Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 8.djvu/227

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Roland IVorfhington.

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��when he broke silence. Mr. Worthing- ton saw his opportunity in connection with this event, and engaged Dr. James W. Stone, a well-known and expert sten- ographer of that time, to go to Marshfield and report Mr. Webster's address in full. To make sure the enterprise should not miscarry, the young publisher drove Dr. Stone himself to the scene of opera- tions, secured the great expounder's personal co-operation in perfectmg the verbatun report of his speech, and then drove the doctor with his notes back to Boston. Other reporters were there for the older dailies, but Mr. Worthing- ton's push distanced them all, and early next morning a Traveller Extra was on the streets of Boston, and had an immense sale. Large editions were rapidly called for, and the newsboys of Boston cried it lustily all day long. The speech was that ever memorable one in which Webster described Tay- lor's nomination, in the now historic phrase, as one "not fit to be made." From the Traveller's report it was sent specially to the New York Herald, and from that time on till the organizing of the Press Association, the Traveller was the New York Herald's Boston correspondent. Still the prejudice of the older publishers against the crying of the newspapers by boys on the streets remained ; and Mr. Worthing- ton's innovation was regarded unfavora- bly, even by some of his own business associates. He was obliged to seek a personal interview with the President of the Eastern Railroad in order to obtain a permit for a boy to go upon the ferry- boat in the afternoon to sell his evening paper. He persisted in the innovation, however, and by another energetic stroke made it a permanent feature of the newspaper business. When the news of the French Revolution of 1848 and the dethronement of Louis Philippe

��arrived at New York, it was sent by telegraph to the Boston reading-room. The telegraph office, by a curious blunder, sent a copy of the despatch to the three Boston evening papers. Mr. Worthington saw instantly the import- ance of the news, though its value seems to have escaped immediate ob- servation in the offices of his rivals. He ran off Traveller Extras as quickly as his press facilities would allow, and his press-room was kept at the high- pressure point of activity until late in the evening, satisfying the demand for this startling piece of foreign intelli- gence. The newsboys' cries of ' Trav- eller Extra,' ' Revolution in France,' 'Fall of Louis Phillipe,' ^Traveder 'Ex- tra., were heard on every great thorough- fare, and from that moment the day of newspaper sales "by subscription only" was gone by. The dispatch which the Traveller thus used to such advantage is said to have been the first sent over the telegraph wires from New York that was ever published in Boston.

Another feature of newspaper offices, which is now stereotyped by general use, but the iniatition of which in Boston be- longs also to Mr. Worthington, is the staring placards, or bulletins, giving the brief heads of the latest news of the day. In passing it may be said that the Traveller s present daily-painted bulle- tins, in blue and red, are commonly re- marked upon as at once the clearest and most ornamental exhibited in front of any newspaper office in the city, and at any time of the day, when stirring news is coming over the wires, a large crowd is sure to be found flocking to them. They are the work of Mr. Wil- liam H. Webster, the cashier and con- fidential clerk of Mr. Worthington, who has been in the Traveller s counting- room for twenty years, and whose skill in rapid and clear lettering is best

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