Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1890-10-25
REMARKABLE DISPATCH OF NEWS.

Union also, until half around the globe
the vitalizing influence of clear-headed
and pushing man of business is felt upon
the postal routes connecting with our own.
But we had no idea that this all-per-
vading influence in postal systems had so
far operated in conserving news dispatches
as to outstrip the telegraph. But we have
before US the black and white proofs that
the mail outruns the electric current that
feeds the news departments of some of our
contemporaries.
A most striking instance, and one that is
illustrative of many, we find in the San
Francisco Chronicle of Saturday last. On
that day there appeared in that journal
telegraph news item of a quarter of col
umn, dated New York, October 18th, and
Endorsed Special Dispatch to the Ctroni-
cle" So valuable did our contemporary
deem this news item, that it was given the
Importance of triple head" and sensa-
tional display in large type.
The story of the special, which it would
be uncharitable to even suspect of having
been transmitted by grape vine," was that
of German woman who navigated
bark for forty days, aided only by one sea-
man, and who brought the ship safely into
port. Her husband, the Captain, and all
the crew but the one assistant referred to,
had sickened and died with the Mauritius
fever She was left with child of years
to care for, and the entire responsibility of
handling the ship for nearly six weeks,
during which time terrific gales were en-.
countered, and the ship was more than
once well nigh lost.
A graphic tale, and well told it was.
The names of the ship and the heroine
were given and the details recited with all
possible dramatic effect. This romantic
dispatch was dated New York, as stated,
and the reader was left to infer that the
article was news that had just reached that
port-eIse why should it have been tele-
graphed across the continent as "spe
cial?" Moreover. it is not shown by this
veracious dispatch" into what "haven Of
safety" the brave woman nayigated the
ship. True, it is stated that the vessel
left Mauritius for Melbourne, and it is told
at the close that Mrs. Mainders, who is
only q years of age, brought the ship into
"a haven of safety" The average reader
would naturally conclude that ii was some
port near to this continent, and not Mel
bourne, from which the news was for
warded to New York, where the wide
awake reporters and specials gathered it
in and flashed it across the continent to
stir the sympathies of Californians
Unfortunately, however, for the in
tegrity of the Special as dispatch and
sensation in the way of enterprise in Sc
curing fresh news, the United States and
the English mails outstripped the wire
used in forwarding the item. The identi-
cal story, word for word, excepting only
single short sentence-as shown later on
was first published in the Melbourne, Aus
tralia, papers, as into that port Mrs.
Margherita Mainders piloted the ship.
From Melbourne the story went
to London, where it was print
ed in the Pail Mall Gazette.
On the 9th of October the Chicago Inter-
Ocean clipped it from the London paper
and printed it. On the 18th of October
an exchange editor of the REcoRD-UNIoN
scissored it from the Inter- Ocean and put it
aside for use as miscellany. On the 18th
of October it appeared in the San Fran
cisco Chronicle, as stated, as special tele-
graphic dispatch from New York.
1t must be confessed that the natural
impulse, restrained however by charitable
disposition, was to say that the dispatch"
like many another of the kind, never
came from New York, but was given to
print in San Francisco by the aid of such an
agency as that which severed it from the
columns of the Inter- Ocean in the RECORD
UNION Office. This uncharitable impulse
was not little fortified by the singular fact
that this ungraceful and peculiar sentence,
showing what the "safe haven" was, was
omitted from the special"
1t remains to be noted that the good people of
Melbourne have determined that the suffering
of a widow and a woman shall be lightened by
all the ways that are within the working of
humans.
Of course, the omission was not the re-
suit of design in order to make the dis
patch" better Special" but was due to
the good judgment of the shrewd editor
who clothed the summer-old story with
the freshness of news, for he realized what
marvelously- reconstructed sentence it is,
that widow must perforce be woman,
and that the working of humans" is
something past finding out, even by use of
underground wire news dispatch methods.
This instance of the mail outstripping
the Geographic service is recited not, of
course, to cast even the shadow of sus-
picion upon the ways that are dark by
which Geographic news is sometimes, in
deed oftimes, manufactured for mammoth
and sensational sheets. On the contrary,
the sole purpose of the recital is to prove
how greatly Mr.. Wanamaker and the for
eign Postmasters-General have improved
the postal service.
Mrs. LELAND STANFORD has placed in
St. Paups Church in this city beautiful
memorial window, in memory of her de-
ceased son, who was born in Sacramento.
The beautiful and costly structure of
stained glass, bearing allegorical figures
richly worked out, was completed yeSter-