The peculiarity of _Mayor was that, with a consonantal alphabet of his own, he em ployed comma marks for a, c, and i, in three dif ferent positions alongside the consonants, and dots for o, u, and y; but the commas were found to be clumsy and slower than the dashes. Mayor's system, however, became quite popular, and sur vived most of the systems in vogue at the time.
Between the time of Mayor and the rising of `phonography,' in 1837, some 130 different au thors published shorthand treatises of greater or less value, a few being original, others being only modifications of preceding systems. But it is needless to particularize any that would not throw light on expedients either as helps or as beacons of warning. Two of this number gained considerable repute at the time for methods that were at least novel, if not use ful. In 1800 Samuel Richardson produced an ingenious contrivance, namely, the use of dots for all letters, which were distinguished merely by their relative position between the bars of a music stair; this plan was modified and ex tended some years later by Hinton, Moat, and Tear. Again, in 1802 Richard Roe brought out what he called 'radiography,' or easy writing, which was noted, as he says, "especially by the singular property of the characters sloping all one way, according to the habitual motion of the hand in common writing." Over thirty years after, the same principle was taught by Cadman in his School Stenography, in which we are told that "lineality is the distinguishing feature of this system," and that "it is impossible for the student to get away from the line—he cannot go wrong." Some modern systems cling also to this feature of shorthand. It was during this period that James Henry Lewis made a name for him self, especially by his historical Account of Shorthand, which is a work of considerable merit; but his reputation was not a little marred by his style of advertising the Heady Writer, which he is vain enough to speak of as "the ne plus ultra of shorthand; the most easy, exact, lineal, speedy, and legible method ever yet dis covered, whereby more may be written in forty minutes than in one hour by any other system hitherto published." And he adds: "The un paralleled success which has attended the dis semination of the above system precludes the necessity of descanting on its peculiar advan tages; it is amply sufficient to observe that it has completely superseded all others, in the courts of law, and in both Houses of Parliament; that it is universally adopted in every respect able seminary of education throughout the United Kingdom; and has passed the approbation of both our universities in a manner which can only be equaled by the liberality of those cele brated judges of literature who have pronounced it 'the best they have ever seen.'" This turgid
style is continued at some length in rhyme, and, as in advertising other cheap wares, may be re garded as a species of poetic license, others hav ing evidently failed to discover these wonderful virtues and testimonials; for the system never became popular.
Throughout the past two eras of shorthand his tory, as we have considered them, the art can hardly be regarded as anything more than a play thing, being confined almost entirely in its use to people of leisure. Mayor himself speaks thus of it: "I was in the constant practice of writing in my system and of corresponding in it, with such ladies and gentlemen as did me the honor of submitting their proficiency to my inspection." It. is noticeable that a few inventors of systems at this time professed to follow the sound of words rather than the spelling; still the practice was never established, particularly in regard to the vowels, on a scientific basis of phonetics until the publieation of Stenographic Sound-Hand in 1837—renamed by the author Phonography about three years later. 'Whatever might be the cause or causes, the practice of the art took a sudden and mighty leap at the same time, giving reason to suppose that phonetics hail more or less to do with this progress. Though it has ever con tinned to be a recreation, it now became much more. It came to he the handmaid of literature and industry—an indispensable wheel in the vast machinery of the business world. Isaac Pitman's earlier publications were very small and imper fect, but they contained the rudiments of the more fully developed system as now presented in the Twentieth Century Instructor. The first treatise was but a four-penny tractate of 12 pages, and the second was but a penny folio sheet, S inches by OA,. The author took every advantage of the experience of those who had preceded him. He arranged his alphabet on ap proved scientific and phonetic principles, em ploying the shortest signs, consistent with dis tinctness, for the various sounds of the language, devoting the most convenient ones to the most frequently recurring sounds; he paired those that were cognate in sound, shading the stronger ones; he made simple dots and dashes, with very small curves, both light and shaded, detached and in three positions, do the whole service for the twelve vowel sounds and the thirty diph thongs, all being ditinct; and he gave the shorter and more common words three positions with respect to the line of writing, so that, with out impairing legibility. these vowel forms might be dispensed with in ordinary cases. Tables 11. and Ti!. illustrate most of these points.