THE FIRST TYPEWRITERS.

Putaruru Press, Volume VIII, Issue 332, 3 April 1930, Page 1

THE FIRST TYPEWRITERS.

EARLY STEAM CARRIAGE. ( “ Wanted: A shorthand writer who can play the piano.” This advertisement mystified all who saw it in a London newspaper in the year 1876. It was inserted by Sir Alfred Yarrow, who had come into possession of the first twelve typewriters to reach England from America, and who had nobody in his employ who could use them. Sir Alfred, who recently broadcast a talk titled “Hooking Backward,” related that a young man answered the advertisement, satisfactorily used the new machines, and stayed in his employ until his death. The speaker, who celebrated his eighty-eighth birthday in January, told how in 1861 he and a friend built a steam carriage which they used to drive once a week from Greenwich to Bromley at an average speed of ten miles an hour. It caused great excitement, and one old lady, who saw it rushing past her house, with flames issuing from the funnel, said she had seen “ the devil.” Once, said Sir Alfred, he and his friend were going about twenty-five miles an hour, and met a mounted policeman. The man was thrown from his frightened horse and broke a leg. This incident led to an Act of Parliament forbidding the use of mechanical means for driving vehicles unless a man walked in front carrying a red flag. Sir Alfred’s first effort as a shipbuilder was a launch as long as a bath and containing an engine which could be carried under his arm. Sir Alfred lastly claimed that he was responsible for the abolition of the chaperon. “ That was due to the introduction of solid drawn steel tubes, which I used in the manufacture of bicycles,” he said. “ They allowed cycling to become popular, and the young people soon got into the habit of pedalling ahead and leaving the chaperon, and her [ friend, Mrs Grundy, far behind.”