TOPICS OF THE DAY

Press, Volume L, Issue 14983, 2 June 1914, Page 6

TOPICS OF THE DAY

Mr Conrad's Material. It is a sign of the growing recognition of Mr Joseph Conrad's genius that tho interviewers aro busy with him. No one seeks publicity less, but the interviewer who goes to his Kentish homo in the right spirit will get raro material. Mr H. I. Brock, writing in tho x\ew \*ork "Evening Post," emphasise- tho fact thai the wonderfn! atinosphoro and sense of fate in Mr Conrad's stories are part of his own experience. "You soon find yourself realising in that kindly and simplo host, not merely tbo wizard who wrote the story of 'Lord Jim' and 'Tho Nigger of the Narcissus' and 'xN'ostromo,' who wrought tho marvel of youth and the black spell of 'Tho Heart of Darkness' and the haunting and terrible v,sion of 'Tho End of the Tether,' but one who, in his own person, has boon a part of such marvels." The author has fought tho twih battle with fire and sea which ho describes so vividiv. He has known tho tragedy of river and jungle in the Congo. "I nearly died there," he says. "I hated tho people who made the placo the hell it was. 1 havo tried to tell of tho horror and rottenness of it as the men who suffered there felt it." Another of his stories tells of a grizzled skipper who felt blin-ness coming on him, yet clung to his ship for a daughter who needed his wages. Mr Conrad knew such a man in Malay waters. While his ship lay in a Malay port, the mate of a vessel we will call tho Red Rose camo aboard looking as if he had seen a ghost. His Story was that as his ship steamed up the straits the night beforo, he had gone on the bridge, and found the skipper right off his course, with a headland light on th© port quarter when it should havo been well to starboard. Tho skipper couJd not see the light at all. "Ho is going blind," said the mate, "and he.does not know it, or else he is going mad as well as blind. A blind skipper steering in those seas—and men's lives and cargo at a madman's mercy! What am I to do?" The skipper lost his command, and Mr Conrad saw him in Sydney, sitting in his daughter's house' tiying to read, with the book an inch from his nose. "He wept while 1 talked to him —laid up thero useless and broken." But Mr Conrad does not always writo about types that he has met. That astonishing story of sordid anarchism, "The Secret Agent," makes one feel tolerably certain that he has mixed with that drab and hopeless world, yet he says ho never met "a confounded anarchist" in his life. But he knows men ,and his imagination does the rest.

Typists la Training. An indication of the extent to which tho typewriter is coming to be an essential part of our modern lifo, and of the enormous growth of interest in the typewriting industry all the world over, is afforded by the international contests inaugurated in 1906, and held annually at New York. The competitors, who hail from Germany, Italy, France, Great Britain, Canada, and the United States, aro subjected to a test of one hour's duration. The results show a wonderful development in epeed; in 1906, 82 words a minute for a n hour was considered something out of the ordinary. Ninety-five words was tho record soon established by Miss Rosa L. Fritz, who held tho championship from that year till 1909; in 1910 and 1911 Mr H. Otis Blaisdell accomplished 112 words, which Miss Florence F_ Wilson capped with 117 in 1912, while Miss Margaret B. Owen last year achieved the remarkable speed of 125 words a minute. The toilsome and nerve-wrack-ing work of training for theso international tests is described by a writer in the "New York Evoning Post." Young men and women who havo shown exceptional typing ability, endurance, and will-power, and who have been "discovered" in various parts of tho United States, are brought to the Now York headquarters, where they receive the first expert training. It is required in this class that they have not had instruction in typewriting for moro than six months. The system of training to which the novices aro subjected not only affects their actual work at the typewriter. Their diet, work, recreation, hours of sleep, and general physical condition aro equally objects of care. Tho effects of a "night out" are easily

detected by the director, for the lea.* variation in physical and mental condition affect tho stability of the touch : n this delicate work. The novices proceed from the fifteen-ruinute cla.-vs £o tho half-hour class, where they are required to type at a stoady rate of from 110 to 120 words a minute. Each error in spacing or spelling means five marks docked off in the final rating. This -ft tho American system of training, and in the matter of speed no foreigner has yet touched the American typist. The effect of international competition, the "Post" adds, has incrc-ssed the speed of the average operator 50 per cent., and has organised and standardised tho most efficient system of operation. Thc next international championship contest is to be held in. New York in tho coming October.