150 YARDS AN HOUR.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XVII, Issue XVIII, 31 October 1896, Page 587

150 YARDS AN HOUR.

Has it ever struck you what a distance your pen travels every time you write a letter, or even when you sign your name f If not here are some figures that will astonish you. Some words, of course, are very much less, but the average of all your words is as nearly as possible an inch in length. Taking into consideration, however, the numerous curves made in forming each letter, your pen travels the space of about three inches in every word. Now, if you are a fairly rapid writer, you will write thirty words per minute. That is to say, every minute you pen travels a distance of 7J4 feet, or 150 yards to the hour. Clerks, or those who wield the pen at all vigorously, write at least half a mile a day, or about 120 miles in the working year.

To see this paragraph in print, you would not think that the pen of the writer made a tour of sixteen yards in winding through the curves of the letters as he wrote them, but it is a fact for all that.