The reporting of orations. sermons, legal arguments, addresses, etc., all of which are included under the one general term of Speech Reporting, is of .a nature which sometimes taxes the skill of the reporter to the utmost, and is also oftentimes quite easy. It depends greatly upon the knowledge of both the speaker and the reporter. If the speaker be not very well posted, or is speaking upon a subject which calls for no technicalities and wherein plain talk alone is necessary, the reporter need not be learned or well educated, so long as he has sufficient speed. On the other hand, if the subject matter of a speech be a technical one unfamiliar to the masses, or abounding in references to ancient historical or mythological personages or places, obsolete works, etc., known only to the well educated, the reporter must needs be a well read person, since no one can write with certainty a word or phrase with which they never before met.

Fortunately, most speeches are composed of simple words and familiar phrases, so that the ordinary reporter, with a common school education, can report them, if the proper speed is possessed.

In this latter particular - speed-there are great differences in speakers. Some will not speak much above 100 words a minute, while others will speak 150 to 200 words a minute quite freely. There are even some few who, upon themes in which they are especially well posted, will speak at the rate of 300 words a minute for a while, and the author has met two individualsin his time (Rev. Father Maturin, then of St. Clement's Church, Philadelphia, and Rev. Dr. Samuel R. Garrison,for years pastor of St. Paul's Church, Camden, N. J.) who, in the excitement of a well rounded period relating to special subjects, attained the wonderful speed, under actual count, of 325 words a minute for a minute or two at a time. The Rev. Phillips Brooks is also credited with similar speed, it being claimed he was never reported verbatim.

It is well such great speed of utterance is limited to few speakers and to them only upon occasions. The best reporter, unless thoroughly self-possessed and with a splendid memory, would naturally lose such sentences, but, as the speaker must stop to take breath, a good memory and a cool head enables the reporter to catch up, yet he must have these natural abilities, together with a complete knowledge of every abbreviating principle in this book to do it. All presentations of shorthand, except that in this book, have failed under such tests.

The average of speech-making, despite the above given maximum,is but 120 to 150 words per minute, and the speeches (all kinds) are so nearly, under all conditions, but a repetition of the convention work herein and the following speech of Mr. Francis Murphy, that the entire field is thus fully covered, aided, of course, by the abbreviations given in our lessons and review exercises.