III News Flies Fast.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXIX, Issue VIII, 23 August 1902, Page 459

III News Flies Fast.

News, good or ill, travels apace nowadays. Since that memorable night when Oberon and Puck held merry revelry in the Athenian glades the march of time has indeed brought wonders in its train. Few are more striking than the celerity which now characterises the dissemination of momentous tidings. The work of sending the news of the King’s illness and the postponement of the Coro-

nation to all parts o<f th® world entailed a severe strain on the great cable companies at Home. As, howeier. In most cases extra men had been engaged in connection with the general work occasioned tyr. the Qorcuation, •the additional pressure was readily coped with. The Commercial Cable Company, which has four cobles running to New York and several to Canada, was flooded with business and press telegram® to »n extent that broke all previous records. The Anglo-American Company was very busy, and got messages of the distressing event, through to far-away Kio de Janeiro in thirty minutes, to Buenos Ayres is fifteen minutes, to Valpairaiso (8000 miles away on the “offside” coast of South America) in fifteen minutes, and to Mexico in ten minutes. Capetown, 6000 males distant, knew of the sad tidings through the London press in a little over ten minutes, while Calcutta wat about a minutes later in getting th® news. The Intimation of the King's illness l was known in Mr Seddon’s adopted country of New Zealand within a quarter of an hour of Its publication in London, while the chief towns in Australia and the pleasant little capital of Tasmania knew of their beloved King’s illness long before the London suburbanite’s wife heard the hurrying newsboy calling out the news.