If the merchants cannot pay their debts in the legal standard, that itself is quite calamity enough, without adding insurrection or revolution to it. The country at heart is right. A tenth part of the great trading class cannot overturn the government. Let it be changed in due course of law - by the free suffrages at the polls. Let there be no public meetings in this crisis. Public meetings are foolish and dangerous things. They produce no effect on sense or justice they settle no principles-furnish no argument. If other cities run into riot and confusion - if the outra

geous conduct of the fraudulent banks, that stop paying specie, with specie in their vaults, drive Philadelphia, Boston, and Baltimore to madness, let the people of New York show to the whole civilized world of Europe and America an example of MORAL DIGNITY—of INTELLECTUAL ELEVATION of PURE PATRIOTISM of LOVE FOR PUBLIC ORDER that will prove them to possess at least some of the fire, of the purity, of the honesty, of the integrity of the sacred Revolutionary age of 1776. Let us have no public meeting-no assemblages of an excited people. But let us refuse the irredeemable rags in every and all payments let us return to gold and silver- let us deal in specie alone, or paper currency founded on personal integrity. But, above all, let us wait patiently till the day of election comes round and then speak in a voice of thunder from the ballot boxes. We have "worn and eaten and drank

too much" - let us get sober, eat in moderation, and cast away our purple and fine linen.

And when election day approached, the people were advised to demand of the new Legislature:

1. A repeal of the atrocious Suspension Law. 2. A repeal of the unjust Mortgage Law. 3. A repeal of the Usury Law.

4. A repeal of the ridiculous Restraining Law. 5. A repeal of the bank charters that will not resume specie payments instantly. 6. A repeal of all laws that unite the privilege of banking with the political powers of the

State.

7. A repeal of all the corporation meat laws which cause the high prices of provisions.

ORIGIN OF THE ASSOCIATED PRESS.

FROM this time on until 1849 the individual papers continued to collect news without cooperation. A news-boat system had been introduced by the "Courier and Enquirer," but as this was a temptation to collusion, it failed to receive public confidence. During this year a "Harbor News Association" was formed, the leading members of which were the "Journal of Commerce" and the "Herald," and subsequently telegraphic and general news associations were organized for the purpose of covering a wider field. These undoubtedly had their VOL. XLII.-68.

"Sun" in getting through from Texas, and Mexico, during the progress of the war, despatches by pony express in advance of the Government's advices. It was manifest to the conductors of other newspapers that if they were to compete successfully with the new system inaugurated by Mr. Bennett they must adopt new methods. Negotiations were entered into and in 1851 the present "New York Associated Press" was organized under the following agreement:

It is mutually agreed between G. Hallock of the "Journal of Commerce," J. and E. Brooks of the "Express," J. G. Bennett of the "Herald,” Beach Brothers of the "Sun," Greeley and McElrath of the "Tribune," and J. W. Webb of the "Courier," to associate for the purpose of collecting and receiving telegraphic and other intelligence.

The "Times" and "World" came in later the latter under the "Courier" franchise — and since their accession there has been no change in the membership of the "New York Associated Press."

Even at this time, the electric telegraph, which had introduced a new element in the making of newspapers, was used sparingly because the facilities were inadequate to a large business, and because the income of the best papers did not yet justify incurring extraorcarrier pigeons were still the principal means dinary expenses. The mail, the express, and for collecting news. The people had not yet acquired the intense habit that exacts uninterrupted service. That came with the great war.

As the telegraph has become the most serviceable of all agencies in the gathering of news, we may properly devote brief space to its development. In 1838, Morse and his associate aid of the national legislature, gave an exhibition Alfred Vail, who were endeavoring to enlist the of the working of the electric telegraph in Washington. In an invitation to a senator to be present the confident prediction was expressed that it would be practicable to get quotations of the New Orleans cotton market every day.1 And when Henry O'Rielly's lines (known as the "Atlantic, Lake, and Mississippi Telegraph") reached St. Louis in 1849, a national telegraph and railroad convention was held in that city, which adopted an elaborate report recommending the immediate construction of a telegraph line to the Pacific Coast. The gold fever was at its height, and the Western people were impatient on account of the slow method of communication across the plains, or via Panama. Mr. O'Rielly's plan was not brought to the attention of Congress until the session of 1851-2. 1 MS. Clay correspondence.

It proposed that Congress should pass a law providing that instead of establishing forts, with hundreds of men at long intervals apart (as suggested by the War Department), the troops designed for protecting the route should be distributed in a manner better calculated to promote that and other important objects on the principal route through the public domain; namely, by stationing parties of twenty dragoons at stockades twenty miles apart. It provided also, that two or three soldiers should ride daily, each way, from each stockade, so as to transport a daily express letter-mail across the continent, protect emigrants, and incidentally the construction of a telegraph to California. At this time the line had been carried into New Orleans, and the O'Rielly system included 7000 miles of wire. This was scarcely forty years ago, and yet to-day the system of the Western Union Telegraph Company embraces 680,000 miles of wire, and all American companies combined, more than enough to girdle the world 27 times. At the close of the war this great company controlled 75,686 miles of wire, and distributed business through 2250 offices. In 1876 the system had been extended to 183,832 miles of wire and 7072 offices; in 1881 to 327,171 miles of wire and 10,737 of fices, and in the last ten years the mileage and offices have been doubled. For many years the use of the wires in the collection of news scarcely kept pace with the growth of facilities. As I have said above, the business of the newspapers hardly justified lavish expenditures, and telegraphic rates continued to be high. There fore the wires were employed only for brief mention of the most notable events of domestic news within a radius of a few hundred miles. The readers of newspapers had not yet outgrown the deliberate movements of the Post Office Department.

GOVERNOR SEWARD AIDS A JOURNALIST. HON. CHARLES A. DANA relates an incident in his journalistic career that most happily illustrates the old ways of making a paper, when the steamship brought the news of Europe, and the mail the news correspondence of the United States.

There was to be a celebration of the opening of the Rochester and Niagara Railroad as a through line, at which Mr. Seward was to speak, and Mr. Dana went to represent the "Tribune." There was a large attendance at Niagara Falls, of members of the legislature and other dignitaries of the State, and of local municipal bodies, as the event was of more than usual importance. Mr. Dana knew it had been Mr. Seward's habit carefully to write out his speeches before delivery, and to supply the

"Tribune" with an advance copy. Mr. Seward had not done so in this case, and in order to have an adequate report Mr. Dana took full notes of his remarks. At the conclusion of the ceremonies he called upon the orator at the Cataract House, and asked him if he had prepared his speech on this occasion. Mr. Seward said that he had started to do so, but was prevented by other engagements. He had a half-dozen pages-the introductory part— roughly written out. With this and his notes Mr. Dana wrote out the speech for publication and submitted his manuscript to Mr. Seward, who made extensive corrections, until finally the report was satisfactory. An hour or two later he sent for Mr. Dana to say that a reporter from another paper had called upon him for his speech, and he suggested that Mr. Dana should permit him to make a copy of his report. "Governor Seward," said Mr. Dana, "I cannot do that. I attended the meeting and have made a report for my paper, and it would not be fair for me now to give to another, who was not in attendance through indifference or idleness, the benefit of my labors." Governor Seward admitted that Mr. Dana was right, and good-naturedly dictated a report, which from necessity was much briefer, to the other newspaper man. The next day Mr. Dana started for home by train, and in due time the report of Mr. Seward's speech appeared in the 'Tribune," which of course had it in much better form than any competitor. There was no necessity for telegraphing, as no other reporter had the speech, and the exigencies of journalism in that day did not require the immediate and unrestricted use of the telegraph in all cases.

The telegraph companies were the pioneers in the news collecting and distributing business west and south. In 1860 the telegraphic reports scarcely exceeded fifteen hundred words a day for such cities as Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Detroit, Chicago, and St. Louis. The files of the Charleston "Mercury" show even less for the South. The cotton markets of New Orleans and New York, brief mention of the latest European dates by steamship, and briefer even of Congress made up the variety.

All of this changed with the breaking out of the war. The "Associated Press" supplemented its reports of routine business with accounts of the movements of troops, of the transactions of departments, and with patriotic appeals; while the great journals of the principal cities inaugurated special correspondence from the fields of battle which increased their popularity and made the reputation of many able writers. People acquired the habit of reading daily papers, and new and improved machinery was constructed to meet the increasing circulation.

NEW METHODS TO MEET CHANGED SOCIAL

CONDITIONS.

We have now reached the latest stage in the development of the newspaper. The demand is as wide as the continent. How shall it be met? Very high authority says: "The first thing which an editor must look for is news. If the newspaper has not the news, it may have everything else, yet it will be comparatively unsuccessful; and by news I mean everything that occurs, everything which is of human interest, and which is of sufficient importance to arrest and absorb the attention of the public, or of any considerable part of it." These are the conditions which, once fulfilled, make the newspaper the most wonderful production of the times. What energy, what alertness, what intelligence, what comprehensiveness in its pages! All arts and inventions and subtle forces are called into play in its creation: The shorthand characters that preserve the spoken words of the statesman, the minister, the philosopher, or the man of business; the telegraph that transmits; the typewriter that puts copy into form; the linotype that sets the copy and casts the bars from which the impression is made; the electric motor that supplies power and light, and the steam press that throws off tens of thousands of sheets representing the discoveries of science, the inventive genius and mechanical skill contemporaneous with the development of the newspaper. Then look at the contents. Every human interest touched upon, local and general domestic affairs with photographic minuteness, while from the four corners of the earth have been gathered in clear and comprehensive accounts of the achievements and accidents attending human activity during every twelve hours. From Melbourne to Montreal- from St. Petersburg to San Francisco from Valparaiso to Halifax - all are within the magic circle. Space is obliterated. Time may be said in a sense to anticipate the sun. This activity tends not only to the increase of wealth, but to the promotion of a higher civilization. From the two great centers, London and New York, radiate influences that are rapidly revolutionizing governments and promoting a higher social order. The bloody past gives place to a humane policy. Man is the most important factor.

A further reference to the telegraph and the Associated Press, as agencies in the production of a newspaper, will make our story clearer. Not only has been realized the sanguine prophecy uttered in 1846, that it would be possible to transact commercial business between New York and New Orleans through telegraphic advices exchanged daily, but the commercial business of the leading cities of the world is

transacted by telegraph through almost momentary exchange. And what the telegraph is to the commercial world it is to the press. The New York Associated Press, whose organization has been described above, is the center of a combination of nearly all of the leading newspapers of the United States and Canada, known as "The Associated Press." Soon after the close of the war, on account of the meagerness of the service supplied by New York, the great papers of the chief western cities organized "The Western Associated Press," which made more favorable contracts with the Eastern organization and the Western Union Telegraph Company. In January, 1883, still closer relations were formed with the New York Associated Press, by which the management of the two organizations was consolidated for more effective work. Included in "The Associated Press" are the New England, the New York State, the Philadelphia, the Baitimore, the Southern, the Texas, the Kansas and Missouri, the Northwestern, the Trans-Mississippi, and the Colorado Associations. The basis of the Associated Press is coöperation. The papers have associated together for the convenient and economical conduct of one branch of their business. In this manner they have brought the collection of news to a state of great efficiency. The entire world is covered. For convenience in handling reports, despatches are sent to central points, such as Washington, New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Toronto, Chicago, St. Paul, St. Louis, New Orleans, Kansas City, Denver, San Francisco, and Portland, and there edited and such news as is of interest to other sections of the country retransmitted. Only the largest cities receive the bulk of the news; to the smaller places are sent reports carefully condensed. Onlyanextensive telegraph system, such as that of the Western Union Telegraph Company, would meet the requirements of the Associated Press. It renders a service incomparably the best in the world, and, considering the extent of country. and population to the square mile, the cheapest. The facts given below will substantiate this statement.

In the Associated Press system New York is the principal center. From it extend to the east, to the west, to the northwest, to the south, and to the southwest, its leased wires exceeding 10,000 miles in length, which are operated under its own direction, and over which an enormous amount of report is received each day. It is thus practicable for the management to have as direct and prompt intercourse with agents in all of the great cities as with persons in the same office; or with the papers of Boston, Minneapolis, Denver, New Orleans, and other intermediate cities, as quickly as with the

papers of New York City itself. Here is first received the foreign news, except such as comes from China, Japan, and the Samoan Islands, through San Francisco; reports of the commercial transactions of Europe, India, and Australia; of debates in Parliament, in Reichstag, in National Assembly, or Cortes; of industrial and social movements; of the achievements of science, etc., etc. At its office in London, Berlin, or Paris is delivered for its use, as may be most convenient, the news collected by the great news agencies of Europe-Reuter, Wolff, and Havas, and their allies, with which the Associated Press has exclusive contracts. In addition to these, the resources of the Central News of London and the English Press Association are at the service of the Associated Press, which also employs special correspondents in the principal capitals of Europe to collect intelligence of distinctively American interest. These despatches are clearly and concisely expressed, except on occasions of unusual interest, when they are treated as elaborately as domestic reports. Market quotations are always transmitted by cable in an elaborate cipher, to insure accuracy and economy. These are promptly interpreted, verified, and sent out to the press and the various commercialexchanges.

THE WORK OF A SINGLE DAY.

FIGURES will give a clearer idea of the extent of the work performed daily by the Associated Press than any other form of description. The New York office handles daily from 75,000 to 100,000 words, equal to from fifty to seventy columns of matter. On January 13, 1891 (a date taken at random), this news amounted to 95,000 words. Of course, of this mass of material no paper prints the whole; but most of it finds a place somewhere. To meet the requirements of the service, the Associated Press adapted the type-writer to receiving directly from the Morse instrument, and a special paper was made which facilitates the handling of reports. These details may seem of small moment, but they go to show the pains taken to insure perfect work. The agents of the Associated Press, who are selected for character

1 Within the pale of truth, said Jefferson, the press is "a noble institution, equally the friend of science and of civil liberty." In this connection we cite, as affording a curious and striking illustration that inaccuracy of statement is not peculiar to journalists, but may be alleged against many who write books, even historians, who are expected to verify their facts, the use made of the best known of Mr. Jefferson's utterances upon the press. We give below two instances of misquotations, followed by the text' from Jefferson's works:

When Jefferson declared, that if he had to choose between a government without a free press, or a free press without a government, he would prefer the latter, he

and ability, are instructed to get all of the news, but if need be to sacrifice the "story" to the facts in a word, to tell the truth.1 They are required to treat all political and religious events with judicial fairness, and to omit social happenings having an immoral tendency. We do not find that anything is lost to thorough journalism by such limitation, but on the contrary much influence is gained thereby. The Associated Press enjoys the public confidence in its reliability to a degree unapproached by any other organization, and this enhances the value of the franchises of the papers supplied by it. This confidence is based upon an experience of forty years.

The enterprise of the Associated Press has been equal to every emergency. It began to make verbatim reports of the great national conventions of the political parties in 1872. Its descriptions of the scenes occurring in the halls during the sessions of the various conventions were made with such photographic accuracy as to give to the readers of the newspapers in distant cities a clearer idea of what was said and done than was possible to most persons who were actually present. The stenographers, typewriters, and operators followed the speeches and transactions with such rapidity and precision, that within fifteen minutes after the close of each session of 1880, 1884, and 1888, the last sentence was delivered to the papers in the various cities. When Mr. Cleveland was nominated in St. Louis, the Associated Press bulletin announcing the fact was put upon the Western Union wires, and was on the bulletin boards of the newspapers of San Francisco, and other cities, in less than two minutes. And, as a rule, announcements of this kind are generally displayed on the bulletin boards of the newspapers before the fact is known in the convention; the Press reporters keeping tally of the vote do it more quickly than the secretaries of the convention, and generally have the result on the wires before the footing is handed to the reading clerk.

The dynamite explosions of Westminster Hall and London Tower, in the winter of 1885, occurred between two and three o'clock in the afternoon. By ten o'clock New York time the forenoon of the same day, a bulletin reached the Associated Press announcing the explobegged the question twice, etc." A Critical Review of American Politics."

I would rather live in a country with newspapers and without a government, than in a country with a government but without newspapers.- Introduction to Hudson's Journalism in the United States."

What Jefferson did say was:

The basis of our government being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. But I should mean that every man should receive those papers, and be capable of reading them.- Works. Jefferson to Col. Carrington, Paris, Jan. 16, 1877.

sion. That was hardly written and sent to the papers before the details began to follow in frequent despatches. So quick was the service, that one New York afternoon paper before noon had an "extra" on the street with a half-column report of the outrage, while the last editions had accounts filling several columns.

Extraordinary time has been made in transmitting the result of the Oxford-Cambridge boat race to the Associated Press. The despatch must first be sent by the government lines to connect with the cable, thence across the ocean to the American land lines, and thence to New York. Yet this has been done in ten seconds. Mr. Gladstone made his great speech in Parliament in support of his famous Irish bill on the evening of June 7, 1886. The Associated Press cabled from London 13,000 words of this speech, giving large parts of it verbatim. It was doubtless the largest single cable despatch ever sent across the Atlantic. The orator finished speaking soon after ten o'clock London time. By the same hour New York time, ten columns of his speech and of description of scenes and incidents were in every important newspaper office in the United States. The reader will recall the graphic account of the destruction of ships in the harbor of Apia by Mr. John P. Dunning, a staff correspondent of the Associated Press, who had been sent to investigate the political complications in Samoa; the reports of the great flood in the Conemaugh Valley; the report of the destruction of a part of Louisville, and more recently the accounts supplied of the Liberal dissensions in Great Britain, and of the Indian troubles in Dakota.

We have thus far considered only what is known as the "regular" service. The special service of the great newspapers of the principal cities is very large and expensive, and the editor of each is justly proud of what he has accomplished in this field. This spirit of enterprise gives an individuality to the journal which, in a notable case such as Mr. Bennett's sending Stanley to Africa, endures for many years. The "Tribune," the "Times," the "World," and the "Sun" of New York have scored their memorable "beats," and so have the newspapers of Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago, St. Louis, Louisville, and San Francisco. But aside from notable occasions this special service has been, and continues to be, widely extended, covering not only political correspondence from the national capital, but also a great variety of social, business and political events in the States and Territories. Money is not spared to meet the demand of the reading public. A great journal will spend for this class of news between $8000 and $9000 a month, or $100,000 a year in round numbers.

THE WORK OF A GREAT TELEGRAPH SYSTEM.

THE records of the Western Union Telegraph Company may be consulted to show the extent of the expenditures by the individual newspapers and the Associated Press, for telegraphic tolls alone, on this the largest telegraph system.

During the year ending June 30, 1890, the Western Union Telegraph Company delivered at all stations 322,088,438 words of “ regular" or Associated Press report. This was delivered to an average of two newspapers in each place, at an average cost of fifteen cents per one hundred words for each place.1 During the same period the company handled 206,025,094 words of specials, at an average cost of fifty-one cents per hundred words. These figures do not include reports transmitted by the Associated Press over its leased wires, or special correspondence sent on individual newspapers' leased wires. Estimating these two classes and the reports of the outside press, there was delivered to the newspapers during that year an aggregate amount of 1,500,000,000 words of telegraph news. On the regular service a little more than twenty-two per cent. is handled by the telegraph company in the day-time, while on the special service only about five per cent. of the volume is handled in the day-time. The day rate is twice the night rate. On the Associated Press leased wires, the proportions are thirty-four per cent. of day report to sixty-six per cent. of night report, and the difference in cost the same as by Western Union lines. The total press receipts by the telegraph company for the year ending June 30, 1890, including regular, special, and leased wires, were $1,848,247.23.

It should be borne in mind that these figures do not include tolls on other lines, or cable tolls, or the wages of correspondents and operators, or miscellaneous expenses, or the sums paid for news by both individual newspapers and the Associated Press, which would aggregate a very large sum.

One very interesting feature of the news service, of which the public has no knowledge, is telegraphing in cases of storms and interruptions. It is on such occasions that the utility of a vast system is made manifest. During the blizzard of March, 1888, for instance, the Washington report was sent to Philadelphia via New Orleans, Memphis, St. Louis, Chicago, and Pittsburgh; while New York City received it from Albany, it having reached Albany via New Orleans, St. Louis, Chicago, Cleveland, and Buffalo. A more extraordinary case is that of Boston, which received a condensed report

1 This is rendered possible only by the great number of places served on a circuit from thirty to forty being supplied in some cases at the same time.