings, and the art of shorthand has wonderfully increased the power of those whose avocation it is to take down and record "winged words." Shorthand is, indeed, to ordinary writing what the railway train is to the waggon, or photography to painting. To literary and professional men it affords a rapid, secure, and condensed mode of committing to paper either their own thoughts or the thoughts of others which they may meet with in books. Every man who is in the habit of using the pen must recognise the value of the art, and it is one the principles of which may be mastered in a very short time.

Harding was in Birmingham in the spring of 1843, on the occasion of Messrs Joseph and Benn Pitman's first visit. The former, writing to Bath, on 17th April of the above year, reporting the result of his first lecture, delivered on the 12th, said: "There were six ministers of the Gospel present, six shorthand writers and two stenographic authors: one of them was Mr Harding, author of Taylor Improved.' He resides in Birmingham, and on the morning following the lecture waited on us to procure a copy of the system, and the Phonographic Copy Book. He is now studying it, and expressed an intention of teaching it shortly in America." The latter statement was due to a misconception on Mr Pitman's part; and he explains it thus in a note at the end of his next communication to the "Phonotypic Journal": "In the last number of the Journal it was stated that Mr Harding, the author of Taylor Improved,' expressed an intention of teaching Phonography in America. We find that it was a misunderstanding of his expression that it would be well if either Mr Joseph Pitman or Mr Benn Pitman would go there and spread it, and the other stay in England. We are sorry, but not disappointed to find that, after an examination of Phonography, Mr Harding still prefers the child of his youth, and maintains that the old systems are preferable to the new.'"' The statements with respect to Harding's subsequent career are conflicting, but one thing is pretty clear, neither his authorship nor his teaching brought him a fortune, or even a competency for his old age. It was reported, upon what appeared to be good authority, that he took to public house keeping for a livelihood in Birmingham, but we have been unable to find his name in any Birmingham Directory of the period. As will be noted, he was last heard of in Australia, and that is probably about as much as we shall ever learn respecting his closing years.

Most of the editors of Taylor's system improved, as we have said, upon his methods, especially in the matter of differentiating the vowels. Taylor used a point for all the vowels without reference to position. Hence considerable difficulty and uncertainty in deciphering words, it being impossible in many cases, to say with certainty what word was meant, even with the aid of the context. Harding remedied this defect by using a point in three positions to represent a, e, and i, a short dash, turned either to the right or left, indicating o and u. The principal additions comprise a number of prefixes and terminations, and a few arbitraries and symbols for words of frequent occurrence, chiefly selected from lists drawn up by earlier stenographers. A list of these is given in Pitman's "History of Shorthand." The introduction of non-alphabetic signs was a questionable "improvement." Byrom and other Eighteenth century

He

authors had demonstrated that such unscientific makeshifts could be done without, but Harding's are not numerous, and did not entail a very heavy tax upon the memory. also differentiated the signs for f and v by thickening the latter. His methods found great favour with the newspapers and other periodicals of the day. The Rev. Joseph Nightingale, himself a shorthand author and writer of the article "Shorthand" in Rees's and Nicholson's Encyclopædias, wrote thus, under date 1st May, 1823, to Mr Harding: "With the exception of Mr Molineux's introduction to Byrom, and that gentleman's stenographical copy book, I have never yet met with a more pleasing or useful little book on shorthand than yours; to this I will add that yours is one of the cheapest, as well as the neatest books of the kind extant." The cheapness was only relative (the price being 3s. 6d) but the work was neatly got up, and must have had a considerable sale, shorthand being now learned for, among others, newspaper reporting purposes.

We know even less of George Odell personally than we do of Harding. Mention is made of a system of shorthand published in his name as early as 1812: and there was another, entitled Shorthand attainable in six lessons," dated 1818. What is entitled a fourth edition was issued by Groombridge, in 1833, this being a small 16mo paper covered pamphlet, comprising sixteen pages of letterpress, with four plates. All the subsequent editions, of which over sixty are named, were in the same form, the work being sold at 8d. Uniform in size and price was a "Supplement to Odell's System of Shorthand," which contains a number of progressive exercises. Odell is also credited with a work on cryptography or secret writing, entitled 'Mason's Shorthand Improved," but this we have not seen, and therefore are not in a position to express an opinion on its claims and merits. In 1843 a copy of the New Testament was published "in Taylor's System of Shorthand as improved by George Odell."' The system was in a sense popular. It was cheap, and was extensively advertised in newspapers and monthly periodicals. The writer well remembers coming across one of these advertisements in the Evangelical Magazine when he was a very little fellow about 1844 or 1845. It contained a specimen of the shorthand characters printed from a block. These characters when translated read Perfection in this useful art is to be attained by practice;" and they adorned the covers and title pages of all Odell's publications. The rules are meagre and not over explicit, and, taken as a whole, the system is presented in the very reverse of an intelligible form. Like Harding, Odell furnishes a short list of symbols and arbitraries, and the vowels are distinguished thus: a, e, i.. o o, u, au ‹, oud. Of the two, Harding's methods are in every way preferable to those of Odell, and the former's is the system by which the most useful work has been accomplished. The late Mr Cornelius Walford, in an address delivered to the members of the Shorthand Society in 1881, alluding to his early shorthand difficulties, said, “I shall never forget how nearly I was being driven from the pursuit of stenography in despair. I had learned Odell's shorthand when I was a boy at school. . . . The system-if it may be called so by bare courtesy-was utterly inadequate. many of the phrases of the preacher were capable of easy conversion into arbitraries, and so I got along as a matter of speed. But when I ventured upon a translation the result was too often quite distressing. Next I tried my hand at local agricultural meetings; but here another and quite a different set of arbitraries came into play, as expressive of the mysteries of deep draining and the fattening of prize cattle. Finally, a trial in the law courts proved the shortcomings of all the aids I had previously devised, and I grew entirely out of heart."

But

We have not been able to obtain a single scrap of information respecting Odell's personal history or career. He was probably a Londoner, at any rate by residence, and he may have combined reporting with teaching. When and where he was born, where he lived, and when he died are facts outside our knowledge, but, as his first publication was dated 1812, he must have died a very long time ago.

LEGAL TERMS, PHRASES, AND

ABBREVIATIONS

FOR TYPISTS, AND SHORTHAND AND OTHER
JUNIOR CLERKS.

BY THE AUTHOR OF " 'ELEMENTARY LAW FOR
SHORTHAND CLERKS AND TYPISTS."

II. TERMS USED IN PROBATE AND ALLIED

MATTERS (CONTINUED).

Cessate Grant.-When a sole executor happens to be a minor, or when from some good and sufficient reason, it appears to the court that a grant of probate of his testator's will cannot immediately be made to him, a grant is made to some other person, terminable on the happening of the event that will entitle the executor to apply for a grant to himself. Similarly in cases of intestacy where there are next-of-kin, but none of them are of age, a temporary grant of letters of administration will be made to a guardian, the grant being terminable on any of the next-of-kin attaining his majority. When the evert (whatever it may be) has happened which puts an end to the temporary grant, a permanent grant is applied for by the executor or the next-of-kin as the case may be; and this further grant is called a Cessate Grant because it is granted on the cessation of the former grant. To obtain such a grant a special form of "Oath " has to be sworn to by the applicant, setting forth all the facts, reciting the former grant, showing how it has come to an end, and promising as in an ordinary case to administer the estate faithfully according to law, etc.

-

Commorient. Commorientes. Commorientes means strictly, persons who die together, or at the same instant of time. For Probate purposes the term is used as a designation of persons who die by the same calamity and one of whom, if he survived the other, would be entitled either under a will or under an inte: tacy to the estate of that other. Where, for instance, a father and son are both on board ship together, and the ship founders, and both are drowned, father and son are called commorientes, each one of them being referred to individually by the singular form commorient. The same practice applies where a husband and wife are both killed in a railway accident. But, as a rule, the court declines to adopt the proposition that both persons died at the same precise instant of time. Lord Cranworth said, in what is a ruling case on the point, "that two human beings should cease to breathe at the same moment of time is hardly within the range of imagination. I suppose that time, like space, is infinitely divisible, and if we are to speculate on such a subject, one can hardly suppose that the one did not breathe a millionth part of a second longer than the other. Therefore, to adjudicate on a principle that they did actually cease to breathe at the same moment would, I think, be proceeding on false data." For this reason it is usually inferred that one of two commorientes, co-called, must have survived the other, and the court will consider any evidence that can be adduced to warrant the belief that one specified person lived rather longer than the other. Important questions of right to property often depend upon the decision arrived at in those circumstances. Where it is absolutely impossible to decide that either of them survived the other, it will be assumed that the person who, if he had survived, would have become entitled to the whole or part of the estate of the other, died in the lifetime of that other. Thus, where a husband has made a will leaving his whole estate to his wife, and husband and wife both die in the same calamity, and it cannot be proved which of them died first, the husband's property will go to his nextof-kin and not to his wife's next-of-kin. On the same ground it was held in one case where husband and wife perished together, and the wife left separate property, and there was no evidence as to who survived, that the wife's separate property passed to her next-of-kin and not to the husband's next-ofkin. One exception to this rule is where a father and son perish together. In that case the son is presumed to have survived the father.

(To be continued. Commenced in No. 1.)

CIVIL SERVICE NOTES.

BY A CIVIL Servant.

The most important announcement this week is the competition for not fewer than twenty-four appointments as Assistant Examiners, H.M. Patent Office. These additional vacancies are, of course, the direct result of the increase of work brought about by the new Patent Act, and the posts are among the most responsible and best paid in the home Civil Service. The commencing salary obtainable at 20 years of age is £150, and there is a practical certainty of rising to £450 and a prospect of promotion up to £700, with a pension not exceeding two-thirds of final salary after forty years' service.

The subjects are English composition and précis-writing (200), geometry, plane and solid (300), mechanics and mechanism (600), chemistry (400, electricity and magnetism (400), general physics (600), and French or German (100), and besides the paper examination there is a practical test in chemistry, electricity, and physics. Out of a maximum of 2,600 the first candidate in Feb., 1903, obtained 1,791 (under 69 per cent.), and the twelfth (last successful) 1,520 marks. In the mechanism, geometry, and mechanics papers, mathematical drawing instruments were required, and out of 56 candidates 34 failed to qualify, i.e., to obtain half marks.

Practical training in all the subjects, except perhaps English and the modern language-translation from only is required is essential, and a student would merely throw the £5 fee away who essayed the examination without having had efficient coaching for this particular examination. The essay subjects set in February last were "Discuss the Good and Evil Effects of Trusts on Commercial Enterprise and Inventiveness," or "The best literary style is generally found to be the least adorned," or Is the way of learning made too easy in these days?"

The age

Another higher Civil Service competition is announced, namely, junior appointments Admiralty, and junior appointments Royal Ordnance Factories, War Office. limits are 18-20, the fee £6, and the subjects (1) Elementary mathematics; (2) Latin; (3) French or German; (4) English composition, including précis-writing; (5) geography and any two not already taken above of the following: (6) mathematics (advanced); (7) German or French; (8) Greek; (9) English history; (10) Chemistry and heat; (11) physics; (12) physiography and geology. No candidate will be eligible who fails to qualify in arithmetic and English composition.

Some of our readers may not be aware that the London and South Western Railway Company appoint their junior clerks after examination, particulars of which can be obtained from the Secretary and General Manager, Waterloo Station, London, S. W. The age limits are 14-19. The subjects are arithmetic, up to and including proportion of decimals, English geography, English grammar and composition. Junior clerks in the Traffic Department serve two months' probation, and have to qualify in telegraphy; those in the Chief Office undergo a probation of one month. Pay during probation is 10s. per week, and, if appointed, first year £30, second £35, third £40, fourth £50, then on promotion to clerk, 60, and at end of the year £70, if appointed in London. But this is hardly Civil Service, although the competition is now so keen that Civil Service tuition or home study has become necessary to ensure success.

PARLIAMENTARY INDEXES.-The indexing of the Parliamentary publications is said to be above reproach. Nearly £1,000 a year is spent on various Parliamentary indexes. Two clerks divide between them 300 for indexing the journals, and three clerks share the £400 paid for the general index. Another £150 goes towards indexing the reports of select committees,

BOOK-KEEPING EXAMINATION PAPERS.

No. 60. ADVANCED.

On 31st March, 1903, the United Kingdom Pottery Sale Company were about to prepare the revenue account and balance sheet for the twelve months then ended, and to enable the accountants to prepare these statements the balances were extracted from the books of the Company as follows:

Nominal capital, £100,000

Wages (unremunerative)

"tally." Tothmes III., King of Egypt, sent his officers, 3,000 years ago, to take the tally or tale, and the hieroglyphics on the modern tally would be as puzzling to the uninitiated as an ancient Egyptian tally would be to the clay expert of to-day. But in spite of the abbreviations and strange characters used on the tally, the work in the clay trade would never be got through in the present day without the employment of Phonography. However well qualified in other respects, it is absolutely necessary for the clay clerk to have a "knowledge of shorthand (Pitman's)."

£

Capital called up

£ 50,000

Unpaid calls

1,146

Interim dividend paid 31st Oct.

1,500

Stock 1st April, 1902

8,600

Purchases to 31st March, 1903

65.750

Sales

80,010

Wages (remunerative)

8,290

Salaries

1,100

1,450

Salaries

of the 77 shades and qualities of clay known to potters it contained, and the depths at which they are found. Cutty used for manufacturing tobacco pipes 72. 'Pipe" clay, never used for pipes, sanitary or smoking, but for everything else under the sun, from weighting sugar papers to improving calicoes, contained "flour" and "shot mundic, with " pin iron." The "Drain," not an ounce of which is used for drain pipes, but jam jars, is "Corney.' Between the Alumine" at 90', and the Best White," which is black as coal but burns snowy white, and is exported to Baltimore and East Liverpool, U.S.A., there is " coal," i.e. lignite, and water. The figure denotes that here the strata varied.

The most remarkable example of the clay "body" being upside down" was brought to light nearly seventy years ago, when on a wretchedly poor piece of land, "best white' was discovered at the surface, instead of 100' down as customary. On boring it was found that at 20', a common "Top" or surface clay was reached, meaning that the find consisted of 10,000 ton at 20s per ton, instead of 500,000 tons at the same price. Local tradition has it, that the merchant was so enraged at his bad luck as he termed it, that he cut his throat, so accounting in an easy and interesting way for the "Pinks and

Mottled" clay and 72C

"

Bloody earth found in

several fields in the neigh

£ s. d. 45946 O

Freehold and leasehold premises Horses, vans and stable utensils

25500

5945

Fixtures, fittings and plant

2180

Bills receivable

17450

Book debts

8176

GOA

bourhood. The dash of 90.A. green paint on the tally00Bw

denotes the "top" has the

'yellows." The teeth

marks that the clay has

been "tasted." The art of tasting consists in not tasting at all, but simply trying between the teeth to see if gritty. After tasting, the tally is "fired," and the clay merchant has a record written on a table of stone. On the edge of the tally, which is an inch thick, is written in an almost obsolete system of shorthand (Odell's): "This clay will bear mixing,' but whether in the interest of the customer or not, it does not state.

It may be noted that the famous "' blue ball '' clay is the least blue of all the clays. "Round" clay is almost square.

SIND FÜR UNSERE EISENINDUSTRIE BESSERE TAGE IN SICHT ? Morgan's Gnaden und Budde's Hoffnungen sind die Grundpfeiler der zuversichtlicheren2 Stimmung unserer Eisen-Industrie. Es drängt sich uns daher1 zunächst die Frage auf, ob dieselben solid genug sind, um auf denselben ein HausseGebaüde aufbauen zu können.

Morgan und sein Anhang verkörpern neben der Vorseh ung, welche durch eine Reihe hintereinander folgender guter und befriedegender Ernten der Bewegung in den Vereinigten Staaten ein kräftiges Rückgrat10 schuf11, den phänomenalen industriellen Aufschwung in der Union.

Die sanguinischtesten Hoffnungen des ob seines Wagemutes13 zu Uebertreibungen neigenden Yankees sind durch die Thatsachen übertroffen 15 worden.

Wäre dies aber trotz günstiger Ernten und des in die Taschen der Farmer16 hineingewachsenen' Wohlstands möglich gewesen, wenn nicht Leute wie Morgan, Vanderbilt, Harriman und Genossen sich vereinigt hätten, um den in den Annalen der Weltgeschichte ohne Präcedenz dastehenden 18 Aufschwung von Handel und Industrie herbeizuführen? Welch'19 enormes, geradezu 20 phantastisch klingendes21 Beschäftigungsquantum ist den Hüttenwerken, MaschinenLokomotiv-Fabriken, Kohlengruben durch die Verbesserung der Eisenbahnlinien, durch die Anschaffung von Lokomotiven und Waggons bis zu einer vorher nie gekannten Leistungsfähigkeit, durch Erschliessung25 neuer Eisenerz- und Kohlengruben, durch Riesenanlagen von Hochöfen 27, Eisen- und Stahlwerken, durch die enormen Schiff bauten zugeführt 28 worden!-Berliner Finanz-und Handels-Zeitung.

26

I foundation pillars; 2 more confident; 3 presses; 4 therefore; 5 upward movement, building, engineering a rise; 6 adherents, party; 7 Providence; 8 series, succession; 9 harvests; 10 backbone; 11 created, furnished; 12 upward swing, favourable turn; 13 rashness, extreme courage; 14 inclining; 15 surpassed; 16 farmers; 17 grown into, increasing in; 18 prominent, unique; 19 what a, what an; 20 really; 21 resonant, sonorous, souncing; 22 smelting works; 23 provision, supply; 24 capability of production; 25 opening up; 26 establishing on a gigantic scale; 27 blast furnaces; 28 conveyed, supplied, brought.

ENGLISH VERSION OF LAST WEEK'S EXERCISE.

SPANISH.
81.

OUR AGRICULTURE.

Another problem which appears to be important-and really would be so in any other country on the globe, but in this country remains reduced to the minimum expression of most cautious wording-is the one which has reference to the deplorable present state and most difficult future of our agriculture.

There are some public men who have taken the matter very closely to heart, and for so doing we must eulogize their conduct in this respect as it deserves; but as for all their explanatory works, and all their beneficent private instances of scientific management taken as a whole, we must confess that they are of very little real utility. When the time actually comes and, in official bureaux, attention has to be given to anything which may be of interest to agriculture closely or remotely, the brilliant defensive speeches cease to appear, the instances of energetic initiative are totally lack

Consequently, as a matter of inexorable necessity, the solution of the problem of the country districts, does not result in much; the question is a good one for discussion in holiday times when attention is not arrested by those consciencepricking anxieties which grand political debates inspire.

If, changing the point of view so as to give consideration to the painful situation of agricultural production, politicians treat of the pitiable condition in which the agricultural labourers are, of the revolutionary spirit which appears to be developing itself among them, of the so-called agrarian socialism; in a word, if the notorious speakers and the celebrated ones give this question their attention, they will offer you formulas and formulas over and over again, but nothing more. It is necessary to study the question-good; it is necessary to free ourselves from their excesses-good again. -Diario del Comercio.

FRENCH. 82.

THE ALCOHOL QUESTION.

Two principles have their advocates, greatly to our surprise, even in the farming classes; the partisans of the differential tax, recruited principally from the vine growing districts, and the partisans of the alcohol monopoly in the beet-root growing districts. We think both parties are in the wrong, and that in order not only to settle our public finance but also to render service to the agricultural interest in northern or southern districts, there is no need to have recourse to these proceedings, which are anti-liberal and always very dangerous to the consumer, that is, to you, to me, and in short, to all the members of the great French family.

To condemn the Government monopoly, we have only to remember what has been said many a time in this same journal, by our director and by our collaborators, as well as by the writer of this article. It is sufficient to contemplate what the State does for us in the matter of matches as in tobacco. I do not venture to say that we get very little for our money, because these are commodities that bear a tax; but I can affirm, without fear of being contradicted, that after making allowance for the existence of the tax, we are defrauded not only in quantity but also in quality. And this result is inevitable.

A monopoly, in fact, can only conduct its business more expensively or more inefficiently than Mr Everybody, because it cannot buy economically by reason of budgetary formalities; openings of credit, proclamation, of submissions or adjudications, etc. Again, because it can get no profit out of its residuals, which it cannot sell without having recourse to the administration of the Domains which never hesitates a moment, by application of unnecessary regulations, to have 500 francs worth of advertising in order to inform the public that it has forty sous worth of old scrap iron for sale. The selling off of the old laboratory of the Régie in rue Cambon, two years ago, would have been one of the most amusing examples of what we assert, if that sale had not been a veritable pillage at the expense of our finances.-L'Echo du Commerce.

POSTAL DISTRICTS AND THE NAME OF THE CAPITAL.The Postmaster-General, in answering a Parliamentary question, leaves it to the wisdom of the sender of telegrams whether to add London " to an address as well as the postal district, such as "E.C.," "S. W.," or "E." In sending from one part of London to another, it is, of course, the usual thing to omit, both in the case of letters and telegrams, the name of the capital. But the Postmaster-General points out that Liverpool as well as London is divided into postal districts, and the desire for economy where the reference is not clear may cause serious delay.

There was once an American miner known as "Old Pancake," because he lived chiefly on this kind of food, who with two other miners on a certain occasion needed water. They sank a well four feet deep, and instead of finding what they were in search of, came upon the richest silver lode in the world, which yielded silver to the value of 2% million sterling in a year. There are famous silver mines in Mexico and Peru, which have yielded vast stores of this valuable metal for many years. In the Old World there are silver mines in many countries of Europe, but in Asia none which yield any great quantity of the metal. In our own land veins of silver have been found from time to time, and silver has made its appearance in copper mines, but on the whole the yield has not been great.

A lady who made a tour in Hungary visited a famous silver mine there, and wrote a vivid account of what she saw. The party with which she went were furnished with a special dress and lamps ere they made their way into the mine. Passing through a door, they had hardly gone a hundred steps when they were in utter darkness. They went along a passage hewn in the

4`6

,

ن

rock, at times so low that they were obliged to bend their heads so that they might pass, while beneath the plank on which they walked rushed a stream. Water fell from the roof and sides of the gallery also, and the result was that they all were soon wet through.

So far it had been easy work in spite of the damp. The party had but to move on in Indian file. But soon the ladders were reached by which the miners descended to their work. Then began the serious labour. Each ladder was based on a small stand, and a square hole sawn away in the planks made an outlet by which to descend to the next ladder. As there was much water and mud, it was not easy to get along with safety. At last the party arrived, heated and panting, at the first stoppage. The chief miner led the way through a gallery from which the ore had long since been taken. The lamps did not suffice to light the chasm for fifty feet, but what could be seen of the walls, partly blasted and partly hewn away, seemed to the excited fancy of the lady to take strange and living shapes.

To the right of this gallery was a large cavern in which were big masses of rock, though the whole extent could not be seen.

(To be continued.)