BIG BRIBES PAID TO REPORTERS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 166, 7 August 1909, Page 4

BIG BRIBES PAID TO REPORTERS.

To bribe a reporter to suppress news is noi an easy matter, especially if he is the in-credited representative of a icpoasiblc newspaper (savs a Home journal). - : .;

Still, such a thing is not unknown, as witness the recent sensational imprest on a lady in the West End of London, about which nothing transpired until nearly n month after it was held, and then only by accident.

A DUKE'S SEXSATIOXAf, DEATH. An almost precisely similar case occurred, too, in connection with the tragic death of a famous duke some years ago. The peer in question, died by his own hand, and in a most dramatic and sensational manner. Yet bc-csii:-c money was freely spent to prevent facts becoming public, nothing 'transpired at the time, nor until long afterwards. Then, again, if rumor is to be beleved, '.very large sums indeed have been paid lo certain Irish reporters in order that the real truth shall not be known concerning the mysterious -obbery of portions of the regal! i from Dublin Castle some little time back.

And there was the case of the sensational tragedv which resulted, on 30th January. 18811. in the death of the Crown I'rnec Rodolph of Austria, who. it will be remembered, was mysteriously shot in a hunting-lodge situated in the depths of a lonelv forest.

One newspaper reporter, and one only secured the full details. H P happened, quite by accident, to be passing by tinbuilding at the moment, and, rushing in, saw and heard everything. KEEPS THE REPORTER IN LUXURY.

It was a splendid '•exclusive." Any paper in Vienna would have jumped at. ■t and paid for i( almost anything in reason. Nevertheless, the "story" never saw |he light of dnv„U Precisely what waf'pnid for its suppression was never made public; hut it was si princely one. without dou'ot. for the reporter in question has been livimr in Paris in luxury ever since, and without troubling himself to do a stroke of work.

And to this day. so well has the secret ken kept, there are not half-a-dozen people in Europe, outside the. cirele of the Austrian liuyal family, who can even say for certain whether Prince Rodolph's death was due to murder or ■suicide.