The Daily bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Hawaii]) 1882-1895, 1891-06-02


Regarding the Progress of the Illness
of One Whom the World Calls Great.
"Reminiscences of Working Journalist.
Especial Correspondence
NEW YORK, Feb 19.-Tbe myriad of
people that make up the army of news
paper readers of the United States read
a few days ago of the serious illness Of
Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman. Sub
seouent editions of the papers informed
them regularly of his condition, but it is
not likely that one in a thousand even SO
much as wondered how the reports of
the dying soldiers last hours were OBJ
tanned.
As soon as the serious illness of the
general was announced, the newspaper
reading public unconsciously expected to
be supplied with all the news on the sub
'ject, as a matter of course. How was
this news supplied? Who gathered the
information regarding the occurrences
in the sick chamber, the opinions of the
attending physicians from time to time
and all the other data for the newspaper
TepOTLS!
To person outside the newspaper
world these questions would most likely
prove hopeless riddles. To newspaper
man they suggest one of the most trying,
exhausting and thankless branches of
newspaper work-reporting the serious,
and probably fatal illness of public
character in whose condition the world
at large is deeply interested. The re-
porter SO engaged must be constantly on
the lookout for the death of the person
whose illness he is covering" since his
position on the particular newspaper
staff to which he is attached would be
surely forfeited were the sick man or
woman to pass away, and he long re-
main in ignorance of that all important
fact. Probably this is why this branch
of newspaper reporting is known i'll tech
nical parlance as "death watch" duty.
As rule it is only in metropolitan
cities that newspaper "death watches"
are set, but in exceptional cases, when
person of great prominence is lying i'll
in provincial city or country district,
reporters and correspondents for leading
journals in that section of the country
are detailed to remain as near as posi-
BILE to the sick man until convalescCA.ce
just about nine years since such a
'sdeath watch" was set at Elberon, N.
j., the subject being no less parsonage
than the president of the United States,
James A. Garfield. Every one remem-
bers the detailed reports and frequent
bulletins of the dying presidents condi-
ton, which were published in every pa
per i'll the land.
About four years later the newspa-
pers teened with bulletins from the bed
side of a man whose name was known
throughout the civilized world, Gen.
q. S. Grant.
In this case the ''death watch" was
kept up for months instead of weeks,
and when the failing hero of the civil
war was borne to Mount McGregor,
thither followed the reporters who had
done duty in front of or near his New
York city residence. 1t is too long a
story to be told here, but an account of
the systematic watch which the score
and more of newspaper men kept up on
the house in which Gen. Grant was
slowly dying, and the incidents of that
watch, would be to the umnitiated rev.
elation. What these tireless, indefati-
gable and sympathetic newspaper men
saw and learned each day was spread
before the reading public of two conti-
nents. Often a single paragraph repre-
sented the labor of an entire cold, cheer
less and seemingly endless night, and the
public little knew when it read the SIM
pie announcement, "Gen. Grant passed
quiet night" that that sentence was a
summary of the news obtained by an all
night watch.
When the inevitable end came, and the
world read the sad words, "Gen. Grant
died this morning." did any one picture
the solitary newspaper man, who first
learned the news by private signal
from the house in which the dead hero
lay, dashing over the rough mountain
road to the telegraph Office, bearing in
formation which was an instant later
flashed to every corner of the civilized
world, or the telegraph operator click
ing off the fateful sentence with fingers
trembling like an aspen leaf? Dramatic
and stirring as was this situation, it was
but one of many which the reporters
who were ION the Grant death watch"
will remember to the last day of their
lives
Since the illness of Gen. Grant the
most notable death watches" set by the
New York papers have been those in the
cases of Miss Catharine Wolff, ex-Sena-
tor Roscoe Conkling, Jacob Sharp and
Congressman Samuel S. Cox, though
there have been q number of less nota-
BILE instances. In three of the cases
mentioned the watch was necessarily
maintained for several days or weeks,
and the work was thoroughly system
atized. For weeks and weeks not a day
or night went by that dozen or SO
newspaper men did not mount the steps
of Miss VOLTS residence during her last
illness, carefully examine tbs tag at
tached to the door bell and marked,
Don't ring; no change" and silently
depart
Roscoe Conklings illness was not quite
SO protracted, but for nearly three weeks
there was not an instant of the day or
night that the house in which the for
mer New York senator lay was not un-
der the eye of one or more reporters.
The men who represented the press asso-
Citations served twelve hour watches, the
different men from each association re-
heving each other twice day. The day
"trick"-from a. IN. to p. m.--was
not 80 bad. for there was a life in the
streets which broke the monotony; but
none save those who did that weary,