Pawtucket tribune. (Pawtucket, R.I.) 1890-189?, 1893-12-13
COX'S BLUNDER.


telephoned "tips" of big fires as soon as
the alarms were rung-that had called,
and IL sent word that a crowded east side
tenement house was burning. There would
be loss of life among the children, the
fiimsy bureau said.
Most OF the reporters had gone out on
their early assignments, and the fact that
there wa1Spt n man In the Office TO whom
he could 7ntrust so important an affair
with the exception of Cox made Half
mann's always ruflled temper still worse.
The necessity of giving the outlaw so
profitable an assignment made him especi-
ally sarcastic.
~ am very sorry TO trouble you, Mr.
Cox, F" he said, "but l wish you would try
20 get me some kind Of story about
fire there is in a tenement house up in
Rivington street. Do you think you can
do iti"
Cox stopped to light his cigarette, and
after having carefully shaken himself into
his overcoat he walked out. He boarded
an elevated railroad train and was at the
scene of the fire in 10 minutes. He was at
a telephone 10 minutes later talking to
his city editor
al shall want eight columns for this
story" he said, with an excellent assump-
tion of breathless excitement, to which,
however, Halfmann was proof Three
children have been burned to death, sew
eral fatally injured by jumping from the
windows, and about 20 women and chill
dren are missing"
"All right" answered the unmoved
city editor, "Ill put it on the schedule for
a column anda half Have your copy In
by 10 o'clock"
Gov want m tba naaraGt an loon tvbara
he found the reporters sent to the fire from
the other newspaper Offices, and they play
ed pinochle for the drinks for an hour or
two. Then they went out and told the
chief of the fire department that they
wanted to use his carriage for awhile, and
the chief told his driver To take them
wherever they wanted to 20. The six re-
porters crowded in and were driven around
to the police station. There they got from
the sergeant in charge the names of the
killed as reported by the police, the official
estimate of the loss by fire and a list OF
the injured, with the names of the various
hospitals to which they had been taken.
Next they drove TO the residence of Banker
Keane, who owned the burned houses, and
as he happened to be otherwise under the
necessity of dining alone that evening he
asked them all to dine with him an hour
later, when they could get statement Of
the insurance and some interesting details
about the old houses.
The fire chiefs driver took each of the
gang to his lodgings, and then gathered
them up again after they had time TO get
into their dress clothes, setting them down
at the Keane house Just as the bankers
dinner was ready to be put on the table.
1t was a jolly stag dinner party, and the
banker told his guests great many in
teresting stories about the old houses that
had been burned. Dinner over, the re-
porters made hurried round of the hos
pitfalls to which the injured had been
taken and got from the hospital physi-
clans tho stories Of those who were old
enough to relate their experiences, and
also the names of the victims who had
died after being taken to the hospitals.
Cox got back to The Giraffe Office about
$3.50 o'clock and found the three short
hand writers who had been told to help
him all ready with their pencils sharpened
at both ends.
"Baby Bocallininni got no milk" he
began as he took off his coat, spelling the
name out so that the shorthand writer,
who began taking notes at once, would get
IL right.
fire, explaining how cat had tipped over
the oil lamp on which Baby Bocallininni's
6-year-old sister was warming milk for the
infant, and set the house afire. As Cox
talked he took drawing paper and india
ink from his desk and began TO sketch the
thrilling scenes of the fire, the firemen
fighting the flames from their ladders, the
great portable water towers pouring their
torrents into the blazing structure through
the upper windows and the children tum-
bling through the clouds Of smoke TO the
life nets the ilremen stretched i'm the street
below. He sketched a groupo Of the injured
children in their cots in the hospital and
cat with its tail curled into letter B
for the initial letter of the striking line
that began the article.
AS he drew he rapidly dictated the nc
count of the fire to the stenogra piers. Fif-
teen minutes before IL the pile of type
written copy and the engraver's proofs OF
the "cuts" were lying on the desk before
Black, the pale, schoolboyish looking night
city editor, who had the reputation of be-
Ing able to scent an inaccuracy clear
across City Hall park.
He glanced rapidly through the copy,
and handing 1t TO one of the copy readers
said: "Cut that down to so inches Of space
and writea 10 inch scare head for It. Here
are the headlines used in the evening pa
pers. Don't use any words that are used
In any of them"
Cox came into the Office at 4 80 the next
day. His fire article had made nearly
az columns-about $40 worth of space
and he did not see any necessity for work
ing that day. IIalfmann spoke to him
pleasantly. This was unprecedented. There
was no paper lying on his desk, and Cox
felt uneasy as he noticed it. In all the 18
months he had been a reporter on The
Giraffe he had never missed the paper be-
fore. He found a letter in his letter box.
u read:
Mr.. Cox Is informed by direction of the man.
aging editor that his services are no longer
Quired.
Mr.. Cox will be paid one months salary in
addition TO such space rate earnings due TO
him upon presenting this note TO the cashier.
Mr.. Cox, in an article about fire in Riving-
ton street published in The Giraffe OF this date,
spelled the name of Mr.. Heinrich Smyth-
"Smith."
Arthur Spery in Idler.