1644) is substantially based on the common alphabet; but the clumsiness of his alphabetic signs, and the confused laborious contrivances by which he denotes prefixes and terminations, involving the continual lifting of the pen, would seem to render his method almost as slow as longhand. Of the 201 systems which intervene between J. Willis’s and Isaac Pitman’s phonography (1837) nearly all are based, like Willis’s, on the alphabet, and may be called a, b, c systems. But seven are, like phonography, strictly phonetic, viz., those by Tiffin (1750), Lyle (1762), Holdsworth and Aldridge (1766), Roe (1802), Phineas Bailey (1819), Towndrow (1831), and De Stains (1839). Of the 281 systems which have appeared since phonography a very large proportion are merely imitations of that system, or proceed on the same lines.

A few general remarks apply largely to all the a, b, c systems. Each letter is designated by a straight line or curve (vertical, horizontal, or sloping), sometimes with the addition of a hook or loop. C and q are rejected, k being substituted for hard c and q, s for soft c. Signs are provided for ch, sh, th. G and j are classed under one sign, because in some words g is pronounced as j, as in giant, gem. Similarly each of the pairs f, v and s , z has only one sign. A few authors make the signs for j , v, z heavier than those for g, f, s. Some class p and b, t and d, each under one sign. The stenographic alphabet is therefore— a, b, d, e, f (v), g (j), h, i, k, l, m, n, o, p,r, s (z), t, u, w, x,y, ch, sh th. Letters which are not sounded may be omitted. Gh, ph may be counted as f in such words as cough, Philip; but the th in thing is never distinguished from the th in them. Thus the a, b, c systems are largely phonetic with respect to consonant-sounds; it is rather with regard to the vowels that they disregard the phonetic principle. No attempt is made to provide adequately for the many vowel-sounds of the language. Thus the signs for like and lick, for rate and rat, &c., are the same. In the case of vowel-sounds denoted by two letters, that vowel is to be written which best represents the sound. Thus in meat the e is selected, but in great the a. In some a, b, c systems, including the best of them (Taylor’s), a dot placed anywhere does duty for all the vowels. This practice is, of course, a fruitful source of error, for pauper and paper, gas and goose, and hundreds of other pairs of words would according to this plan be written alike. In the early systems of Willis and his imitators the vowels are mostly written either by joined characters or by lifting the pen and writing the next consonant in a certain position with respect to the preceding one. Both these plans are bad; for lifting the pen involves expenditure of time, and vowels expressed by joined signs and not by marks external to the word cannot be omitted, as is often necessary in swift writing, without changing the general appearance of the word and forcing the eye and the hand to accustom themselves to two sets of outlines, vocalized and unvocalized. In the better a, b, c systems the alphabetic signs, besides combining to denote words, may also stand alone to designate certain short common words, prefixes, and suffixes. Thus in Harding’s edition of Taylor’s system the sign for d, when written alone, denotes do, did, the prefixes de-, des-, and the terminations -dom, -end, -ened, -ed. This is a good practice if the words are well chosen and precautions taken to avoid ambiguities. Numbers of symbolical signs and rough word-pictures, and even wholly arbitrary marks, are employed to denote words and entire phrases. Symbolical or pictorial signs, if sufficiently suggestive and not very numerous, may be effective; but the use of "arbitraries” is objectionable because they are so difficult to remember. In many shorthand books the student is recommended to form additional ones for himself, and so of course make his writing illegible to others. The raison d'être of such signs is not far to seek. The proper shorthand signs for many common words were so clumsy or ambiguous that this method was resorted to in order to provide them with clearer and easier outlines. For the purpose of verbatim reporting the student is recommended to omit as a rule all vowels, and decipher his writing with the aid of the context. But, when vowels are omitted, hundreds of pairs of words having the same consonant skeleton (such as minister and monastery, frontier and furniture, libel and label) are written exactly alike. This is one of the gravest defects of the a, b, c systems.

John Willis’s system was largely imitated but hardly improved by Edmond Willis (1618), T. Shelton (1620), Witt (1630), Dix (1633), Mawd (1635), and Theophilus Metcalfe (1635). T. Shelton’s system, republished a great many times down to 1687, was the one which Samuel Pepys used in writing his diary. It was adapted to German, Dutch, and Latin. An advertisement of Shelton’s work in the Mercurius Politicus of 3d October 1650 is one of the earliest business advertisements known. The book of Psalms in metre (206 pages, 2 3/8 × 1 1/2 inches) was engraved according to Shelton’s system by Thomas Cross. Metcalfe’s Radio-Stenography, or Short-Writing, was republished again and again for about a hundred years. The 35th “edition” is dated 1693, and a 55th is known to exist. The inefficiency of the early systems seems to have brought the art into some contempt. Thus Thomas Heywood, a contemporary of Shakespeare, says in a prologue that his play of Queen Elizabeth

" Did throng the seats, the boxes, and the stage So much that some by stenography drew A plot, put it in print, scarce one word true.”

Shakespeare critics would in this manner explain the badness of the text in the earliest editions of Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Taming of the Shrew, Merry Wives of Windsor, and Henry V. Perhaps a study of J. Willis’s system and of E. Willis’s (which, though not published till after Shakespeare’s death, was practised long before) may shed light on corrupt readings of the text of these plays. Rich’s system (1646, 20th edition 1792) was reproduced with slight alterations by many other persons, including W. Addy, Stringer, and Dr Philip Doddridge (1799 and three times since). The New Testament and Psalms were engraved in Rich’s characters (1659, 596 pages, 2½ × 1½ inches, 2 vols.), and Addy brought out the whole Bible engraved in shorthand (London, 1687, 396 pp.). Locke, in his Treatise on Education, recommends Rich’s system; but it is encumbered with more than 300 symbolical and arbitrary signs. In 1847 it was still used by Mr Plowman, a most accomplished Oxford reporter.

In 1672 William Mason, the best shorthand author of the 17th century, published his Pen pluck'd from an Eagle's Wing. The alphabet was largely taken from Rich’s. But in his Art's Advancement (1682) only six of Rich’s letters are retained, and in his Plume Volante (1707) further changes are made. Initial vowels are written by their alphabetic signs, final vowels by dots in certain positions (a, e at the beginning; i, y at the middle ; o, u at the end), and medial vowels by lifting the pen and writing the next consonant in those same three positions with respect to the preceding one. Mason employed 423 symbols and arbitraries. He was the first to discover the value of a small circle for s in addition to its proper alphabetic sign. Mason’s system was republished by Thomas Gurney in 1740, a circumstance which has perpetuated its use to the present day, for in 1737 Gurney was appointed shorthand-writer to the Old Bailey, and early in the 19th century W. B. Gurney was appointed shorthand-writer to both Houses of Parliament. Gurney reduced Mason’s arbitraries to about a hundred, inventing a few specially suitable for parliamentary reporting. The Gurneys were excellent writers of a cumbrous system. Thomas Gurney’s Brachygraphy passed through at least eighteen editions, but the sale of the book has now almost ceased.

In 1767 was published at Manchester a work by John Byrom, sometime fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, entitled The Universal English Shorthand, distinguished for its precision, elegance, and systematic construction. Byrom had died in 1763. Having lost his fellowship by failing to take orders, he made a living by teaching shorthand in London and Manchester, and among his pupils were Horace Walpole, Lord Conway, Charles Wesley, Lord Chesterfield, the duke of Devonshire, and Lord Camden. Shorthand, it is said, procured him admission to the Royal Society. He founded a stenographic club, to the proceedings of which his journal, written in shorthand, is largely devoted. In the strangers’ gallery of the House of Commons in 1728 Byrom dared to write shorthand from Sir R. Walpole and others. In 1731, when called upon to give evidence before a parliamentary committee, he took shorthand notes, and, complaints being made, he said that if those attacks on the liberties of shorthand men went on he "must have a petition from all counties where our disciples dwell, and Manchester must lead the way.” Thomas Molyneux popularized the system by publishing seven cheap editions between 1793 and 1825. Modifications of Byrom’s system were issued by Palmer (1774), Nightingale (1811), Adams (1814), Longmans (1816), Gawtress (1819), Kelly (1820), Jones (1832), and Roffe (1833). Byrom’s method received the distinction of a special Act of Parliament for its protection (15 Geo. II. c. 23, for twenty-one years from 24th June 1742). To secure lineality in the writing and facility in consonantal joinings he provided two forms for b, h,j, ιv, x, sh, th, and three for l, A, e, i, o, u, he represented by a dot in five positions with respect to a consonant. Practically it is impossible to observe more than three (beginning, middle, and end). With all its merits, the system lacks rapidity, the continual recurrence of the loop seriously retarding the pen.

In 1786 was published An Essay intended to establish a Standard for a Universal System of Stenography, by Samuel Taylor (London). This system did more than any of its predecessors to establish the art in England and abroad. Equal to Byrom’s in brevity, it is simpler in construction. No letter has more than one sign, except w, which has two. Considering that five vowel places about a consonant were too many, Taylor went to the other extreme and expressed all the vowels alike by a dot placed in any position. He directs that vowels are not to be expressed except when they sound strong at the beginning and end of a word. Arbitraries he discarded altogether; but Harding, who re-edited his system in 1823, introduced a few. Each letter when standing alone represents two or three common short words, prefixes and suffixes. But the list was badly chosen: thus m represents my and many, both of them adjectives, and therefore liable to be confounded in many sentences. To denote in and on by the same sign is evidently absurd. Taylor’s system was republished again and again. The latest editions are those of J. H. Cooke (London, 1865) and A. Janes (London, 1882). In Harding’s edition (1823 and at least twelve times since) the vowels are written on an improved plan, the dot in three positions representing a, e, i, and a tick in two positions o , u. Several other persons brought out Taylor’s system, in particular G. Odell, whose book was re-edited or reprinted not less than sixty-four times, the later republications appearing at New York. The excellence of Taylor’s method was recognized on the Continent: the system came into use in France, Italy, Holland, Sweden, Germany, Portugal, Roumania, Hungary, &c. In England at the present day no method excepting Pitman’s phonography is more popular than Taylor’s, although the systems which have appeared since Taylor’s are far more numerous than those which preceded it.

The Universal Stenography of William Mavor (1780 and nine times since) is a very neat system, and differs from Taylor’s in the alphabet and in a more definite method of marking the vowels. A, e, i, are indicated by commas, o, u, y, by dots, in three places with respect to a letter, namely beginning, middle, and end. Other systems by J. H. Lewis (1812) and Moat (1833) are still used to a small extent.

The vast mass of a, b, c systems are strikingly devoid of originality, and are mostly imitations of the few that have been mentioned. Nearly all may be briefly described as consisting of an alphabet, a list of common words, prefixes and suffixes expressed by single letters, a list of arbitrary and symbolical signs, a table showing the best way of joining any two letters, a few general rules for writing, and a specimen plate.

Pitman’s phonography, on account of its enormous diffusion in Great Britain and the colonies, and in America, its highly organized and original construction, and its many inherent advantages, merits a more extended notice than has been given to the systems already mentioned. In 1837 Isaac Pitman, then teacher of a British school at Wotton-under-Edge and an excellent writer of Taylor’s system, composed at the invitation of Samuel Bagster a short stenographic treatise of his own, which Bagster published under the title of Stenographic Sound-Hand. The price was fixed at fourpence, for the author had determined to place shorthand within the reach of everybody. He had won the friendship of the Bible publisher by voluntarily verifying the half a million references in the Comprehensive Bible, and Mr Bagster for nine years published Mr Pitman’s shorthand books. In 1840 a second edition appeared in the form of a penny plate bearing the title Phonography, the principal feature of the system being that it was constructed on a purely phonetic basis. The name of Bagster helped the enterprise, and the author was indefatigable in spreading the knowledge of his system by lectures and gratuitous teaching through the penny post, then just established. In December 1841 the first number of what is now known as the Phonetic Journal appeared at Manchester in a lithographed form. It was then called the Phonographic Journal, and subsequently in turn the Phonotypic Journal, the Phonetic News, and the Phonetic Journal. The chief instruction books issued by the author at the present time from his press at the Phonetic Institute, Bath, are the Phonographic Teacher, a little sixpenny book for beginners, of which 1,030,000 copies have been published; the Manual of Phonography (470th thousand), in which the art is sufficiently developed for the purpose of correspondence, private memoranda, and easy reporting; and the Phonographic Reporter (133d thousand). The weekly circulation of the Phonetic Journal is about 20,000 copies. A part of it is printed in the phonographic character from movable types. The system has been warmly taken up in America, where it has been republished in more or less altered forms, especially by the author’s brother Benn Pitman, and by Messrs A. J. Graham, J. E. Munson, E. Longley, and Eliza B. Burns. A large number of periodicals lithographed in phonography are published in England and America. The Shorthand Magazine, monthly, has existed since 1864. Of standard English books printed or lithographed in phonography may be mentioned, besides the Bible, New Testament, and Prayer Book, The Pilgrim's Progress, The Vicar of Wakefield, Pickwick Papers, Tom Brown’s School-Days, Macaulay’s Essays and Biographies, Gulliver’s Travels, Blackie’s Self-culture, Bacon’s Essays, and a long list of tales and selections. Numerous societies have been formed in all English-speaking countries for the dissemination of phonography. The largest is the Phonetic Society with 3350 members, who have all certificates of a knowledge of the art and engage to teach through the post gratuitously. Most important towns in the United Kingdom have a phonographic association. London has three. Phonography has been adapted to several foreign languages, but not so successfully as Gabelsberger’s German system. Mr T. A. Reed’s French Phonography (1882) is intended only for English phonographers who wish to report French speeches. Other adaptations to French are by A. J. Lawson and J. R. Bruce. A society for the adaptation of phonography to Italian was organized at Rome in 1883 by G. Francini, who has published his results (Rome, 1883, 1886). Phonography adapted to Spanish by Parody (Buenos Ayres, 1864) is practised by half the stenographers employed in the senate and chamber at Buenos Ayres. It has been adapted to Welsh by R. H. Morgan (Wrexham, 1876), and to German by C. L. Driesslein (Chicago, 1884). Phonography is steadily driving all other English systems out of the field. Mr T. A. Reed stated in the Phonetic Journal, 1883, p. 62, that of the 61 writers employed by the Times, Standard, Telegraph, Morning Post, and the Press Association 31 were using phonography, 18 Taylor’s, 5 Gurney’s (i.e., Mason’s), 4 Lewis’s, and 3 other systems; of the 67 members composing the Institute of Shorthand Writers, chiefly practitioners in the law courts, 26 were using phonography, 29 Taylor’s, 7 Gurney’s (i.e., Mason’s), 3 Mavor’s, and 2 Lewis’s; while of the 80 members of the London Shorthand Writers’ Association, chiefly employed in business offices, at least five-sixths were phonographers. According to a recent (1882) history of shorthand, of 291 professional stenographers in London 134 used phonography, 89 Taylor’s, 35 Gurney’s, 8 Lewis’s, 8 Mavor’s, and 17 other systems (Byrom’s, Graham’s, Moat’s, &c.).

The main features of Pitman’s system must now be described. The alphabet of consonant-sounds is— p, b; t, d; ch (as in chip), j; k, g (as in gay); f, v; th (as in thing), dh (as in them); s,z∙, sh, zh (as in vision); m, n, ng (as in thing); l, r; w, y, h. The sounds p, t, ch, k are represented respectively by the four straight strokes

∖l∕-; and the corresponding voiced sounds b, d, j, g by exactly the same signs respectively written heavy. F, th (as in thing), s, sh are indicated by 0 respectively; the same signs written heavy and tapering to the ends are used for v, dh, z, zh respectively. M, n, l, r are denoted by <-x×—A respectively. R is also represented by written upwards and in a more slanting direction than the sign for ch. The signs for sh and l may be written up or down when in combination, but standing alone sh is written downwards and l upwards. The signs for w, y, h are all written upwards. H has also 7 down....