PRESS ASSOCIATIONS, organizations for the gathering and distribution of news. The association of newspapers for the collec tion of news began before the invention and use of the telegraph. In London the great dailies and other agencies supplied the interior press of the country with stereotyped news, and more especially with reports of the doings of Parliament; and in the United States, the shipping and other news, especially foreign, to be had at the Atlantic ports, was collected and distributed, by agencies, to subscribing news papers, by fast boat and other means of trans portation; and fast pony express was made use of for the conveyance of news from the national and State capitals to the larger and most important centres of population. A sys tem of arbitrary signs was established at im portant harbors for the fast transmission of news to the great dailies. But the coming of the telegraph gave to these earlier news asso ciations a sudden impetus which was destined to increase with wonderful speed. The great newspapers of New York City formed an asso ciation, in 1848, to pay jointly the expenses of the transmission, by telegraphy and other means, of comprehensive reports of the opera tions of the American forces in the Mexican War. Owing to the fact that the telegraph lines were then not extended throughout the Smith, the news was generally from a week to 10 days old when it appeared in print; but even with all this delay newspaper enterprise gen erally outstripped the government in the secur ing of early reports of war operations. The gradual extension of telegraph lines to the South rapidly widened the field of these early news-gatherers. The monthly news service of the Cunard Line between Europe and Boston was sent on to New York by wire; and from there it was transmitted to all parts of the country by various means of conveyance. With this European news went local market reports and other important information to the press of interior cities and towns. The rapid organiza tion of the news features of the great cities followed; and to the current daily service were added full reports of happenings of general and national interest. The handling of news be came a business of experts.
The Reuter Agency.— In the meantime Ju lius Reuter, a Prussian government messenger, conceived the idea of a great associated press service that could be extended to all papers desirous of making use of it. In 1849 he
opened an office in Paris; but the French gov ernment discouraged him. This and the fact that the German government was rapidly ex tending its telegraph lines induced him to go to Aix-la-Chapelle where there was a gap be tween the telegraph line which ended there and the French-Belgian line terminating at Verviers. Reuter opened a news-collecting and distribut ing agency at each of these points and for warded the news by carrier pigeon and other means of fast transmission. He extended his news service and finally removed his head quarters to London in 1851. This he had been induced to do owing to the fact that the Dover-Calais submarine cable had lust been laid. Reuter's London office began the trans mission of news by wire from London to Paris, at first, as correspondent for various news papers on the Continent ; for he had not been able to induce the great London dailies to pur chase his news service. He used the wires wherever they existed and where they did not he employed special agents to transmit his news by carrier pigeon or fast messenger to all his subscribers. In his work of extending the news facilities of the press he overcame, by his tire less energy, countless difficulties, and soon the Reuter News Agency became known to every newspaper in Europe. Its first important con quest was the London Morning Advertiser, the second greatest newspaper in England in 1858. The Times and other British dailies soon fell into line and the Reuter Agency extended its news facilities still more rapidly than the rapidly extending telegraph lines. Reuter cor respondents were to be found in all parts of the world.. In 1866 Reuter connected Cork with Crookhaven by private submarine cable in order to be able to beat his competitors in fur nishing news of the American situation. He also secured a concession for a submarine cable to Cuxhaven from the king of Hanover, and another for a cable between France and the United States, both in 1865. Reuter's Agency and the Anglo-American Telegraph Company made mutual use of this latter line. In 1868 the Press Association of London, a subsidiary affair, was formed to serve the provincial news, papers of the United Kingdom with daily news.