| Show arrom from chamber chamberg Cham oham berb bl edinburgh journal lers there is a class of persons who owing to some somei deficiency in their early education or an absorbing attention to other pursuits have unfortunately so far neglected the valuable attainment tain ment of a plain and unmistakable handwriting as however great their talents or ge rius to deserve the appellation of lers the mysterious hieroglyphics which they u use se in expressing their thoughts are a constant source of puzzling g vexation an uncertainty rests upon the in minds I 1 aits nits of the most experienced decipherers of their enigmatical characters and a probable guess is all that the uninitiated uninitiated a can attain to various and amusing are the peculiarities of handwriting in these people some join one ane word with another along the whole breadth of the paper so asto as to resemble a very uneven line others ingeniously with a tortuous pen make those parts of their letters thin which should be thick and vice versa versta some of still more original genius genins enius enins form heir their letters perpendicularly or ae the reverse of the usual angle their characters resembling music rather than writing others are so impatient that they cann cannot ot afford time to finish their words and this adds very amusingly to the perplexity perplexity of the reader rendering it almost necessary t that at the writer should append a key to his system of shorthand some aa as if still more to mystify their epistles use neither points nor attempt to form sentences so that the ambiguities anford afford a pleasing exercise for the readers patience and in ingenuity y e nulty such stich is a glimpse at the vagaries of this ibis is vexatious class of persons great is the trouble and annoyance and many are the mistakes which such people cause in social and commercial life many a letter is handed banded about at the post office from one clerk to another in the vain hope of puzzling out the direction and after the most sagacious have shrugged up their shoulders in despair has been consigned to the moldy repositories tories of the dead letter office many a postman travels needless miles worries the inmates of unknowing houses and and brings the servant mayis maos down from their two pair all in in vain because the direction on his letter tetter is written in such stich vague characters many a friendly epistle is turned over from one member of a family to another and despairingly angly dismissed with a well we can guess guests w what at he means and the pleasure of receiving a letter from such a correspondent is thus sadly lessened by the difficulty of deciphering it the meaning of many a busine business gs letter is provokingly mistaken confusion created and loss sustained because the order or the directions for executing it were so obscurely written te and many a pleasant ap appointment ointment irrevocably c a Y lost nay so foolishly foolishly affected are many people in the style of their own signatures that these are utterly illegible save by those to whom habit has rendered them familiar we have bave known instances where the personal property of travelers was lost simply because no one could be found to decipher the autograph of the owner andine and we venture to assert that for two ordinary individuals who can make out the names of the cashiers and secretaries on our Scot scottish tigh bank notes there will be found twenty to whom the curves and blotches blotcher blot ches of ink called characters will remain an inextricable tri cable mystery of all fers rs those are the most annoying aho who who abo A affect bad writing as fashionable and deem a scrawl one of the indications of a gentleman of all silly distinctions none can be more childish than this or argue less for the sense of thase who affect if it to wear ones coat inside out would be a distinction certainly but such a distinction as any one of the least sense or sanity would avoid whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well and to write badly and illegibly is 1 i s surely indicative of pitiable incompetence or bla carelessness or worse than elther either either elther a despicable affectation A labored schoolboys bareness ua reness of bf every letter is certainly not lot ot desirable desirable but writing may surely be legible without being puerile and easy and businesslike without aitho ut appearing as if scrawled with a V skewer to those who are accustomed to write for the press a plain handwriting is of great importance port arice atice though literary men are often sadly deficient in this respect we have know instances indeed of authors being utterly unable to read parts of their own manuscript and who have been compelled to erase whole sentences and substitute gom something ething else authors whose manuscript is very bad have to pay an additional charge for the extra trouble they give to the printer besides what they have unavoidably to pay for the many corrections which works printed from such writings almost invariably require the process of printing necessarily slow and always liable to error is still more retarded and the chances of error fearfully in increased by an authors obscure manusar manuscript I 1 t the compositor the person mho who arranges L the type is generally too intent upon the leaf lear process of picking up the letters to bestow much pains in decap deciphering bering his vexatious copy and even the sleepless vigilance of the corrector of the press or ireaner reader 1 as he is termed may sometimes inadvertently pass over an error where there is so much to puzzle and perplex when it is remembered how many millions of letters are used in the pages of a very thin book it is wonderful that even ordinary correctness ness is attained when it it is considered also how important is the transposition of even a single letter several hundreds of which are used in every page the difficulty of final correctness even under the most favorable circumstances must roust be apparent and certainly need not be increased A most important alid and ludicrous mistake may be occasioned by the transposition or omission of of a single letter the ile word hops for hopes tailors for sailors voracity for veracity cows for vows cats for oats oats 1 tongs for songs posts for poets dairies for diaries and a thousand others though they might seem to an ordinary reader sufficiently stu stupid id mistakes yet might all be produced by te the error omission or transposition of one letter surely where correctness is so desirable and error so easy an author cannot well be too careful in preparing his manuscript for the press if authors who write illegibly could see their works in an incipient state as they leave the hands bands of the compositor they would tremble and not without reason for the final correctness ness of their tropes and metaphors as they beheld their pathos whimsically transformed into bathos and their sublime st figures 0 into figures of fun when such ludicrous errors to mention only two out of a host we could adduce as having havin actually happened within our olyn knowledge 5 as gaiters and garters for gaieties and gravities 2 and primroses prim roses and pears for mores et pares I 1 are made well may the author tremble for tle the the inaccuracy of a work the manuscript t of which is obscure fewer would be the errors of the press if the manuscript of the author were as plain as manuscript written to be printed ought to be but the schoolmaster is abroad education is being settled upon a more intelligent basis and the time we may hope is fast last approaching when the tribe of lers will be extinct and when no one will be allowed to arrive at maturity without being taught the valuable art of making known his thoughts in characters not on only onix to be understood but not to be misunderstood under sod men will see the absurdity of wholly holly devoting their time to the attainment of greek and latin while incapable of writing their own language in in an understandable manner in proportion also as a healthy common sense prevails the fashionable fashionable affectation of scrawling will pass away and will no more be esteemed a desirable distinction than an impediment in in the speech which should prevent the speaker speak er from being understood |
