636 



NEWSPAPERS. 



NEW YORK (STATE). 



the good-will of the organization (which is 

 not a corporation) is estimated to be worth 

 $2,000,000. 



It was in 1849, also, that Bnron Jules Ren- 

 ter, a Prussian, founded the now well-known 

 Router's Telegram Company. This was in 

 London, and the innovation was not popular, 

 the leading London newspapers refusing to 

 accept his news. Baron Renter was forced to 

 confine himself to giving merely financial in- 

 telligence, until, in 1859, he succeeded in mak- 

 ing a coup, which at once gave him the impetus 

 required to insure his success. He had the 

 good fortune to be the first to communicate to 

 the London newspapers a report of the speech 

 made by Napoleon III to the Austrian ambas- 

 sador, a speech that was the immediate pre- 

 lude to the Italian War; and this success re- 

 sulted in Renter's telegrams being accepted by 

 the London newspapers. Their patronage soon 

 spread, being extended from London to other 

 parts of the United Kingdom, and these tele- 

 grams now form the chief source of the foreign 

 news-supply for all provincial papers. Ren- 

 ter's Agency was converted into a limited com- 

 pany in 1864, and now has a vast number of 

 correspondents scattered over Europe, Asia, 

 Africa, and America. Nearly every day, Reu- 

 ter's Agency supplies two or three columns of 

 foreign news to the British press. If a war 

 breaks out, or any specially important event is 

 to take place anywhere, special correspondents 

 are immediately dispatched to the scene, pre- 

 cisely as is done by the London journals. The 

 exclusive distribution of all Reuter's telegrams 

 to the provinces is in the hands of the Press 

 Association in London. This organization was 

 founded in 1868, when, by act of Parliament, 

 the telegraph system of Great Britain passed 

 into the hands of the Government. Provisions 

 of the act afforded the press important advan- 

 tages in the cheap transmission of news, and 

 provincial newspapers at once formed them- 

 selves iato this Association, which still exists, 

 with headquarters in London, and connections 

 in every town of any consequence in the Unit- 

 ed Kingdom. It has a manager, editors, sub- 

 editors, and a large staff of reporters, for the 

 collection, condensation, and distribution of 

 news. It has a network of correspondents 

 spread over the country, so that, on events of 

 importance occurring, even in obscure villages, 

 the details are quickly transmitted to the head- 

 office in London, and thence retransmitted, 

 after being carefully edited, to clients all over 

 the kingdom. The Central News Agency, 

 founded by W. Saunders, M. P., is also located 

 in London, and is managed precisely in the 

 same manner as the Press Association, except 

 that it has recently begun to collect and dis- 

 tribute foreign as well as domestic news, thus 

 coming into competition with Reuter's Agency. 

 There is also in London the National Press 

 Agency, which has a printing-office of its own, 

 and supplies columns of news, or a u London 

 k-tter," stereotyped, to weeklies and bi-week- 



lies, besides printing political pamphlets and 

 leaflets for the Liberal party. The youngest 

 English press association is the Exchange 

 Company, established a dozen years ago in 

 London, originally for the supply of Stock- 

 Exchange quotations through the " tape," 

 which now is so far extended in its service as 

 to supply general news, and sporting and par- 

 liamentary intelligence. This company has 

 central offices in Liverpool, Manchester, and 

 some other large towns. Even the collection 

 of local news in the large cities has, in the 

 United States, fallen into the hands of organi- 

 zations, of which O'Rourke's City Press Asso- 

 ciation in New York is the oldest and most 

 important. This may be considered a branch 

 of the Associated Press, as the two work to- 

 gether. The City Press has a large staff of 

 editors, copy-readers, and reporters, and covers 

 the whole of New York, the annexed district, 

 and Westcheeter County. The news, as it 

 comes over the wires to the Press Associations, 

 or is brought in (if local) by reporters, is man- 

 ifolded on thin tissue-paper or "flimsy," as it 

 is irreverently termed, and in this form is dis- 

 tributed to the different newspapers, either by 

 messenger-boys or through the pneumatic tube. 

 In the newspaper-offices this is placed in the 

 hands of editors, and is carefully edited, being 

 u cut " or expanded, or united to the dispatches 

 forwarded by special correspondents on the 

 same topics, as the case may be. Often, if the 

 u special " is better or fuller than the Associ- 

 ated Press news, the latter is discarded alto- 

 gether. Of course, the system has its faults. 

 It may sometimes be placed or fall into the 

 hands of designing persons, and be employed 

 for nefarious purposes. So news may be 

 garbled, falsely told, or not told at all, where 

 there is an object or an interest to subserve 

 by such action. But, taken altogether, the in- 

 stitution is one of vital importance, generally 

 well conducted, and certainly one that the 

 press and the public would find it very difficult 

 to do without, and verv costly to replace. 



NEW YORK (STATE). " State Government. The 

 following were the State officers during the 

 year: Governor, David B. Hill, Democrat; 

 Lieutenant-Governor, Edward F. Jones; Sec- 

 retary of State, Frederick Cook; Comptrol- 

 ler, Alfred C. Chapin; Treasurer, Lawrence 

 J. Fitzgerald; State Engineer and Surveyor, 

 Elnathan Sweet ; Attorney - General, Denis 

 O'Brien; Superintendent of Public Instruc- 

 tion, Andrew S. Draper; Superintendent of 

 Public Works, James Shanahan; Superin- 

 tendent of the Banking Department, Willis 

 S. Paine ; Superintendent of Prisons, Isaac 

 V. Baker, Jr. ; Railroad Commissioners, John 

 D. Kernan, William E. Rogers, and John 

 O'Donnell; Commissioner of Statistics of La- 

 bor, Charles F. Peck; Superintendent of In- 

 surance, Robert A. Maxwell; State Dairy 

 Commissioner, Josiah K. Brown ; Civil-Serv- 

 ice Commissioners, Augustus Schoonmaker, 

 Henry A. Richmond, and John Jay; State 



