Arizona republican., 1904-06-30
The War News.

Japanese war lasts a year it will cost and Great Britain at least s10,00O,000
 It is only the papers printed in Eng fish which go to the enormous expense of gathering war news. The continen- tai publications rely chiefly on the in- formation given out at St. Petersburg. and only occasionally print a brief special dispatch from the far east.
 And the worst of it is that much of the expense borne by American and English papers is for nothing. Repre- senting the great dailies there are doz- ems of special correspondents in the field, while the Associated Press has at least a hundred. Readers of The Republican who take in the war news at the breakfast table with their cof- fee and cantaloupes every morning are likely to give little thought to the trouble and expense which the dis patches before them represent. They are likely to complain, rather, that the news from the seat of war is brief and unsatisfactory. As they read. for in stance dispatch from Kurokis head quarters in the field or from Tokio, they do not realize that the words which at last appear on the printed page. have, within a few hours, been brought from the front by Korean run ners Conly Kuroki's official reports are wired from the front by field tele- graph), have passed through the hands of Japanese censors-who have ex- tracted most of the "meat"-and have travelled thousands of miles along the bottom of the sea, and hundreds Of miles along wires strung through half civilized lands, and have been handled by telegraph operators of half a dozep different nationalities.
 And every word of this Japanese news costs 65 cents. News from the Russian side comes by way of the land telegraph, alongside the Trans Siberian railroad, and is distributed from St. Petersburg. But readers have doubtless noticed that practically everything from the Russian side has an official origin-the poor correspond nifty to send anything. Dispatches to the Associated Press are paid for by that association, which in turn col lects from the papers that 1t serves. The paperswhich maintain special cor respondents in the field usually try to lessen the expense by "syndicating" the dispatches received. They serve other papers with the special matter, and If it is very important they query" papers generally and may make many quick sales of the story late at night. But it is a sad fact that the special men have been able to send little of value In addition to what is transmitted by the Associated Press. and it is seldom that The Republican finds 1t worth while to buy the special dispatches. Incidentally, the mere mention of these facts Is enough to in- dicate the marvellous rapidity with which the news Is gathered and dis seminated. For example, the dispatches from the far east often arrive in this country in the late hours of the night, | but they are instantly transmitted to the offices of all the papers belonging l to the Associated Press, are put into l readable shape by telegraph editors, | sent to the printing machines and put ] into type. locked up in the forms, and sent to the press, whence they appear | in papers printed and folded ready for the early mails.
 But we started to tell something Of the route followed by these dispatches i between the time they started from the Japanese sphere of operations last | night and the time they are read in The Republican at breakfast this morning.
 The tiny electric impetus put in mo- | ton by the key of the operator in far | Nagasaki. for Instance. which is the principal cable station of Japan, | instantly plunges under the east ern sea and come to land in China, | near Shanghai, 47s miles away. Then | that little throb works southward | round the China coast to Hongkong, | 945 miles. At Hongkong (British) it | dives under the China sea to Saigon, | in Anam (French), s51 miles. from Saigon it crosses the bed of the sea to | Singapore CBritish), 62e miles. Or 1t | might go by way of Labuan, Borneo | (British) 1871 miles.
 
 nang (39S miles), and then a great | plunge westward through the wild | Nicobars and under the tropic Bengal | sea u.3Ss miles). to Madras. At Madras 1t takes to tie land until it comes to Bombay