Page:Lynch Williams--The stolen story and other newspaper stories.djvu/211

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the King of Spain

read (and that alone shows he would never make a newspaper man); so, as he could not even read, he took out the copy-paper, and decided to write something, with a view to passing away the time and earning his expenses. He was far enough away from the depressing influence of the City Room to feel confidence in his own powers once more, and he made up his mind to show them what he could do with an open field and no one to hinder him. He might not be a war correspondent; but this is what he wrote while Newark, Elizabeth, Rahway, Metuchen, and New Brunswick scurried by the window:

Princeton, N. J., 8.30 p.m. [Special].—The King of Spain was burned in effigy here to-night, amid great excitement on the part of the entire student body. The demonstration began with a mass meeting, held on the campus around the historic cannon, a relic of the American Revolution and a fit emblem for the sentiment of the occasion, which was "Cuba Libre." The brutal policy of Spain and her farcical reforms were vehemently denounced, and the cause of Cuba's independence was enthusiastically extolled. The gathering then formed itself into a large procession, which paraded the town, bearing transparencies on which were inscribed various anti-Spanish and pro-Cuban sentiments. At

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