The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1888-03-24
HERALDING SHIPS.
How the Maritime News Is Collected
and Distribu ed Daily.

How the Maritime News Is Collected
and Distributed Daily.
All the news lovers of this great city,
says the New York Graphic, do not read
the two or three columns that make up the
marine intelligence in most of the great
dailies. The coming and going of ships
over the great seas have not much of special
interest for the ordinary citizen, and yet
there are thousands who watch that corner
of the paper with an an attention that they
pay to no other portion of the news.
1t is easy enough to ascertain the time
OF the arrivals and departures Of vessels
from their docks along the piers, but how
is the history of the incoming ships voyage
spread out before the people in the Journals
long before the vessel has anchored safely
in the bay
0verhanging the water down in Battery
park, just away from the surge and hustle
around Castle Garden, is little square
built, brown-stone building with big sign
on the entrance that tells the passer-by
that there is the ''ship news office.
Brown-faced men with sunburned noses,
weather-beaten faces, and general air of
looseness and hitching about their attire,
lounge in and out occasionally, and the
stairs and rooms of the little place have a
salty, ship-like look about them There
are two or three reporters and a superin-
tendent, who look a good deal like amateur
sea-dogs themselves, and there is general
sprinkling of tobacco juice and emphatic
expletives in the air that gives one some
idea of ships forecastle.
The happenings of the seas is gathered
together, told in columns or condensed into
paragraph in this waterside building
This is how it is done.
Down at Sandy Hook, on the best point
of observation along that part of the coast,
there is watch-tower that is never left
untenanted
Day and night lone sentinel turns his
eyes toward the blue waters and notes the
coming and the going of ships. The dain-
test little pleasure yacht catches his eye
and so also does the great transatlantic
steamer, and the operator beside lin sends
on the wings of liz ghtning the news of the
incoming craft to the ship news Office long
before the vessels spars have shadowcd the
hook.
As the ship passes up toward Quarantine
the Associated Press tug swings out to
meet her, and from the deck of the boat
the captain of the craft is hailed and 1ues-
toned. Where does he come from? What
cargo has he on board? To whom con-
signed Has he any prominent people on
board, and what kind of weather did he
have? Did he meet any other vessels, and
what did they tell him? These and a
dozen more questions are thrown upon the
deck of the vessel and at its master in
voice in which only the ship reporter can
shrek them forth.
And they are answered promptly, cheer
fully and gladly, for every master of
vessel knows the owners ccensigpees, and
his own friends are watching the column
of ship news carefully to note his safe
arrival and to learn the story of his voyage.
Sometimes, especially from the great
ocean steamers, package is hove to the
news boat and no questions are necessary.
A passenger list, copy of the ships log,
memoranda of everything remarkable or Of
a newsy nature on the voyage, letters to
editors from passengers who want some
especial notoriety, and whose friends have
not sailed down with tug and brass
band to meet them, everything worth
telling to the public is one way or another
gathered up by that little boat dancing
along the choppy and often stormy waters
in daylight or darkness by the side of the
homecoming ship,
The news once gathered, the press boat
swings away to the Staten Island shore,
and if time is pressing the whole budget
sings over the wires to the little brown
house in Battery park, where it is edited,
manifolded, and laid upon editorial desks
in the newspaper offices, put into type, and
printed for millions of readers before the
ship comes within sight of the big city.
1t is cherries life for the boys in the
tall observatory on the coast at Sandy Hook
for there is no more desolate outlook on
the Atlantic coast than that same spot
Yet the corps of newsgathers there and at
Quarantine which is an almost equally
cherries spot, seldom changes.
Most of them are men in middle age,
without families, and have grown to like
the rough, careless, and seadog life they
live on the coast or in the cabin of their
little tug, or lounging on the seashore
watching the far-way horizon and its vision
of coming ships.