Page:History of American Journalism.djvu/252

 pigeon express first ran—or rather flew—from Washington to Baltimore: later, Washington dispatches were carried by pigeon relays to Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York. The headquarters at the last place was a coop on top of The Herald building. Incidentally, it may be remarked that it was not until the beginning of the twentieth century that The Herald did away entirely with its carrier pigeons: until fifteen years ago that newspaper had one of the best cages of these remarkable birds for exigencies.

D. H. Craig also experimented in Boston with pigeons as carriers of news. Securing a number of African carrier pigeons, he kept them in a special building near his house in Roxbury until they had become thoroughly domesticated. Upon the expected arrival of an English mail steamer in Halifax he, with his winged carriers, would go there, get the latest British papers, and then take passage to Boston. While at sea he would write on thin manifold paper a summary of the most important European news. Then when the steamer was about fifty miles from Boston he would liberate his pigeons with the news fastened to wing or foot. They would reach home several hours before the steamer docked and the news they carried would, after being promptly put into type, be published as an extra of The Boston Daily Mail. When the edition had been run off, the title of The Daily Mail was removed and that of The New York Herald Extra was substituted and the press again started. The second edition, after being promptly forwarded to New York by Sound steamers, was put into the hands of newsboys by James Gordon Bennett, proprietor of The New York Herald. Because of the intense rivalry between The Herald and The Sun, Bennett at one time offered five hundred dollars an hour for every hour that Craig could furnish The Herald with news ahead of rivals. So bitter became this fight for the honor of being first in the news that questionable methods of interference were often adopted: even the pigeons which carried the news were shot by men hired by newspapers outside the service of the winged carriers. Craig later became connected with the Associated Press of New York.