LS RUN RIOT.

The Decimal System as a whole. By Dover Statter.[167] London and
Liverpool, 1856, 8vo.

{81}

The proposition is to make everything decimal. The day, now 24 hours, is to
be made 10 hours. The year is to have ten months, Unusber, Duober, etc.
Fortunately there are ten commandments, so there will be neither addition
to, nor deduction from, the moral law. But the twelve apostles! Even
rejecting Judas, there is a whole apostle of difficulty. These points the
author does not touch.

ON PHONETIC SPELLING.

The first book of Phonetic Reading. London, Fred. Pitman,[168] Phonetic
Depot, 20, Paternoster Row, 1856, 12mo.

The Phonetic Journal. Devoted to the propagation of phonetic reading,
phonetic longhand, phonetic shorthand, and phonetic printing. No. 46.
Saturday, 15 November 1856. Vol. 15.

I write the titles of a couple out of several tracts which I have by me.
But the number of publications issued by the promoters of this spirited
attempt is very large indeed.[169] The attempt itself has had no success
with the mass of the public. This I do not regret. Had the world found that
the change was useful, I should have gone contentedly with the stream; but
not without regretting our old language. I admit the difficulties which our
unpronounceable spelling puts in the way of learning to read: and I have no
doubt that, as affirmed, it is easier to teach children phonetically, and
afterwards to introduce them to our common system, than to proceed in the
usual way. But by the usual way I mean proceeding by letters from the very
beginning. If, which I am sure is a better plan, children be taught at the
commencement very much by _complete words_, as if they were learning
Chinese, and be gradually accustomed to {82} resolve the known words into
letters, a fraction, perhaps a considerable one, of the advantage of the
phonetic system is destroyed. It must be remembered that a phonetic system
can only be an approximation. The differences of pronunciation existing
among educated persons are so great, that, on the phonetic system,
different persons ought to spell differently.

But the phonetic party have produced something which will immortalize their
plan: I mean their _shorthand_, which has had a fraction of the success it
deserves. All who know anything of shorthand must see that nothing but a
phonetic system can be worthy of the name: and the system promulgated is
skilfully done. We