RECORDING EVIDENCE

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 135, 9 June 1928, Page 11

RECORDING EVIDENCE

MAGISTRATE'S DUAL TiOLF, (By Telegraph.) (Special to "The Evening Post.") AUCKLAND, This Day. Tho method by which the evidence given before the Transport Commission was officially recorded was unique. It was, in point of fact, made possible only by concurrence of an unusual set of circumstances. The chairman, an experienced Magistrate, is also a skilled shorthand writer, and ho was able to confine a full record to essential points to an extent that an official stenographer could not presume to do. A separate transcriber was able to decipher his shorthand notes and interpret them as tho inquiry proceeded. Each day the Commission sat Miss Barton, daughter of Mr. J. S. Barton, chairman of tho Commission, was occupied with a noiseless typewriter, and to her, every few minutes, Mr. Barton would pass a sheqt of his notes, where necessary, and condensed as regards tho less important phases, which she transcribed concurrently with the examination of tho witness. The result was that a few minutes after each witness left tho stand the record of his evidence was completed with carbon copies available for tho three Commissioners and also fo:- counsel engaged in the inquiry. Now the Commissioners are in a position to proceed at once with their deliberations upon their report instead of having to wait weeks for the transcription of a stenographer's notes as is the case where one shorthand writer transcribing his own notes is employed.