On the large reportorial staff are men who have been brought from various cities; each is competent to gather news and present it in the most interesting fashion.

In the composing room sixty of the most skilled linotypists sit at their machines ready to set the words as they fall from the pencils of the writers.

Still other men are at the presses, awaiting to put the great mechanisms in motion, to pour out a stream of a hundred thousand papers an hour.

All is in readiness to turn out the news with unerring accuracy and incredible speed.

Year in and year out the routine of publication has been gone through with.  Now one man who is advanced or discharged vacates a position, which is immediately filled by the man next in line for promotion.  The machinery of the office never clogs.  But on this night, turmoil takes the place of system.

A crisis in the history of the paper is being reached.  The heads of departments are all present, having been summoned by telegram or telephone.  They are ready to act.  Yet the signal for action is delayed.

To run off the edition of a morning paper is a far different thing from getting out an edition of an evening paper.

The morning newspaper must contain the “news” in its first edition if it is to reach distant points; if it is even to reach the suburban towns.  In these towns, by far the largest percentage of the readers are located.  They will be anxious for the latest and most complete news.  The evening papers give hurried accounts of the events that are stirring the country.  For the full details the readers depend upon the morning papers.  The newspaper which fails to satisfy their demands will lose its popularity.

So the editor-in-chief and the proprietor of the Javelin are in a quandary.

“It is now 1.30,” says the editor-in-chief, as he consults the clock.  “If we are to get out a paper we must start the presses.”  “What is the leader?” inquires the proprietor anxiously.

“A general review of the casualties; the summary of the result of the announcements of the sudden deaths of so many leading men.  This is followed by the story of the deaths of six Senators.  The head runs across the page.  The head-line reads ‘Death’s Harvest, Thirty-Six!’ The banks tell of the sudden deaths that have come upon Senators, Judges, Manufacturers, Railroad Magnates, and a score of multi-millionaires.”

“We can’t tell everything in a line, or in one edition,” observes the proprietor, “so I think it is safe to ‘go to press.’  Is there nothing of importance left out?”

Before an answer can be given to this query the telegraph editor rushes from his desk waving a slip of paper.

“Hold the press!” he exclaims.  “Here’s the biggest news yet.  Attorney General Bradley of the United States has been assassinated as he was leaving his office.

“The man who killed him made no attempt to escape, but, waiting to see that the three shots he had fired point-blank at the Attorney General had done their work, he deliberately turned the pistol on himself.  He placed it at his right temple and fired, dropping dead in his tracks.”