Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 February 1884 — SHORT-HAND WRITING. [ARTICLE]

SHORT-HAND WRITING.

Fe>ta PtrtmnM by Stenographers to Reports of Great Meetings. “Some years ago, when I was on one of the Cincinnati papers,* said Mr. John Ritchie, the stenographer, “I performed what I still regard as my most notable stenographic feat.* “What was that?” • “I was assigned one night to make a verbatim report of a lecture by the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher. The train in which the distinguished pulpit orator was to arrive chanced to be late that night. The lecture, which was to have 3*begun at 8 o’clock, did not start until about 10:45. I saw at once that I would have to move hastily to get the report ready before the paper went to press, as it would be late before the speaker had finished. How did I manage it? Well, I prepared a great number of small, narrow strips of paper and a lot of larger sheets, about the size of ordinary copy paper. It was 12:45 when Beecher spoke his last sentence. Then I got six men around me to transcribe while I dictated from my short-hand notes. I gave ten or fifteen words to each man at a time, which they wrote out on narrow strips, and another man with a paste-pot and brush arranged the copy in order on the larger sheets. At 1:45 o’clock the lecture was in the hands of the compositors, and it appeared complete in . the paper that morning. Yes, that was about the biggest thing I have done. “Do you remember the investigation of Judge Blodgett by a Congressional committee ? One day during the proceedings my stenographic notes made 256 pages of solid type-writing, or about nine columns of reading matter in one of the blanket sheets. A page of type-writing will average 300 words, solid, or about 250 words of testimony where the paragraphs are numerous. On that day I was through by 9p. m. I had one assistant part of the time, and never more than two. But I have often taken notes alone and single-handed sufficient to make 200 pages of typewriting, and would always be through early in the evening. Since the typewriter has been introduced we can make five copies about as easy as one by usihg carbon paper. Day after day I have produced 400 pages of long-hand copy, transcribed from my notes. One; page of Pong-hand will equal about a half-page of type-writing. We have type-writing operators who will turn out ten pages an hour. ■“Since 1868 I have always managed a corps<of reporters in the* Presidential convention. I regard one *of these national conventions as the most difficult kind of reporting that is doije—worse even than Congressional reporting. It is a iievfer-ending talk from the moment the convention opens until it adjbhrris, and at'fimes tn 6 excitement and confusion ig stupendous. In the Tilden convention atJSt, jiouis five of us kept along with the proceedings each day, and made five copies with the stylus We also did the Garfield and Hancock conventions. We recorded word, and they, were all written up and transcribed within five or ten mifitites after the adjournment each day. The stenographer of a great poli- • tical convention needs a large and varied fund-of knowledge pertaining to public affairs,— Chicago News.