THE LONDON GAZETTE.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 193, 21 July 1916, Page 3 (Supplement)

THE LONDON GAZETTE.

WHAT IT IS AND WHAT IT DOES

When a newspaper publishes an item of news which is exclusive to that particular journal and is of great interest, it has made what in journalistic parlance is known as a "senop." Once or twice a newspaper has shared "scoops ' with other newspapers, being actuated to such marvellous self-sacrifice by considerations of public duty. As a rule, however, a news editor would rather lose his oars than a good "exclusive." What are we to think, then, of a newspaper which contains a "scoop ' in alniuot every issue during this time of war, and every time gives it away to all the other daily papers of the country in t'm? for simultaneous publication? That is what i; done by the "London Gazette," tlv Government's own particular newspaper. Consider those wonderfully interesting despatches from our Generals on the various fronts• think of the lists of honours! The-e are set int > type for the "Gazette," and advance copies arc sent out so that the news may appear in the country's general newspapers as soon as it appears in the "Gazette." No other newspaper conducted in this way could survive. Apart from the fact that >t could not be made to pay, it is •|iirst:onab l e whether or nit an ordinarily train'd profcssonal journalist. could avoid conuniting hari-kari after giving his "scoops" away to all and sundry for, tit the most, a week. GREAT ADVANTAGES.

But then, of course the men who edit ami control the "Gazette" are not ordinary journalists. And they have certain supreme advantages ilis-y can prevent other papers from •rett'ii" the news f:r>t; they can insist that certain sections of the business and professional community advertise in their paper; they can charge a shilling for each copy; and they can increase the size of the paper a hundredfold on any occasion when the exigencies oi the situation appear to require it. .lust at present the circulation of t-ne "London Gazett?" has attained a fairly high average, but in ordinary times its circulation, if it belonged to an ordinary newspaper. would not bring iii the ordinary newspaper even an c'gliUeupvnny advertisement, no matter how hard the canvassers were t> work. Yet if the proprietors of Blue Beans for Bites and Backache were to offer a thousand pounds per s'.nge column inch advertisement of their median.' in tho "Gazette," their announcement would not be accepted. So you «-:• tliat it is not only papers with the largest circulations in the world that find themselves in t'he position to refuse space to jvdvertisors. TllO " I/ondon Gazette" is enabled to do tlr« because its advertisements are regulated l»y law; its unselfishness in giving away its news is due to the fact that it is written for the information of the whole and not a part of the public, by Kings and Queens and Cabinet Ministers and Lord .Chamberlains and great Generals and so forth. 'Twas ever thus! The "London Gazette" tlie direct do pendant of two papers published to spread official news among the whole penp'e as long ago as the later years of Oliver Cromwell. The two papers were "Mercurius Politicus," and the "Publique Intelligencer," one published on Monday and the oilier on Thursdays. Six years later the two wore amalgamated a.s the " London Gazette, which has been "published bv authority" ever since, giving out the news for which, particularly in past new-paper generations, tho public were more or less a thins t. Xow, as indicated, the " Gazette news is pub'ished far and wide with great promptitude, owing to modern methods of communication. Formerly when telegraphs, telephones, (trains and all new spa!>■]'■-) were nut. or were conspicuous bv their scarcity, the case- was so far different that the office of the " Gazette" A\a-. often bo'.eged by anxious crowds, waiting for hours or da\s lot information of a kind whU'h to-day would be given as a matt, r of course in the now-pa per adorning the bivaki'as|_ table. THE BATTLE OF ALMA. Tho Crimean War affords several examples. as contemporary pictuics the rushes at t'he "Gazette" show. The news of the Battle of Alma arrived by telegram oil the evening oi September :?>vth, b'oL Public anxiety at the tune wa- at lever heat, and tlie authorities wanted the information publish. »d immediately, even before H could be iwued in the "Gazette" to be brought out tho next day, a Sunday. Mr Hairs on. the publisher oi" the "Gazette." suggested to the Duke of Newcastle, the Secretary for War, that the news should be sent to the theatres and announced at once, ihree of the treaties were still open, and the Duke gave orders that the performaiwes be -topp.d while the news was read out. It is not e.u«y to imagine tho scenes ;.t Drury Lane and elsewhere when this was done. At the Adelphi, at any rate, the performance of the play incontinent a ended for the night, and the audience ran out, exultantly announcing and cheering the victory. Soon the news was known all over London and such printing presses as were available* were soon busy producing the "Gazette" and other newspapers containing the telegram for circulation oil the .Sunday. Tie' te'egram may be ouot.d

Copv e.j a telegraphic despatch ll"im Vi-iiouni St.afford de Redcliffe tu the Karl i;i Clarendon, dated Constantinople, .> I'temher i,'!, 18-34. and transmit fd to Her Majirity's i a I at 15c'grade, under d.i to Sep", em her

li>ti>, < a.m. — 'i lie entrenched camp of the Russians. c ontaining fifty thousand nn n, with a numerous ai ti 1 !■. ry and cavaliv .in the h ights of the Alma, was atta-ke.l on the 'JOtli iii-t., at I p.m., I>y the Alhcd tio:p-i, and carred liy the hayonet at halt-past three with a los, oil our s'de of about I 100 killed and wounded, and an e'pud Iom; (,n till- sid> of t!ie. I'reneh. lie Hu-siaii army was forced t-> put it - self in full retreat.

In hi:: 'irtaiKe, that despatch. ol (•our e, cannot compare with the tremendous <•;» .rations de-cribed in the "Gazette" during th:> Greait War, wlreh opened in 11)11, hut it was dram. :111 -in those days, and lias become hi—--1 ii-ie, like annoiim-eniMitis innumerahf' mli :• -ii, during th ■ "Gazette's" !ong life, haw- rendered that normally dull paper tie liio-st sensational in existence, with s. nsation arising out of hard fact and not out of the efforts of m-'ii who, it has been maliciously sngg:st«d in " rns of newspaper '"scares." draw ' their imaginat on for the r

■ PAPER'S POWER. Trui\ wonderful paper, ties •/ette." It noiild .sometimes ap[>ear that t ii• ■ _rs must not happen until the 1 Gaz !i< " g'viw permission, as. for 'u-itnn.'e, iii ih < case of Parliament, — uliM'li may not- sit unle-s its o|>eniiig li is been annrmnc-ed in this particular

pnbl cation, or .the case of the Law Courts which, on some occasions, may not hear cases prior to their announcement ' n T ' ie "Gazette." The births and deaths of Monarchs and Princes are first announced in the Government's newspaper—what epoch-making announcements these »ometimc» have b.en —and supplements and editions extraoulinary, of one page or a hundred are frequently issued to give the big official news of the day. It' you sec it in-the "Gazette"' it is so. What is more, if it is in the " Gazette." whether news or advertisement, it is there because the law insists upon it. That is one of the reasons why in peace times the dimensions of the "Gazette" are swollen cn occasions by Parliamentary notices, such as railway or waterworks notices, beloved of ordinary newspapers for revenue-bringing propensities. Once, during a railway boom ( ; t was In 1847) the "Gazette" w.'ii published every day, its average size being about four hundred jKiges, practice My all advertisements. No wonder that nearly nil its Ify the "Gaz-tte" has lx>en a good paying concern HURRYING FATHER TIME. One o." the many singular incidents connected with the "Gazette's" histoi'v was when, in order to keep tlie seasons right, the Government, acting on the advice of astronomers, took 11 days off Time —a course rendered. necessary by the fact that the movement of the earth round the sun is not the exact .'565 days as popularly supposed. There arc odd hour sand minutes each year which have to be reckoned up in the sum and days added to the years accordingly, as provided in Leap Years. In 1752 the error in the reckoning of time in the past had led to the necessity of leaping 11 days. Thus there was no September 3rd in 1752. It became SeptemlKT 14th. But the

"Gazette," which in those days was dated "from to ——gave, in the period concerned, the dates which were not, so to speak. No wonder historians are sometimes inaccurate when a paper "published by authority" can make a mistake l'ke that!