THE ROMANCE OF REUTER.

Greymouth Evening Star, Volume XXXI, 11 December 1901, Page 4

THE ROMANCE OF REUTER.

Tho jubilee of "Reuter" was celebrated a few weeks ago in London. It is fifty years since Julius de Reuter, an utter stranger, arrived in LondoD, and founded the organisation which has since made his name a household word throughout the entire worli). Reuter, says Robert Donald in the "Daily Mail." was "the originator of telegraphic news, and one of the makers of the modern press. Ho it was who first annihilated frontiers and created an interna'ional news exchange," Reuter appears to have baen the first man to realiao the value of the telegraph in the development of the Press. Arriving in England just after the first cable was laid across the Channel- he gradually "linked country to country and then continent to continent until, for many years now, the whole of the telegraph systems of the world have been called into the service of the agency." Reuter built up his reputation by the accuracy of the news he supplied to the Press, and by the perfect organisation which enabled him to get the news through before anyone else. He was the first man to supply war news. by telegraph, beginning in the war of 1859, when his correspondents accompanied the French and Austrian armies. In the Civil War in America, Reuter's agents despatched their news to England by the mail steamers in hermetically sealed boxes. Tho steamers were met off the coast of Ireland by Reuter's steam yachts, which picked up the boxes as they were thrown overboard by the mail boat, and then made for the nearest point on the Irish coast —Crookhaven—from where Reuter had a private wire connecting with the telegraph system of the country. In this way he was able to outdistance all competitors in the supply of war news, forestalling even the Government service. Among the historic "scroops" achieved by Reuter may be mentioned the assassination of Lincoln, the disasters of Isandlhwana and Majuba Hill, the San Stefano Treaty between Russia and Turkey, and the capitulation of Napoleon after the FrancoPrussan war. The news of President Lincola's death reached England through Reuter a week before it arrived by any other channels, owing to the enterprise of his Now York agent in having a swift steamer and overtaking the outgoing mailboat, bound for England. In later years Reuter has had to face the keen competition of special correspondents in times of war, but tho agency has maintained its reputation for accuracy and promptitude in tho supply of news. Reuter's Agency, besides eo-oporating with tho Press Associations of England, America, France, Germany, and other countries, has its own correspondent in every town of importance throughout the world.