Triumphs and Wonders of the 19th Century: The True Mirror of a Phenomenal Era / A volume of original, entertaining and instructive historic and descriptive writings, showing the many and marvellous achievements which distinguish an hundred years of material, intellectual, social and moral progress

by James P. Boyd

III. EVENTS AS THEY OCCUR.

When the nineteenth century opened, great events were occurring in the world. Napoleon Bonaparte was the central figure in the eye of Europe. He had, but a few years previously (1797), gone through the most brilliant campaign known. He had crossed the Alps, defeated the Austrians at Montenotte and Millesimo, defeated the Sardinians at Ceva and Mondovi, and conquered Lombardy,—all in a few weeks. The year following he had conquered Egypt, and in 1800 had become the first consul and the ruler of France, to be declared Emperor four years later.

Then followed, in rapid succession, the events which caused the world to look upon Napoleon as the probable coming ruler of the universe. It was in 1805 that he began the war of aggrandizement. He crossed the Rhine, compelling the Austrian army to surrender at Ulm; he entered Vienna and routed the Russian and Austrian armies at Austerlitz. This was followed by his move to make himself master of Southern and Central Europe. He established his brother Joseph as King of Naples; his brother Louis as King of Holland; his stepson Eugene as Viceroy of Italy; and his brother-in-law, Joachim Murat, as Grand Duke of Berg. The following year he defeated the Prussians and entered Berlin.

It was not until his abdication at Fontainebleau, in 1814, that Europe and America breathed freely. His final overthrow at Waterloo in 1815 removed him from the stage as an active participant in the world’s history of the nineteenth century.

In the United States, the close of the eighteenth century was marked by the death of Washington, while 1800, 1801, 1802 saw us make a treaty of peace with France, remove the national capital from Philadelphia to Washington, D. C., declare war against Tripoli, purchase Louisiana from France, and enter upon the disputes with Great Britain which culminated in a declaration of war with the mother country, in June of 1812.

While these events at home and abroad were making history, long periods of time elapsed between their occurrence and their being given to the people. There was no telegraphic communication which flashed messages around the globe. It was a wait until the mails brought the news. Two months, probably, elapsed after the battle of Waterloo ere this country was furnished with the story which meant so much to the peace of Europe.

What a change in this respect was wrought between the downfall of Napoleon Bonaparte in 1815 and the downfall of his nephew, Louis Napoleon, in 1870! On the fateful second of September, 1870, when the Emperor of France, Napoleon III., surrendered to the Emperor William of Prussia, on the field of Sedan, the news was flashed to America in less than two hours. On that hot, sultry day eager crowds surrounded the bulletin boards of the newspapers, on which were displayed the facts connected with the overthrow of the Napoleonic dynasty. The difference in time made it possible for us here to know all that had been done by the two emperors and by Bismarck an hour ahead of their actual happening. For days before that the crowds had surged around the newspaper offices, for days afterward they did the same, and facts were given with a rapidity which showed how wonderful had been the scientific stride between 1815 and 1870.

Had any one in 1815 predicted the possibility of such scenes, he would have been put down as a fit subject for a writ of de lunatico inquirendo. Such, too, would have been the comment on the one who then would have suggested the likelihood of a newspaper in this country reaching a circulation of a million copies daily,—and yet such has become an accomplished fact.

At the close of the first quarter of the nineteenth century there had been no practical advance in the rapid transmission of news. This was the period when the press lacked the facility to rapidly furnish the people with the events which were occurring in all directions. Newspapers still depended upon the mails. Home events were many weeks reaching sections remote from their happening. In this respect there had been some little improvement at the close of the first half of the century. That was the time when the electrical current was being brought into operation in the transmission of signals from which messages were being recorded, and these were being utilized for the sending of information at short distances. Scientific men were even talking of the possibility of connecting distant points on the coast, and whispering their hope for an Atlantic cable. In 1858 that wonderful event came to pass. The old world and the new were connected by cable from Valencia Bay, in Ireland, to Newfoundland, in North America, and messages of greeting passed between Queen Victoria and President Buchanan. The break which followed soon after the opening of this cable stimulated men of genius and men of capital to further efforts, and the governments of the United States and Great Britain came forward with generous aid. The laying of the Atlantic cable by the Great Eastern in 1864, and its successful operation in 1866, opened the doors for the possibilities of the press of to-day, and the realization of such scenes as were witnessed in this country on September 2, 1870.

Between that memorable year, 1866, and this, 1899, how wonderful has been the advance in the transmission of information from all quarters of the globe. From the Transvaal Republic, in South Africa; from the desert home of the Dervish in the Soudan; from the domain of Turkey’s Sultan, in Armenia; from the Holy Land; from the Oriental empires of China and Japan; from the snow-clad land of the Czar in Siberia; from the Bosphorus to the English Channel; from Valencia across the Atlantic; from Victoria Land in North America to Patagonia in South America; from Maine to Mexico; from the Atlantic to the Pacific; there are each day transmitted all occurrences of interest transpiring,—and these encompass peace and war, joy and sorrow, science and art, education and trade,—events which arouse the passions and quicken the pulse of humanity.

This is done through the medium of an organization known as the Associated Press. This wonderful combination has nearly forty thousand miles of wire from the different telegraph companies, for which there is paid a fixed price per mile. This, however, does not include its cable service, the charges for which are according to the number of words transmitted. The service of this organization costs a million and a half a year, divided among several hundred of the great newspapers of the United States. During the recent conflict between Spain and the United States its expenditure for war news alone was nearly $500,000. This can readily be understood when the reader is informed that the cable rate from Manila was $2.37 a word. Thus, a dispatch filling less than a quarter of a column of the average daily paper cost $1000. The rate from Porto Rico, at the outbreak of hostilities, was $1.90 a word, and it often happened that a single dispatch covering the movements of a body of troops in that island, with possibly a pen picture of a skirmish with the Spaniards, would cost $2000 in gold. The Santiago toll was $1.10 a word; and whole pages of newspapers were printed at that rate.

What a gigantic institution it has become for the rapid dissemination of news events!

In that war between Spain and the United States, General Toral, the Spanish commander, surrendered Santiago on July 14, at 2.15 o’clock in the afternoon. At 2.25 o’clock the message announcing the fact was received in Philadelphia. On the 12th of August following, at 4.23 o’clock in the afternoon, the Peace Protocol was signed in Washington by the French Ambassador Cambon and Secretary of State Day, and at 4.27 o’clock—four minutes later—the information was in the New York office of the Associated Press. Hundreds of such instances of this rapid transmission of news could be recorded in this last year of the nineteenth century,—facts never even dreamed of when Benjamin Franklin chained the electric current in the closing years of the eighteenth century.

The journey of a piece of news from the far East to the far West is something worth noting. The trip covers thousands of miles out of a direct route. As for instance, when Admiral Dewey annihilated the Spanish fleet in the Bay of Manila, on May 1, 1898, the fact was cabled to Hong Kong, China. There an operator transmitted it northward to Helampo in Russia, right on the border line of Manchooria, from which place it was sent across Russia to Tomsk, thence to St. Petersburg. From the Russian capital it zigzagged to Berne, in Switzerland; thence to Paris; thence across the channel to Penzance, and finally to Valencia, to be put on the cable for America. In two hours from the time the operator in Hong Kong started his dispatch, it was being hurried across the American continent—north, west, east, south—for distribution in the newspaper offices.

When a party of Mohammedans attacked a Christian mission in Calcutta, a telegraph operator dispatched the news to Bombay, whence it was transmitted to Aden. The next point reached was Suez, from which it was sent to Malta. It was next sent to Lisbon. From there it was given to Paris. From Malta it was also cabled to Penzance, thence to Valencia, and finally to the United States.

When that Manila piece of news from Admiral Dewey reached the Pacific coast in the United States, the date of its being started was yet several hours behind the time of its arrival. The attack on the Spanish fleet was made on Sunday, May 1, Manila time. The fact was not sent out by Dewey until the following morning, May 2 (still Manila time). It was started on its westward course that morning (May 2) at ten o’clock. By the route taken to Valencia with the relays, two hours were consumed. This brought it to London about three o’clock on that morning of May 2, owing to the difference in time. Traveling westward across the Atlantic ocean in advance of the sun, it reached New York about ten o’clock in the night of May 1. But little time was lost in retransmission to the Pacific coast, which point it reached about six o’clock on that Sunday evening of May 1—fourteen hours previous, by the day of the month, to its being started from Manila.

In this work of sending out news not a moment is lost that can be avoided. The aid of the typewriter enables the operator to keep pace with the sending operator, and his pace has been increased in the past few years by the introduction of a code system. Here is a specimen of the code system as used by the operator in sending out a news item:—

“Madrid, March 17—T Qn Regent h sined t Treaty of Peace btn Spn & t Uni Stas. T treaty wb frwded to t French Ambsdr, Jules Cambon, at Washn, fo exg w t one sined by Pr McKinley. No decree q sj wb pud d ‘Official Gazette.’

“Ofl rlns btn t 2 govts wi nw b promtly rnud. Ix rmrd 5 Mir to t Uni Stas wb Snor. Don J. Brunetti, Duke d’Arcos, fmr Spnh Mir to Mex, wos wif is an Amn.”

When this seemingly incomprehensible conglomeration of letters leaves the hand of the receiving operator it reads as follows:—

“Madrid, March 17—The Queen Regent has signed the Treaty of Peace between Spain and the United States. The treaty will be forwarded to the French Ambassador, Jules Cambon, at Washington, for exchange with the one signed by President McKinley. No decree on the subject will be published in the ‘Official Gazette.’

“Official relations between the two governments will now be promptly renewed. It is rumored that the Minister to the United States will be Señor Don J. Brunetti, Duke d’Arcos, former Spanish Minister to Mexico, whose wife is an American.”

The London “Times” recently has been experimenting with a scheme whereby reporters in the Houses of Parliament operate the typesetting machines in the London office by the wire from their quarters in Parliament.

It is only a question of time when this practice comes into use in the reporting of all legislative proceedings.

In some of the New York newspaper offices, the receiving operator sits at a typesetting machine and puts into type the messages which come over the wires.

How rapidly we have advanced in this direction in the last half of the nineteenth century is thus shown. What will be done by our successors in the first half of the twentieth century, no man can at this time satisfactorily predict.