BLIND TYPISTES.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 780, 1 April 1910, Page 3

BLIND TYPISTES.

At the Sydney Industrial Blind Insti-, tution's exhibition in Stott and Hoare's windows, Moore Street, says a Sydney paper, you can see blind girls doing apparently impossible things. They are not only weaving the cane bottoms of chairs, but actually taking shorthand notes, and typewriting theui afterwards. All, of course, by the touch. The shorthand is the usual Braille characters,' embossed, and struck out by means of a small six-keyed machine, like a typewriter. The girl who does this work can take at least 80 words a minute from dictation. The typewriter is an ordinary machine. The main difference is that on a few of the keys the Braille types are embossed, to guide the sensative fingers. The girl who- typewrites can averago from 20 to 30 words a minute. She can take it from dictation, or read it by touch from a book in Braille type, or from the notes, in the same type, made on strips of paper by the "Shorthand" writer. Another girl works a stereotyping machine, which impresses upon discs of zinc the Braille lettering, which is afterwards stamped into the paper pages of the Braille books. All. by touch alone. It is an exhibition of marvels.