THE FIRST WRITING PEN

New Zealand Tablet, 27 April 1911, Page 790

THE FIRST WRITING PEN

In any large city can be found in use to-day the first type of pen and the latest. A fine hair brush was the first instrument used by man for writing purposes. The Chinese laundryman of to-day marks his tickets and keeps his accounts with a camel’s hair pen dipped in ink. Next door probably is a white merchant who uses the latest make of steel pen. Between the two in the long history of the pen came the reed, then the quill. Steel pens are almost in universal use now, and are made by the ton and in increasing volume every year. Confucius used a hair brush for a pen, and his ancestors for thousands of years before his time. The reed came into use ' for writing in the marshy countries of the Orient. It was hollow and, _ cut in short lengths with sharpened ends, it was some improvement on the hair pen. The value of the quill was discovered at an early date in the history of civilisation, and its use spread from the East over Europe and then to the New World. Before the day of the metal pen England annually was importing more than 25,000,000 quills for pens. They were from the swans of Iceland, the Irish geese, the geese of the Hudson Bay country, etc. Early in the nineteenth century the petal pen began to be used in England, the first one being one piece of metal for holder and point. The improvement of making the point detachable followed quickly, and to keep the point from being so stiff the sides were slit, as they are to-day. Steel pens in the early days cost If- each, sometimes double that.