how about the next, and yet again the one to follow that? Perhaps he is thinking what will be the ultimate end, as he is driven away through the softly falling snow. The uninitiated, no doubt, view with skepticism the accuracy of quickly gathered news, and perhaps think that a few days on the situation is a ridiculously short time in which a man can gather any definite information. This is in a measure true. There are times where weeks of study are essential, but these are not the stories a special war correspondent is after. Where he is in demand is on the spot where there is a “visible” situation. When things quiet down he usually withdraws, and the political and economic correspondents send the more analytical and perhaps profounder stuff. But these men in a riot, disaster or “emergency” are often lost in the shuffle, and here it is where the war correspondent can often cut in and beat by days the men who have been on the spot gathering routine political news for years. Unimpeded by long association the special man sees at a glance the most picturesque and prominent features. Trained as he must be to quick action, and methods of getting out his copy, his reports are often days ahead of the resident correspondent. The first thing for a “story” is a general view of the situation. Two hours divided among the consulates and embassies of America, Great Britain, France and Germany give the general official idea, which is always conservative. Next a round of the newspaper offices and one gets the (sensational) radical impressions. If there is anything big one can always find a half dozen war correspondents in the bar of the biggest and best hotel in town. From them one gets the sensational and spectacular elements and an unlimited amount of exaggeration. Three hours’ driving about town with an interpreter interviewing and talking with everybody available, from the man loafing on the corner to the prefect of police, gives the local color and atmosphere for your cable. Late in the afternoon a man has in his head a mass of material ranging from the most lurid stories of the correspondents to the “official protests” that “all is well and no further trouble anticipated.” The rest is merely a matter of perspective. As he writes, the correspondent must weigh the sources of his information and estimate their probable accuracy. Experience and many previous failures, and a sort of sixth sense, acquired perhaps in work on a local paper, render quick and almost subconscious judgments on news values more accurate than the uninitiated might imagine. It is at this point that a man’s work ruins him with his office, or he makes good. The editor is not asking for literature, but for a quick survey of the situation. So it is that the man who can talk with the most people in the shortest time, and from such evidence make a connected and truthful story, is the man that is wanted. From the combined conversations of perhaps forty informants,