THE WRITING MACHINE.

Patea Mail, Volume I, Issue 102, 1 April 1876, Page 3

THE WRITING MACHINE.

[l'Al.l. MAI.I. (ie/.KTT!•:.]

The American papers describe and announce for sale an ingenious Iml apparently somewhat complicated substitute for that much-ahnsed instrument, the pen. It does all in the way of writing that the pen can do, and dotes it more quickly and more legibly, ft is as superior, indeed for executive purposes to the pen as is a field-gun of the latest pattern to the “ harml -ss, necessary sword” with which the pen is so often contrasted. It costs, according to the advertisement, no'more than a sewing machine—wnich, however, since sewing machines are of varmns prices, gives hut a vague idea as to its s lliug value. Its action is compared to that of the piano, and a writer who has once learned the use of the new apparatus may, with moderate dexterity, throw off from it his thirty or forty words a minute, while a literary Liszt or Leopold dc M yer can turnout as many as sixty. At this latter rate a brilliant performer on tin* writing machine would produce sufficient matter to occupy a column of a newspaper in 20 minutes, and might with patience and perseverance, furnish enough (as regards the mere cpiestion of space) to fill the entire number in a very few hours. Writing is thus made at least as rapid a process as speaking ; and writers who have something to say, and are prepared to say it without hesitation, will be able by employing machinery to lighten their labors very materially. Printers, too, will profit by the now invention if it should over be generally adopted. The writing machine gives forth not the familiar scrawl which the French call “ pattes do mouch,” but printed characters as unmistakable, right or wrong, as notes from a keyed instrument. The rapid performer whose phrasing is imperfect or who makes faults of a more rudimentary kind has his errors recorded against him—a fate which the over-impulsive bat not sufficiently correct pianist escapes.