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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
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