Democratic Sentinel, Volume 12, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 June 1888 — The British Correspondent. [ARTICLE]

The British Correspondent.

The one all-pervading, regnant, dominant and rigorous purpose of the British correspondent’s life is to find out all the news himself, but keep his paper from knowing anything about it. I was present at the side of a famous correspondent, who had kindly taken me under his w ing here, when his secretaries came in with the news after the funeral. They had all told their tales and received instructions, when the secretary who had undertaken to do a description of the crowd strolled in. “Ah, Jones!” said the chief, looking the late comer over through his single glass and lighting a fresh cigar, “rawther a big crowd, eh?” “I should say so,” said Jones; “and such a mucky dav. I’ve got everything. ” “What, foh instance.” “A little child was born in the slush and rain in the great jam near the cathedral. ” “What a devilish damp and erratic sort of a proceeding. ” “Shull I write it?” “Er—no.” “Woman climbed up in tree in park,” continued Jones, reading from a voluminous notebook, “named Schwartzgenfelder.” “Name of womjm or tree?” “Of woman. Stayed there all night so’s t’ have good place t’ see funeral procession, froze absolutely to death, and fell down a corpse as parade passed. Shall I write it?” “Er—no.” “Corpse lay there for two hours in a crowd unattended while people stared at funeral.” “Good God.” “Shall I write it?” “Er—no.” “A man, name unknown, paid entire year’s rent of 58 Unter den Linden for window privileges to-day—4,ooo marks. Shall I write it?” “Er—no.” * It went on in this way for half an hour, and then the chief said thoughtfully : “You might write a general paragraph, you know, Jones, about large mass people ’n all that, leaving out details, and say that from inside information received from an indubitably high official source there must have been half a million people present to see funeral. ” “But the regular figures of the Police Department place the number at nearly 700,000. Hadn’t I better make it that?” “Er—no.” Then the war correspondent suggested a snack of beer and the wing of a cold fowl, and we went down stairs while the secretaries ground out the conventional English dispatch of the conventional length, with the same old stale and wearisome presentation of common-place observations, marked “official” and “inside,” as usual.— Berlin letter in New "York Sun.