Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1914-01-21
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correspondents Tn MeX1cO nave beer threatened with deportion as "per. ] nicious foreigners" as provided i1 Article 5 of the Constitution of the United States of Mexico, i fthey dc not mend their ways and desist from sending out false news, as it is alleg. ed they have been doing. As mat
 ter of fact, the foreign correspond
 cnt now in Mexico have been at great painu to secure and send out the truth, the whole truth and nothing
 but the truth, and that is just where he shoe pinches. It is we'll under stood among the correspondents that any news of rebel successes, of fin aEcjal near -panics, of business de- pre- ssion, of federal losse, of any thing not wholly favorable to the government, will be denied by the government, and, consequently, branded as false news" So any cor respondent caught sending out such facts is liable to be adjudged a per nic,ous foreigner" and sent out of the country for the country's good.
 The truer the news he sends the more dangerous it is considered, u2- less it should happen to be favorable to the government and true at the same time, a combination rather diff ficult to botain from day to day. If the correspondents were content to follow the lead of the local news papers and use only such reports of the cival war as are given out off cial'y in the capital, all would be we'll, but unfortunately the cores pondents are correspondents, and not pressagents for the Mexican govern menl, and their business is to get at the truth and tell it to the world, no mater who approves or disapproves.
 A striking example of the differ e:lce between the news as officially provided by the Mexican government and the real news-that is, the truth --ie that of the attack of the Carran- cistas on Tampico i1s December, that was done there and the final with drawal of the rebels. The official reports, for publication in the local press and for the use of foreign cor respondents, told in detail how sev- eral. thousand Garrancistas attacked thd city from the. tenth to the thir- .e6l.h of December. fought like demons trying to take it, and finally were repulsed by the we., directed artillery fire of the batteries ia the city, assisted by cannonading from the gunboats. It told how the panic stricken rebels skedaddled towards the north, closely pursued by the fed eral cavalry and how when night fell December 18th, fully eighteen hun dred rebels lay dead along the route of their flight. One account, sent out by a gulliable correspondent, stated that "the buzzards which inhaDlr the Mexican cost and which for sehera- tions have been protected by law, tloated today over the battlefields in numbers so great as to present the appearance of low-lying black clouds" Which prompted another correspondent to remark that the 'lowEying" was all right, but he doubted the buzzards and the black clouds, for as matter of fact, it is we'll known that the buzzards won't eat dead Mexicans, and you can hardly blame them.
 General Arzzamendi, one of the federal commanders at Tampico, said later that the reports placing the number of rebels killed in the at tack at more than 1000 were not exaggerated, as he saw piles of fifty and more rebel corps in many places on the battlefield and that at least fifteen hundred were wounded. These statements were made for the newspapers and were published with big headlines here.
 From sveral Americans who were within the rebel lines, during the battle, but who took no part in the engagement, and had no interest ia it excep as spectators, another sorry is obtained. These Americans are connected with the various oil com palnes in Tampico and may be con- sidered impartial witnesses. Their stories were obtained at different times and agreed wonderfully well.
 According to these men who were on the ground and saw all that went on not more than five hundred Car rancistas were engaged in the at tack on Tampico from start to fin ish. Their losses for the three days were seven men killed and forty three wounded. The federal losses were eighty-three killed and two nd