Democratic Sentinel, Volume 14, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 May 1890 — The Labors of a Rapid Penman. [ARTICLE]

The Labors of a Rapid Penman.

A rapid penman can write 30 words in a minute. To do this he must draw his fen through the space of a rod—l6J feet, n 10 minutes his pen travels a furlong, and in five and a third hoars a mile. IVe make, on an average, 16 carves, or tarns of the pen, for each word written. Writing 30 words to a minute, we mud make 8 curves each second; in an hoar, 26,80(1; in 5 hours, 134,000; and in 300 days, working only 5 hoars each day, we make not less than 40,200,000 enrves and turns of the pen. The man who makes but 1.000,000 strokes of the pen per mouth has done nothing remarkable; there are thoso who make four times that number. Here we have in the aggregate a Bark 800'miles long, to be traced on paper,by each writer in a year. In making each letter of the ordinary alphabet, we make from three to seven strokes of the pen—on an average, three and a half or four. Codfish follow the ice of an iceberg down until they reach the water under it, which place affords them an excellent feeding ground.