Next came the question of how I was to gain access to the ports of interest in Russia, and when in, how I was to get out. I had operated a boat outside of Port Arthur for four months under somewhat delicate circumstances. The Russian admirals were anxious to sink us, and the Japs were equally anxious to be rid of us, although they did not admit it. I learned at that time the somewhat crude way that wars are conducted. The spectacle of a British merchant steamer sunk by the Russians, off the Liotung peninsula one dark night, with the idea that they were destroying my boat, had given me a graphic idea of what press boats must expect when operating in belligerent waters. Since then it has been my policy to avoid getting into trouble without preparing myself in advance for the means of getting out. Down here in the Black Sea, as I sized it up, there would be no one backing us, and as far as I could see, any irresponsible Russian warship on a strike might sink us with never a murmur or protest from any quarter. But I turned up what I hoped would be a solution to this difficulty. My paper maintained in Europe, besides some sixty local correspondents, four staff representatives, sent out from Chicago, and occupying palatial offices in the four most important capitals of Europe,—one in Trafalgar Square, London; one on the Place de l’Opera, in Paris; one in Friedrich Strasse in Berlin; and one on the famous Nevsky Prospekt in Petersburg. All these men were picked for their tact and social qualifications, and each was supposed to know, and be known, to all the prominent diplomats and statesmen within his territory. At the moment, as I well knew, there was not a foreign office in Europe that had not been frantically trying for two weeks to get word both to and from their consular representatives in South Russia—for all the news that came out of Odessa, Sebastopol, and the Caucasus, these diplomatic gentlemen residing in these places might as well have been at the bottom of the sea. So I sent to our news bureaus in the capitals, the message that the _News_ had chartered a dispatch boat to cover all points of interest in the Black Sea, and that I would be glad to carry dispatches from the respective foreign offices to their isolated consuls in the zone of silence, and furthermore, requested an immediate reply. In addition, I cabled Chicago a similar message, asking them to offer our services to the State Department in Washington for a like purpose. A package of dispatches had gotten me out of the clutches of a Japanese fleet in Korean waters the previous year, and I had great faith in the persuasive power of anything with an official seal in getting one out of a tight fix. The next day our London man wired that he had seen the foreign office and that my offer was accepted with thanks, and that the British Ambassador at Constantinople had been instructed to communicate with me. Berlin and Paris declined, but I did not care.