Without the vowels, only THIRTEEN strokes. (Figure 4) The vowels are
hardly necessary, this time.

We make five pen-strokes in writing an m. Thus: (Figure 5) a stroke
down; a stroke up; a second stroke down; a second stroke up; a final
stroke down. Total, five. The phonographic alphabet accomplishes the
m with a single stroke--a curve, like a parenthesis that has come home
drunk and has fallen face down right at the front door where everybody
that goes along will see him and say, Alas!

When our written m is not the end of a word, but is otherwise located,
it has to be connected with the next letter, and that requires another
pen-stroke, making six in all, before you get rid of that m. But never
mind about the connecting strokes--let them go. Without counting them,
the twenty-six letters of our alphabet consumed about eighty pen-strokes
for their construction--about three pen-strokes per letter.

It is THREE TIMES THE NUMBER required by the phonographic alphabet. It
requires but ONE stroke for each letter.

My writing-gait is--well, I don't know what it is, but I will time
myself and see. Result: it is twenty-four words per minute. I don't mean
composing; I mean COPYING. There isn't any definite composing-gait.

Very well, my copying-gait is 1,440 words per hour--say 1,500. If I
could use the phonographic character with facility I could do the 1,500
in twenty minutes. I could do nine hours' copying in three hours; I
could do three years' copying in one year. Also, if I had a typewriting
machine with the phonographic alphabet on it--oh, the miracles I could
do!

I am not pretending to write that character well. I have never had a
lesson, and I am copying the letters from the book. But I can accomplish
my desire, at any rate, which is, to make the reader get a good and
clear idea of the advantage it would be to us if we could discard our
present alphabet and put this better one in its place--using it in
books, newspapers, with the typewriter, and with the pen.

(Figure 6)--MAN DOG HORSE. I think it is graceful and would look comely
in print. And consider--once more, I beg--what a labor-saver it is! Ten
pen-strokes with the one system to convey those three words above, and
thirty-three by the other! (Figure 6) I mean, in SOME ways, not in all.
I suppose I might go so far as to say in most ways, and be within the
facts, but never mind; let it go at SOME. One of the ways in which
it exercises this birthright is--as