World’s Record in Typewriting.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 25, 22 June 1907, Page 11

World’s Record in Typewriting.

The world's record in rapid typewriting was broken in London recently by a young man from Newcastle on-Tyne. who accomplished the astonishing feat of typewriting 2.500 words from dictation in thirty minutes, and of copying from typewritten “ manuscript ” 4SOO words in one hour. The half-hour’s typewriting from dictation was done at the rate of nearly SI words a minute, or 82 words a minute not counting words in which letters were incorrectly typed. The hour test worked out at SO words a min ite, counting all words written, and 78 a minute deducting mistakes. Previously the best authentic record was that recently made by a young American typist, Miss Rose L. Fritz, who, at the Chicago Coliseum, wrote for half an hour at the rate of seventy-seven words a minute.

Mr. Janies Wright, a typist in the employment of the engineering firm of Messrs. Scott and Mountain, of Newcastle, is the record-breaker. A year ago he wrote 30,096 words in seven hours from dictation. Speed tests in America are frequent, and it is a common practice for the typist to write out a single sentence over and over again, and to reckon that a satisfactory trial. Mr. Wright undertook a much more difficult work. In both the half-hour dictation test and the hour’s copying, ne type-wrote matter in which there was no repetition, and which he had never written before. Mr. de Bear chose for dictation Mr. Chamberlain's speech at Birmingham on May 15, I’lo3. The hour’s copying test consisted of speeches made by the late Lord Russell of Killowen and Mr. Haldane at the Eighty Club meeting. They included words which the ordinary typist does not meet in his everyday work, such as “ Pyrrhic,” and at least one quotation in Scotch dialect.

If the test had been taken from the ordinary language of business, Mr. Wright would have made an even better record, for in taking several minutes’ dictation from Pitman’s “ Commercial Correspondence ” he wrote at the rate of 100, 101. and 105 words a minute. He has written as many as 116 words a minute in ordinary business. Mr. Wright was a picture of almost incredible human stolidity and agility as he lingered the keys of his Bar-Lock machine. The only parts of his body that moved during the greater part of the dictation were his forearms, and almost all the movement was in his lingers. He seemed for the time a man with his mind concentrated in his finger tips. He rarely used any but the forefinger of his right hand, but three fingers of the left hand were in regular ripple. As a feat of endurance, the hour’s copying was quite as wonderful as the halfhour from dictation was as a test of pure speed. At the end Mr. Wright smiled, rubbed his arms, and said: “ I could have done better if there had not teen so many long words.”