With the first half dozen copies of the edition wet from the press, the editor rushes back to his office.
In his absence there has been nothing startling reported. He breathes a sigh of relief and sinks exhausted into his chair.
At a score of desks men are writing special portions of the news. One is telling of the startling murders, another of the unusual accidents that have claimed a dozen prominent men as victims.
The strange story of the hanging of an Ex-Justice of the Supreme Court
Judge is being written by one of the sporting reporters; the
assassination of six Senators is the theme of another special writer.
Every one is busy.
The chance that always comes to the young reporter is at hand. He is entrusted with the important work of writing the story of the deaths of five railroad magnates. His face is a study. It is scarlet and beads of perspiration run down his cheeks.
Even the copy-boys are alive to the fact that a night of unusual import is passing, and they carry copy without being called. A boy stands at the side of every reporter and runs with the pages to the desks where the copy readers scan it and write the head lines; it is not a night when copy is carefully read and "cut." Everything is news, and the responsibility for the accuracy of the writing is upon the heads of the reporters.
Surrounding the bulletin board in the City Hall square, a crowd of from one hundred and fifty to two hundred thousand has gathered.
The lateness of the hour is forgotten. Men and women stand through the chill hours of the late night and early morning waiting for news. There is an ever varying stream passing in front of the Javelin office. Early in the afternoon the police have taken control of the streets and compelled the people to keep moving. There is fear that the disorderly element will start a riot.
Fortunately the first of the calamitous telegrams of the day has been received after the close of the Exchanges. This has prevented a panic. Brokers and bankers receive the tidings with consternation; they dread the opening on the morrow. Many of them are in the crowd anxiously waiting for further details of the deaths of the controllers of railroad and industrial stocks.
At midnight a bulletin announces that Senator Barker, who had been the staunch advocate of Bi-metallism until the recent session, and who had then voted with the Gold element, has been found murdered in his palatial home at Lakewood, N.J. His private secretary has also been killed, evidently because he had attempted to rescue his employer. Both have been stabbed.