ook for Selma. "Jane," she said, "you
can't go in. The doctor has just put every one out but his assistant
and a nurse that has come."

Jane hesitated, drew back into the corner of the carriage. "Tell Mr.
Wetherbe to go his own way," said Ellen aside to Selma, and she got in
beside Jane.

"To Mr. Hastings'," said Selma to the driver. The carriage drove away.

She gave Ellen's message to Wetherbe and returned to the house. Victor
was still unconscious; he did not come to himself until toward
daylight. And then it was clear to them all that Dr. Charlton's
encouraging diagnosis was correct.

Public opinion in Remsen City was publicly articulate by means of three
daily newspapers--the Pioneer, the Star, and the Free Press. The Star
and the Free Press were owned by the same group of capitalists who
controlled the gas company and the water works. The Pioneer was owned
by the traction interests. Both groups of capitalists were jointly
interested in the railways, the banks and in the principal factories.
The Pioneer was Republican, was regarded as the organ of Dick Kelly.
The Star was Democratic, spoke less cordially of Kelly and always
called for House, Mr. House, or Joseph House, Esquire. The Free Press
posed as independent with Democratic leanings. It indulged in
admirable essays against corruption, gang rule and bossism. But it was
never specific and during campaigns was meek and mild. For nearly a
dozen years there had not been a word of truth upon any subject
important to the people of Remsen City in the columns of any of the
three. During wars between rival groups of capitalists a half-truth
was now and then timidly uttered, but never a word of "loose talk," of
"anarchy," of anything but the entirely "safe, sane and conservative."

Thus, any one who might have witnessed the scenes in Market Square on
Thursday evening would have been not a little astonished to read the
accounts presented the next day by the three newspapers. According to
all three the Workingmen's League, long a menace to the public peace,
had at last brought upon Remsen City the shame of a riot in which two
men, a woman and four children had lost their lives and more than a
hundred, "including the notorious Victor Dorn," had been injured. And
after the riot the part of the mob that was hostile to "the Dorn gang"
had swept down upon the office of the New Day, had wrecked it, and had
set fire to the building, with the result that five hou