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Lyttelton Times, Volume XXII, Issue 1264, 16 July 1864, Page 3

I The Work of the Stenographer.—The shorthand writer brings to his task a greater amount of mental concentration than the speaker, and yet he has some to spare. The speaker's mind wanders in spite of his will; his energy overleaps itself and falls on the other side ; he misplaces the members of his antithetic clauses; transposes his figures ; says sulphate for sulphuret, and so on. It is very common indeed for a man to get entangled in making his way through a sentence with a good many nots in it. When a speaker begins—" Not, indeed, that I intend to say that it is not the case "—or in any similar way, the wise stenographer keeps his wits on the alert, for the chances are that the orator will contradict himself before he has arrived at his period. There is scarcely a day, if a day, of a shorthand writer's career, in which he has not to deal with some difficulty of this order, created by the speaker or the witness himself. It is the practice of careful reporters to make appropriate remarks on the spot, when it seems to theui that a speaker or witness is off the track. Thus, a line drawn down the page on the right hand side means—" lam sure the man said this, which, however, seems to me absurd, or ill-suited to hispurposewhilst a line on the left side means—" The meaning of this man is clear; but the expression is so involved that I shall have to takegreatcare in writing out my notes." The necessity for thesemarksis sure toarisein thecourseof onehour's reporting. In fact, short-hand writers are, as a rule, much more accurate than speakers, and their notes are among the least doubtful results of mixed intelligence applied to common things. An odd instance of the acceptance by a speaker of the reporter's words once occurred to me. A deaf orator, with a very painful voice, was, as I fancied, reading from a paper a series of figures in illustration of the incidence of a particular government charge. I laid down my pen, and got hold of the paper afterwards. To my dismay, I found the man had been speaking not reading ! Of course, then, I had not got down twenty words of what he had said ! The occasion was important : and, for a few minutes, my despair was overwhelming. But, plucking up courage, I began to look at the paper, which consisted entirely of figures, tabulated tor a series of years. By degrees, I thought its significance began to dawn upon me. At some money loss to myself, I spent several hours that night and early in the next day, studying this table with all the inductive power I was able to bear upon a subject of which I was ignorant, even to agony. At last, I satisfied myself, as certainly 11s if I had solved a common hieroglyph, and that the tables would bear only one meaning, if there was any truth in figures. Having built up the argument in my own mind, I developed it into a speech for my deaf friend of the day before. The fun is, that he " took it," as nurses say, " as good as gold and the speech lie did not make was printed without a correction. —Good Words,

Tin; Nineteenth Century.—The difference between our fathers' manners and ours was visible in every detail ; but the essential difference seems to have lain in tho art of conversation, as practised in their time and our own If the reader has known the happiness of associating intimately with any man or woman who brought the system into our age, he can surely never cease to regret that that exquisite tact and suavity is vanishing from society. How really delicious a thing it was ! How—when its atmosphere had once wrapped us round—we felt ourselves expand in it, as sea-anemones do in warm and sheltered caves, where there is no chance of a breaker ever disturbing the surface ! Nobody is going to say anything disagreeable to anybody ! Everybody's small feelings and prejudices will be remembered. Kind things will be seen to be dropped gently, calling for no reply. The speaker will consider whether what he has got to say will interest his audience, and will never pour out his egotism irrespective of their feelings." It is a vision of Paradise, like Mahomet's promise to the blessed — « Ye shall sit on seats opposite each other. All crudees shall be taken away out of your hearts. And then this delightful conversation (we talk now, we never converse) with its careful give and take, its courteous drawing forth of the most modest m the

party, its sparkling anecdotes and friendly discussion, all came to us through such organs of speech— so soft, so full and modulated. Where are those voices gone—those; female voices of the last generation ? We hear sweet singers now,but hardly ever sweet talkers, .sweet laughers. We talk too loud, or else fall into the atrocity of whispering to our next neighbour, so that no person hears us. In the of good manners, everybody talked for the whole circle, but never raised a voice beyond the pitch of sweetness and good breeding. Our words and sentences come out gurgling and spluttering like bitter ale when the cork is drawn; theirs flowed smoothly like rich wine out of their own fine old silver claret jugs. Is it not a pity that this art—which is everybody's art, which fills up all the interstices of life, and is of tenfold more importance to human happiness than all the painting, music, and sculpture in the world— should be allowed to sink into oblivion like those of making Venetian glass or the Tyrian dye ? Shall we teach children to chatter four languages and never teach them not to interrupt people who are speaking one of them ? Shall we instruct young ladies to warble like nightingales, and then have them to .scream like cockatoos in small assemblies, and sit dumb as owls in large ones ? There are well-bred people now—people whom nature has drowned with such natural tact and dignity, that nothing can have surpassed it. But for the great mass of society, the want of an education of manners—the dying out of the old traditional practicc, is surely a deplorable thing. We have got back hoops, and seem on the way to get back powder. May the kind fates give us one thing more—the manners of the people who wore hoops and powder of old, and the memory of whose suave courtesy comes to us like the odour of their own merechale, or of a drawing-room full of Eastern sandal-wood boxes and pot-pouri. —Frazer's Magazine. Loud Brougham and tiik Reporter.—There is a reporter's story about Lord Brougham and Mr. Tyas, which is, I daresay true, but which might very well be untrue. Mr. Tyas, just before he took his turn in the reporters' gallery, Lord Brougham being on his legs, had been reading Cicero. While Brougham was speaking, the reporter thought of a sentence or two from the Eoman orator which would suit the purpose of the British orator, and hoped the latter would introduce them into his speech. But Brougham sat down, without making the quotation which Mr. Tyas considered he ought to have made. This was too bad! The learned reporter put in the bit of Cicero on his own responsibility; and with the Latin quotation which Brougham had not made, the speech of Brougha'm appeared in the Times of next day. The sequel of the story is, that Lord Brougham in reprinting his speeches, adopted the whole of Mr. Tyas's interpolation without saying anything about it. At this the outsider is much surprised ; and, for what I know, the story itself and the inference founded upon it, may be quite true. But it is not necessarily the case that Lord Brougham knew the classical matter had been inteipolated ; it is quite possible he may have fancied he said it himself. Many a reporter has relieved the exceeding dryness of his labours by playing off innocent tricks of the same kind ; and has never been found out. You make an eager, impetuous speaker say almost anything which does not contradict his meaning, and he will accept at. After a night's sleep, his recollection is hazy, and (unless he be a man of parts) he will not know the strange eggs in his nest from his own. Sometimes, when a reporter has plenty of time and is in good spirits, he will u cook" mediocre eloquence into something as good as he can possibly make it, dexterously preserving (of course) anything really individual in the speaker's phraseology. Do you suppose the speaker disclaims what is put down for him ? Not he, indeed. Very likely lis refers to his speech another time, and reads out from the untrue report with entire self-complacency, sentences that he could never have constructed to save his existence.—Good Words for April. Wonders of the English Language.—The construction of the English language must appear most formidable to a foreigner. One of them looking at a picture of a number of vessels, said .- " See, what a flock of ships!" He was told that a flock of ships was called a fleet, but that a fleet of sheep was called a flock. And, it was added, for his guidance in mastering the intricacies of our language, that " a flock of girls is called a bevy, that a bevy of wolves is called a pack, and a pack of thieves is called a gang, and a gang of angels is called a host, and a host of porpoises is called a shoal, and a shoal of buffalo is called a herd, and a herd of children is called a troop, and a troop of partridges is called a covoy, and a covey of beauties is called a galaxy, and a galaxy of ruffians is called a horde, and a horde of rubbish is called a heap, and aheap of oxen is called a drove, and a drove of blackguards is called a mob, and a mob of whales is called a school, and a school of worshippers is called a congregation, and a congregation of engineers is called a corps, and a corps of robbers is called a band, and a hand of locusts is called a swarm, and a swarm of people is called a crowd, and a crowd of gentlefolks is called elite, and the elite of the city's thieves and rascals are called the roughs, and the miscellaneous crowd of the city folks is called the community or the public, according as they are spoken of by the religious community or secular public." An American River Steamer.—l really think a first-class steamer on Long Island Sound, the river Hudson, the great Lakes, the Ohio, or Mississippi, one of the finest of human inventions. A first-class Hudson river boat is 400 feet long. Its paddlewheels are sixty feet in diameter. It draws only four feet of water, and glides along the waters of one of the finest rivers in the world, and through scenery of ever-varying beauty and grandeur, at the rate of 24 miles an hour. There are a thousand passengers lounging in the great saloons, or reading under the awning on deck, but no crowd. When the dinner bell rings, they all find seats at the long ranges of tables in the great cabin. They are served with every luxury of the season, from the soup and fish to the fruit and ice-cream. And the trip of 160 miles, including that sumptuous dinner, has cost seven shillings—.Forty Years in America, by Dr. Nichols. . The power of the penny is well illustrated in the accounts of the Birkenhead ferries. In the year ending March 31, their returns were nearly £36,000, and their profits above £13,000. A Threat.—"See here, mister," said an Irish lad of seven summers, who had taken refuge in a tree from a dog, " if you don t take that dog away, I'll eat up all vour apples." Artemas Ward says " I have already given two cousins to the war, and I stand reddy to sacrifiss my wife's brother rathur'n not see the rebelym krusht. And if wuss cums to wuss I'll shed every drop of blud my abl bodied relations has got to prosecoot the war." An Irishman's Description of America.—An Irishman, in describing America, said " I am told that, you might roll England through it, an' it wouldn't make a dint in the ground; there's freshwater oceans inside that she might droun Ould Ireland in; and as for Scotlaud, ye might stick it in a corner, and ye'd niver be able to find it out except it might be by the smell o' whisky." Slang Political Names.—The following is from

the New York World, and is a real specimen of American ingenuity in the manufacture of slang:— There are rumours in town that the Tammanybraves, having indorsed the ultra-war and antislavery dogmas of the Republican party, are discussing the propriety of going the whole figure on the new amalgamation plank of that orgauization. The Satfhems and the Congoes would not make a bad cross, while the Coal-hole could easily be converted into a " Cudjo's Cave." It is also rumoured

that Clancy the. Clever has struck up a flirtation with H. G's new flame, Miss C. G. Nation.

The Ekiicacy of Saxon Oaths—Near the top of a gentle acclivity, a boy with a team, whom I had passed a little while before, came up. He was whipping his horses, who were straining up the ascent, and was swearing at them most frighfully hi English. I addressed him in that language, inquiring the name of the crag, but he answered, Den Saesneg, and then fell to cursing his horses in English. I allowed him and his team to get to the top of the ascent, and then overtaking him, I said in Welsh, " What do yon mean by saying you have no English, you were talking English just now to your horses. " Yes," said the lad, 44 1 have English enough for my horses, and that is all." 4> You seem to have plenty of Welsh," said I; 44 why don't you speak Welsh to your horses?" "It's of no use speaking Welsh to them," said the boy; ' Welsh isn't strong enough. 41 Isn't Myn Diawl tolerably strong?" said I. 1 fcot strong enough for horses," said the boy; "if I were to say Myn Diawl to my horses, or even Cas Andraa, they would laugh at me." "Do other carters, said I 44 use the same English to their horses winch j oil do to yours?" 44 Yes," said the boy; "they all use the same English words; if they didn't, the horses wouldn't mind them."—Borrow's Wild Wales. A Thirteen Dinner.—Some people, it is said, have an objection to thirteen at dinner. Dr. Kitchener happened to be one of a company or that number at Dr. Henderson's and on ifc; being: remarked, and pronounced unluckly, lie said, I admit it is unlucky in one case" "What doctor ? " " When there is only dinner for twelve. A Cooi. Intimation.—A contemporary says:— 44 We have received a notice of iim r riage fo r i nse - tion, to which was appended the original announcement:— 4 Sweethearts at a distance will please accept this intimation.' "