A Biography of Isaac Pitman. By Thomas Allen Reed. (Griffith,
Farran, and Co.)—This is a very interesting—though in parts inevitably matter-of-fact—memoir of a man belonging to that limited happy class who live to see the triumph of the systems they have advocated. Mr. Reed, referring to Mr. Pitman's life in 1890, indicates the kind of man ho is and has been :—" Rising generally between half-past four and five o'clock, he reads, as part of his morning devotion, a portion of Swedenborg'e expositions of the spiritual sense of the Scriptures, then walks a mile to his office, and arrives there at six o'clock. He continues his labours, with brief intervals for breakfast, lunch, and half-an-hour's siesta, until half-past five." This circumstance tends to show whet may well, however, be believed, that the great populariser—wo had almost said, the apostle—of shorthand does not lead, and never has led, a morally or intellectually hand-to-mouth existence. Whatever critics may say of the system which is identified with his name, or oven of its eccentricities, there can be no question that he has lived a most honourable, energetic, and suc- cessful life. As for the position of that system, it is enough to say that its practitioners in Great Britain, America, and the Colonies number not less than half-a-million, it being used by 93 per cent. of journalistic writers of shorthand in England, by 97 per cent. in America, and by OG per cent. in Australia. Mr. Reed has in all respects done his work admirably.
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