History of the Typewriter

—223 CHAPTER IX . European = made Typewriters. (i) . French Writing Machines. THE efforts made by some of the more prominent workers' in France have already been referred to. From a most interesting pamphlet entitled, Les Machines d Ecrire Frangaises, written by a most pains- taking historian, M. Georges Senechai, of the Institut Stenographique de France, we have derived many additional details, the substance of which we append, referring the reader to the pamphlet itself for those more precise parti- culars which it would be hardly fair to reproduce more fully. The impression left on the mind is, that the workers of those days did not possess a clear appreciation of the possible ultimate end oi their labours, or the world might have possessed a practicable typewriter long before it did. For convenience, we present the matter in chronological order. Pingeron, in 1780, attempted to assist the blind by enabling them to write by mechanical means. A long description of his machine will be found in the Bulletin de la Societe d' Encouragement pour VIndustrie nationale for 1805. To show the disinterestedness of the workers in those days, it is admitted that this effort inspired the producer of the second machine to labour on the same lines, and that the appreciative account of the second machine is written or edited by the inventor of the first. M. L’Hermina, in 1784, developed a machine also for the purpose of assisting the blind to write. It was prac- tically a table or desk, having a frame-work thereon, such frame-work being so shaped and slotted as to assist the