“It is the race to the railway stations to catch the mail-trains,” Howard explained. “The first editions go to the country. These wagons are hurrying in order that tens of thousands of people hundreds of miles away, at Boston, Philadelphia, Washington and scores on scores of towns between and beyond, may find the New York newspapers on their breakfast-tables.”
The office-boy came with a bundle of papers, warm, moist, the ink brilliant.
“The inquest?” Marian looked at him inquiringly.
“Yes--viewing the corpse. It was to give birth to this that there was all that intensity and fury--that and a thousand times more. For, remember, this paper is the work of perhaps twenty thousand brains, in every part of the world, throughout civilisation and far into the depths of barbarism. Look at these date lines--cities and towns everywhere in our own country, Canada, Mexico, Central America, South America. You’ll find most of the capitals of Europe represented; and Africa, north, south and central, east and west coast. Here’s India and here the heart of Siberia.
“There is China and there Japan and there Australia. Think of these scores of newspaper correspondents telegraphing news of the doings of their fellow beings--not what they did last month or last year, but what they did a few hours ago--some of it what they were doing while we were dining up at Sherry’s. Then think of the thousands on thousands of these newspaper-men, eager, watchful agents of publicity, who were on duty but had nothing to report to-day. And----”
Howard shrugged his shoulders and tossed the paper from him.
“There it lies,” he said, “a corpse. Already a corpse, its life ended before it was fairly born. There it is, dead and done for--writ in water, and by anonymous hands. Who knows who did it? Who cares?”
He caught Marian’s eyes, looking wonder and reproach.
“I don’t like to hear you say that,” she said, forgetting Mrs. Carnarvon. “Other men--yes, the little men who work for the cheap rewards. But not you, who work for the sake of work. This night’s experience has thrilled me. I understand your profession now. I see what it means to us all, to civilisation, what a splendid force for good, for enlightenment, for uplifting it is. I can see a great flood of light radiating from this building, pouring into the dark places, driving away ignorance. And the thunder of those presses seems to me to fill the world with some mighty command--what is it?--oh, yes--I can hear it distinctly. It is, ‘Let there be light!’”