and re-testing them until he can apply them to his
company's needs.
Write four sentences illustrating Rule 10.
=Exercise 188=
Punctuate the following letters, supplying a heading and an introduction
for each:
1
Dear Madam:
We wish to acknowledge your letter of recent date
assuring you that we thank you for the opportunity you
have given us of opening a monthly charge account in
your name. We shall spare no effort to make every
transaction as satisfactory as possible hoping thus to
merit a liberal share of your patronage.
Our bills are rendered on the first of each month
being payable between that date and the fifteenth.
Yours very truly,
2
Dear Mr. Warner:
In reply to your inquiry I am sending the following
information assuring you that I am glad to be of
service to you.
The Lancaster Company has apparently abandoned its
plan of erecting a new building this year difficulties
having arisen it is said in their securing a suitable
location. About two years ago the firm purchased a
site on the corner of Harrison and Second streets but
they sold it again last year taking advantage of a
decided rise in real estate values. It is understood
we believe that the company will build in the near
future even now having two or three possible sites
under consideration.
Sincerely yours,
3
Dear Sir:
We offer you the benefits and privileges of our
Special Charge Account whereby purchases may be paid
for in weekly or monthly installments. You will find
this a most convenient arrangement because it permits
you to have a charge account without the usual
hardship of payment at a fixed time. Moreover a
Special Charge Account costs you nothing since our
prices are the same whether you pay cash or have
purchases charged. Please fill out the enclosed
application blank mailing it to us to-day.
You will no doubt enjoy reading the enclosed booklet
as it gives much interesting information on fashion
tendencies. The illustrations too are unusually
attractive although they hardly do justice to the
beautiful garments that we sell.
Yours truly,
=Exercise 189=
Study the punctuation in the following selections from _The Wall Street
Journal_; then write them from dictation:
1
TROUBLE IN INTRODUCING STEEL
"Strange as it now seems," said one of Carnegie's
"young men," now the vice-president of a large and
prosperous corporation in New York, "in the early days
of the steel industry we had the greatest difficulty
in the world in weaning the old manufacturers away
from the use of wrought iron, though they admitted the
superiority of steel. They would look at it, test it,
and agree that it seemed to possess all the desirable
qualities claimed for it, but it was more or less
untried by time, and they preferred to stick to the
old wrought iron, with which they were familiar.
"I remember one old chap with whom I had wrestled
long, but in vain, coming into my office and picking
up a long, soft steel rivet, which had been bent
double and hammered flat.
"'How many did you break in making this?' he asked,
picking it up and examining it curiously.
"'That's the first one we hammered over, and, what is
more to the point, we can do it with all steel of that
type,' I replied.
"The polite incredulity in his face stirred my
professional pride, and I said, 'If I let you go to
the mills, pick out a dozen of those rivets just as
they come from the rolls, and hammer them with your
own hands, will you use that steel hereafter, if it
comes up to the test?'
"He said he would, and the rest was easy, for it is
much easier not to break than to break that kind of
steel. Before long the old man came back with
perspiration dripping from the end of his nose but
with the light of conviction shining in his eye. The
firm had a new customer."
2
CONSERVATION
Leslie M. Shaw, former Secretary of the Treasury, was
in New York, attending a meeting of a board of which
he is a member. Something was said about the
present-day discussion of money power, and Shaw said
that it reminded him of a speech he had made in
Seattle in the campaign of 1896.
"I was speaking to a filled hall and had almost
finished," said Shaw, "when a long-whiskered man arose
about the middle of the hall and held up his hand,
saying he wanted to ask a question.
"'Go ahead,' I said.
"'How, then, Mr. Speaker, do you explain the unequal
distribution of wealth?' was his question.
"When I answered him with, 'In the same way that I
explain the unequal distribution of whiskers,' bedlam
broke loose.
"As soon as I could get quiet restored, I said: 'Now
don't think I returned the answer I did to make fun of
your whiskers. You will observe that I have no
whiskers, as I dissipate them by shaving them off.
Nature gives me abundance of whiskers, and, if I
conserved them as you do, I also should be abundantly
supplied. Now, it is the same way with money. The man
who conserves his money has more than his share, as
with whiskers; while the man who dissipates his money
is without his allotment.'"
=Exercise 190--The Semicolon (;)=
The semicolon is used between the propositions of a compound sentence
when no coördinate conjunction is used. (See Exercise 176, 2.)
It is not work that kills men; it is worry.
It is important not to overdo this use of the semicolon. Do
not use it unless the two principal clauses of the sentence
taken together easily form one idea.
Especial care must be taken not to confuse coördinate conjunctions and
conjunctive adverbs. The following are conjunctive adverbs: _then_,
_therefore_, _consequently_, _moreover_, _however_, _so_, _also_,
_besides_, _thus_, _still_, _otherwise_, _accordingly_. When they are
used to join principal clauses, they should be preceded by a coördinate
conjunction or a semicolon; as,
Fruit was plentiful, and therefore the price was low.
Fruit was plentiful; therefore the price was low.
When there is a series of phrases or clauses, each of which is long and
contains commas within itself, the sentence becomes clearer if the
members of the series are separated by semicolons instead of by commas;
as,
You know how prolific the American mind has been in
invention; how much civilization has been advanced by
the steamboat, the cotton-gin, the sewing-machine, the
reaping-machine, the typewriter, the electric light,
the telephone, the phonograph.
Write the following from dictation:
1
No man can deny that the lines of endeavor have more
and more narrowed and stiffened; no one who knows
anything about the development of industry in this
country can fail to have observed that the larger
kinds of credit are more and more difficult to obtain,
unless you obtain them upon the terms of uniting your
efforts with those who already control the industries
of the country; and nobody can fail to observe that
any man who tries to set himself up in competition
with any process of manufacture which has been taken
under the control of large combinations of capital
will presently find himself either squeezed out or
obliged to sell and allow himself to be
absorbed.--Woodrow Wilson: _The New Freedom._
2
If the total amount of savings deposited in the
savings banks were equally divided among the
population of the country, the amount apportioned to
each person in 1820 would have been twelve cents; in
1830, fifty-four cents; in 1840, eighty-two cents; in
1850, $1.87; in 1860, $4.75; in 1870, $14.26; in 1880,
$16.33; in 1890, $24.75; in 1900, $31.78; in 1910,
$45.05, and it is steadily increasing. Remember the
fact that the population had increased from 10,000,000
in 1820 to over 90,000,000 in 1910; the "rainy day"
money, therefore, assumes gigantic proportions.
3
In Germany, says _The Scientific American_, wood is
too expensive to be burned, and it is made into
artificial silk worth two dollars a pound and bristles
worth four dollars a pound; into paper, yarn, twine,
carpet, canvas, and cloth. Parquet flooring is made
from sawdust; the materials may be bought by the pound
and then mixed, so that the householder can lay his
own hardwood floors according to his individual taste
and ingenuity.
4
The country gentlemen and country clergymen had fully
expected that the policy of these ministers would be
directly opposed to that which had been almost
constantly followed by William; that the landed
interest would be favored at the expense of trade;
that no addition would be made to the funded debt;
that the privileges conceded to Dissenters by the late
king would be curtailed, if not withdrawn; that the
war with France, if there must be such a war, would,
on our part, be almost entirely naval; and that the
government would avoid close connections with foreign
powers and, above all, with Holland.--_Macaulay._
=Exercise 191--The Colon (:)=
The colon is always used to indicate that something of importance
follows, usually an enumeration or a list of some kind, or a quotation
of several sentences or paragraphs; as,