Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1890-02-27
THE ENGLISH THUNDERER.

A Glimpse of the Interior and Operation OF
the London "Times'-Magnifcent Dis
cipline and System.
From letter In the Brooklyn Eagle, BY
It's London correspondent, describing q
visit to Printing House Square, the fol
lowing extracts are taken:
The editorial room is cut up into various
little offices, where the editorial writers
and the various subordinate editors, re-
viewers, correspondents and reporters dc
their work. Everything is clean and in
good order This floor is devoted exclu-
sively to the editors and writers who are
not intimately connected with the news
service It is a cheerful apartment to
work In. Electricity throws a food OF
light in all corners. At one side of the
big apartment is a comfortably-furnished
council-room, In which there are a big
table, plenty of chairs, bookcase, some
files of newspapers, and the walls are de-
corated with valuable engravings and etch-
ings 1t is In this room that Mr. Walter
and Mr.. Macdonald meet the chiefs of
staff and consult with them upon various
matters relating to the paper.
The floor above is the most interesting
1t is the composing-room. 1t is lighted
with electric lamps and there is an album
dance of room, even for the small army OF
men who are employed there. Opening
out of the composing room is the news
room Here there are quiet Offices, where
the Parliamentary reports are received and
where the local news is edited, and adjoin-
ing is the special telegraph room with
wires running direct to Paris, Berlin, vi
emma, St. Petersburgh and many parts Of
England, Ireland and Scotland.
There are dozen or more telephones
In connecting room and these, the par
liamentary and news reporters use with
great freedom. Indeed, | was surprised
to see that the telephone has been more
generally brought into use by the English
than American newspapers. During the
sessions of Parliament all the night reports
are sent to the Office through this medium.
A stenographer sits at the table just before
the telephone transmitter and takes the
notes as spoken from the Times reporter
in the Commons. There are a score OF
more of these reporters who take turns at
receiving reports. Instead OF transmit
ting them as we do In America they are
taken in turn to men who operate type
setting machines. and are read off to them
as the machine reels out the type, set and
ready to go into the form. The telephone
is used to facilitate the work of getting
OuU Tic PARLIAMENTARY 10pOIo. OuU W pre-
vent errors the reporters In the Commons
take their notes as fully as usual and repair
to the office after adjournment, where they
read the proof, not from the messages sent
over telephone wires, but from their note
books. This checking system prevents
errors in dictation. By the side of the
room where the special wires are is another
| typesettting machine and the Paris letter
of al. de Blowitz is put into type hot from
the wire. These typesetting machines are
quite feature of the Times Office. There
are perhaps dozen of them in use. The
foreman of the composing room told me
that they would set up from five to seven
columns of matter in night.
One man is In charge of all the special
wires and he has wire in direct COM
munication with Reuters office. Without
any fattery, it may be said that this man
can, at a half hours notice, place himself
IN communication with any part of the
globe where the telegraph reaches, and it
is no unusual thing for him to receive,
through Reuter- agency, dispatches from
the interior of India, from China, Japan,
Canada and America, as well as from con-
tinental Europe In one night None OF
the English editors have reached the point
where the telegraph is as Largely or as fire.
quently used as in American journalism.
| DIR. Norvin Green, President of the West
ern Union Telegraph Company, told me a
few months ago that it was nothing I'M
usual for the American newspapers to re-
ceive as much as 100000 words during a
busy day and night in Washington. These
are large figures and would appall an Eng
lish newspaper man; but, on the other hand,
it may be said that no American newspaper
pays as much for telegraph as the Times,
or Standard or the News. When you re-
member that it often costs 50 and some
times So per word from the interior of the
Indian Empire, it will be seen that gather
ing news in the distant part of the Queen S
dominion is expensive.
There are employed In the composing
room of the Times eighty men. Not all
of them are used In setting type; a
large force is required to classify the
small advertisements that form so i'm
portant part of that newspaper Some
of these are paid by the day, some by the
make good wages. | asked the young man
who was showing me over the building
about the editorial force. He said that the
Times had nearly one hundred men In
London on its payroll These furnish
editorials, reviews, reports of all kinds and
special work Its number of foreign cor.
respondents he said, was so large that he
could not tell the number except by
reference to book In the business office.
And you may rest assured" he said
''that the Times has a correspondent II
every city of Importance In continental
Europe. These men are IN cOmmunlca
ton with the office and receive instruc
tions regularly. 1t often happens thai
they are not required to send dispatches
because the news may not warrant it; they
forward letters to the Office once or twice
week, and are In perfect discipline and sc
well know what the Times wants that they
never make the mistake of flooding the
Office with unimportant matter. Some o.
them are paid salaries, others are paid fol
what matter is used.
''In Great Britain it is different Every
telegraph operator In the Dominion is IL
the Times service. He understands tina
we will pay more for news than any othel
paper in London, and we always have frs
choice of anything that is going on. II
all of the big cities of the Kingdom W,
have regular correspondents. These ar,
paid by the week or month. At a rough
guess | should say that the correspondent
of the Times throughout the world, meal
men who can be called upon at an hour
notice, and can be depended upon to d.
, good work, number 5000.
One thing that strikes the visitor allow
all others in the Times office is the mag
nifcent discipline and system. There i
no Yelling or confusion, or no rushing O
men here, there and everywhere. The.
are trained like Bismarcks soldiers, ant
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