198 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



of newspaper combination that ultimatel}' made the buying and 

 selling of news a great commercial enterprise. AVithin a few years 

 after the close of the war this system had been developed until 

 practically all the daily newspapers of the country were inter- 

 ested in it or subscribers to the news collected and sold. This 

 feature of the business continued to grow until agencies for the 

 collection and transmission of news were established throughout 

 the world. Similar associations were formed in England and on 

 the continent of Europe, and news exchanged with the American 

 organization. In the United States the business was developed 

 until newspapers of particular sections of the country and even 

 those of single States formed associations on the principle of mu- 

 tual benefit for the collection of full reports of all important events 

 within the territory where they circulated. At the present time 

 the system has been perfected until the great news agencies of the 

 country receive reports of important events from every quarter of 

 the globe with a degree of promptness and accuracy rendered pos- 

 sible only by thoroughness of organization and the constant exer- 

 cise of the keenest intelligence. The collection of all the news 

 of the world would not be possible under any other plan, but the 

 American newspapers, having created a demand for the news, were 

 the first to devise a system of obtaining it promptly at a cost that 

 made possible the publication of daily papers at a profit in almost 

 every towm in the country. Brief reports of all important events 

 are transmitted by cable or telegraph to a central office in Kew 

 York, Washington, or Chicago, where they are condensed or elabo- 

 rated, as occasion may require, and then sent out over special tele- 

 graph wires to papers all over the country that are subscribers to 

 the service. The larger papers of the country, however, do not 

 rely upon this service alone. They are represented by special 

 correspondents not only in all the chief cities of the United States, 

 but in London. Paris, Berlin, and other news centers of the Old 

 World. 



The development of the newspaper into a medium for record- 

 ing day by day every event of human interest was so rapid during 

 the civil war and the stirring times immediately thereafter that 

 many faults of form and detail remained. The journalism of that 

 period was a new departure, and the men who created it had no 

 precedent to guide them, but all the time there was a steady and 

 intelligent effort to improve in all directions. The efforts of the 

 leading men in the profession, influenced by conditions and sur- 

 roundings, resulted in the creation of what were for a time known 

 as schools of journalism — that is, one man set up an ideal, and 

 another man strived to create a journal of another character. The 



