The Hawaiian gazette., 1894-09-14
HOW THE NEWS COMES.
Long Journey of War Messages
From China to New York.


| Orient, in reaching readers in New
York newspapers travels over $50,
miles.
Pekin is exactly due east or west o
| New York, as you choose, being OF
the same parallel of latitude ana bu'
20 deg. nearer to the west than TO the
east, and Hongkong is as far south Of
| Pekin as Havana is from New YORK
! So il there were an airline telegraph
| TO the Chinese capital the message
! telling that war had been formally
! declared between the Japanese and the
/ Johns would only have TO fly little
matter of something like 20O0 miles.
But it is by many and devious
paths, under tropical seas and over
| black Asiatic mountain ranges, across
the dark stretch of Persia, through
the land of che Arabian Nights
across the Caucasian Mountain, skirt
ing around the lonely shores of the
Black Sea, up through the country OF
the Danube, across Austria, across
Germany, across France to England,
and from England, in its last and final
deep-water pludgc under the North
Atlantic to Coney 1sland-over all
these weary leagues OF land and sea
the signalled words are rushing on
their way to the telegraph offices in
the United States.
No matter what the name of the
town in China the message is dated
as coming from, it is Hongkong that
is the great cable clearing house.
Here it is the messages are dumped
into the sea, not touching land again
I'm tho m O rs nv
shores of Singapore. 1t is only about
half mile in some places from Sing
apore to the Malacca Peninsula, and
the books say that tigers go across,
and as they hardly sail over in cat
boats they must swim. So the mes
sage you read at breakfast may very
we'll have flashed under the tawny
belly of tiger, for the books cannot
tell lie. And they are very bad
tigers, too, these tigers of the Straits,
with a weakness for fresh Cinnamon,
the books again saying that the tigers
count upon one Chinaman day from
Singapore, the Singapore Cinnamon
having apparently a particularly fine
flavor to make the tigers swim so far
for him.
But the words which flashed under
the bad tiger as he splashed along on
his leisurely way to luncheon are in
type before he has got ashore and
found tender Chinaman to his taste,
for there is a man at Singapore who
catches them as they rush in out of
the wet and sends them hurting back
into the water again, whence they
leap up to the bold coast of denselv
wooded Penang, at the entrance of the
Malacca Straits. Here they catch a
long breath for a dive across another
sea to Madras, away down in Southern
India.
With the exception of two brief
pluDges-One up to and partly through
the Persian Gulf, and the other under
the English Chanuel-it is all land
travel tor thousands of leagues after
leaving Madras. The first heat is
little skip of $40 miles northwestward
across India to. Bombay. Then the
story takes to the water again, until
it rushes out at white walled, plague
infested, filthy Bushire, on the Persian
Gulf. Sinbad's rocs and Persian Gulf
whales that looked like islands and
loadstone mountains are mere hum
drum affairs compared with this cable
message journey. Sinbad could face
out a pretty goodsized sea yarn, but
he would have drawn the line at such
performances as now are everyday
occurrences right in his own Stamping
ground.
Perhaps there is just a gossiping
moment or two of rest for the message
at Bushire. 1t is the Botany Bay of
cable operators-Bushire. They get
the Bushire station sometimes, when
the management thinks they need a
little quiet life away from temptation;
and the climate of Bushire is not cal
culated to inspire violent form of
energy. So, we will say there are
fifteen seconds for refreshments at
Bushire, and then off the flying train
of words goes to lofty Shiraz, nearly
five thousand feet above the level
of the sea. But there Is no stop
at ShiraZ. Teheran is the place
where the story changes wires. From
Teheran it leaps the Caucasus, skips
around the eastern and northern
shores of the Black Sea, flashes
through much battered Sevastapol,
and so on to Odessa, where il is
switched TO another wire that carries
it through the Balkan provinces to
Austria, Germany, France and Lon
don, whence it is flung to Lands End,
on the bleak Cornish coast of Eng
land, and there it takes long breath
for its final plunge down among the
whales and sharks and rotting bones
of dead ships and dead men at the bot
tom of the North Atlantic, to be greet
q at last by the operator at the Am
erican end of the cable.
An hour is a reasonably long time
for word to make this journey from
China, and as many message, before
the China-Japan war is over is likely
to take more than an hour in the
sending, it may very well happen that
the front end of the story is being
frozen into cold type while the rear
end is kissing into the sea at PARKWAY
HOngkong. Operators at Hongkong,
Penang, Madras, Bombay,
Bushire, Teheran, Odessa, London,
Lands End and Coney Island are all
ticking away at the same time on the
same message which American news
paper compositors are putting into
type, though it not infrequently hap
pens that London works directly with
Teheran without any break on the
European continent.
The messages from Japan go, as
rTl 10 nndpr the sea tn NlaniUOGtOpE