LIGHTNING TYPIST

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21537, 8 January 1932, Page 9

LIGHTNING TYPIST

A slim dark girl recently broke the British high-speed record at the typewriter, and immediately afterwards,, to show it was no fluke, she casually broke another, and then a third. She typed faster- than anyone has ever typed before. There was no audience, no publicity of any sort. All that happened was that a quiet little girl from Manchester, Miss Eleanor Mitchell, slipped a sheet of paper into her typewriter and then began to type at an incredible speed. She achieved 900 taps a minute, 950 taps a minute, and then, finally, 1000 taps a minute.

This represents more than 200 words a minute —faster than most people can talk.

For four years in succession tins 23-year-old girl* has been champion typist of Europe. She is probably easily the fastest typist in the world. She is the counterpart among the everyday girl workers of the Campbells, the Kayo Dons, and the Orlebars. And the Campbell-Kaye Don-Orlebar spirit has brought her success. “ The first time I sat before a typewriter while I was still at school at Southport,” she told me (writes a. Sunday Chronicle representative), “the ininstructor said ‘You look like a future champion! ’ “I thought ‘All right, I’ll become a champion,’ and I set to work to make my typing as perfect as I could. Gradually iny speed increased. Bit by bit my touch became more perfect. It meant hours and hours of hard work every day, but I kept at it and finally the day came when I went to Paris and beat a German girl for the European championship.” Since then the little Manchester girl has won the,championship in three successive years. Now she is prepared to accept a challenge from anyone in the world to a typewriting efficiency duel.

To test her spelling I rattled off at her the old sentence that, written straight down without pauses for cogitation, will floor nearly everyone! “In the precincts of a cemetery a harassed pedlar and an embarrassed cobbler were gauging with unparalleled ecstacy the symmetry of a lady’s ankle.” Miss Mitchell tore the sheet of paper from the machine. The average person makes three mistakes at least in this sentence. But the super-efficient typist had not made a single one.