Page:The Newspaper World.djvu/69

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58 The Newspaper World, of the Crimean war. Dr William Howard Russell ren- dered the nation and the army no insignificant services in the capacity of war correspondent of The Times, What he did then is a matter of national history, but here it may be stated that Dr Russell is doyen of that body of brave adventurous men who at the risk of life and health, have been on every field of battle since the Alma, and have noted who conquered and who fell in, alas, too many "glorious victories." Another representative name in association with war correspondents is that of Mr Archi- bald Forbes who introduced, as a representative of the Daily News, the modern style of telegraphic war corres- pondence. Early in his career he was commissioned to telegraph not merely short messages recording victories, but the whole of his descriptive articles, hitherto forwarded to the journal at home by post. Since this time the newspapers of the country have spent enormous sums in the telegraphic transmission of the war correspondents' despatches. By this means the reading public are kept au courant with everything occurring at the seat of war. The presence of special correspondents in camp with instantaneous means of communication with the outer world ready to their hand, and daily, if not hourly, used, constitutes, of course, a grave source of danger from a military point of view. But while our army authorities have not been able to banish the war correspondent from the camp, they have set up a pretty rigorous censorship over correspondents and their despatches, designed to prevent publicity being given to anything prejudicial to the interests of the force. The r61e of the war correspon- dent is beset by many difficulties and trials. He has more " moving accidents by flood and field " than ever Othello experienced, and if he escapes with life and health, may account himself fortunate. Mr Forbes in one of his early lectures, gave a graphic