BLIND GIRL REPORTER

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6867, 23 March 1929, Page 13 (Supplement)

BLIND GIRL REPORTER

WRITES 160 WORDS MINUTE’ A rare feat was performed recently at the National Conference of Blind Workshop representatives in London, the verbatim report of the proceedings being taken by Miss Mabel Green, a young woman who has been blind from birth.

She uses an instrument known as the Stainsby-Wayne Braille shorthand writer, and can attain a speed of 160 words a minute. | The machine is very small, and has only seven keys, one long—which performs a function similar to the spacebar on a typewriter—and six small. f Miss Green appeared to experience no difficulty in taking her “notes.” For live hours she tapped away without faltering, and the only time the speakers were stopped was when she had to insert a new roll of paper in the machine. “With two years’ practice any average blind person can type 100 words a minute on this machine,” Miss Green told an interviewer. “The keys bear Braille type instead of the ordinary alphabet, and I type my shorthand on a strip of paper which comes from the machine automatically as I work. “I shall take the report of the following proceedings of the conference as well as to-day’s. The whole will probably amount to 100,000 words. If necessary, the transcrip could be ready in two days.” Miss Green was employed as a shorthand typist at the Ministry of — _ Health for 18 months. She gave up her post to another blind girl. A gold medallist for Braille reading, she reads everything available in that type and is well acquainted with works so diverse as those of Browning, Shaw, and Edgar Wallace. Mjss Green is also a capable pianist and. telephonist.