The Globe. WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 2, 1874.
It is always a matter of wonder to us, how the different gentlemen who represent tho " Anglo Australian Press " Telegraph Agency" in the various towns of New Zoaland, collect the startling items which they deem it necessary to transmit through the wires. Ono of our Northern contemporaries was very severe on the agents lately, and we think with great justice, as it would be impossible to furnish a more uninteresting or useless summary of the days' news than we are at present obliged to put up with. It is true that the proprietors of a paper may go to the expense of having a correspondent of their own, to furnish them with any really important items that may occur, but it hardly to be expected that many proprietors will pay the extra money which is required to cover the cost of such messages, unless in exceptional cases. The agency in "Wellington at one time thought it would be interesting to Southern newspaper readers if they were enabled through the Agency of the Telegraph to peruse a summary of some dreary " skits " which appeared in the New Zealand Times. And they only stopped, when, on telegraphing to know if a morning journal which had not inserted their previous telegram, would insert another summary of one of the same series of " skits," they received for answer a peremptory "No." The filling up of the telegrams too, as they are at present sent, is a matter which very often compels the most practised of sub-editors to resort to guess work; whilst the spelling of such important words as the names of places, proper names, the names of ships, &c, &c, is simply abominable. This is the more trying to those who have to put these telegraphic dispatches into a readable shape, on the occasion of the arrival of a steamer with English news on board, and the sheets of tissue which arrive at the different newspaper offices in the town are enough to drive an unfortunate " sub " to despair. Let us take for instance the following item, which was transmitted the other day to all the papers in the South Island : —" The Earl of "Warwick has presented her Majesty with a splendid horse ; " an interesting fact, no doubt, but hardly worth the trouble of telegraphing, as it would not have made much difference to the people of Canterbury if they had been compelled to find this out from the papers. But now comes
tbe joke of the matter; on carefully looking through our English files we can find no record of this daring act of liberality on the part of a peer of the realm, but we are duly informed in several English Journals that "the Earl of Dudley—better known to most people as Lord Ward —has presented the Empress of Austria with a magnificent horse." The Empress being, as is well-known, a superb horsewoman, and being now, or lately, on a visit to England. This is only one of a hundred instances of absurd messages being forwarded for publication, and we trust that something may be clone shortly, by the public, in insisting on a better resume of the news of the day being placed before them, to compel the agents of the A. A. P. T. A. to do their work a little better than they seem to think is necessary at present.
The Globe. WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 2, 1874.
Globe, Volume II, Issue 155, 2 December 1874, Page 2
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