in Rome when Caesar was
killed--reporting on an evening paper, and the only one in the city, and
getting at least twelve hours ahead of the morning-paper boys with this
most magnificent "item" that ever fell to the lot of the craft. Other
events have happened as startling as this, but none that possessed so
peculiarly all the characteristics of the favorite "item" of the present
day, magnified into grandeur and sublimity by the high rank, fame, and
social and political standing of the actors in it.

However, as I was not permitted to report Caesar's assassination in the
regular way, it has at least afforded me rare satisfaction to translate
the following able account of it from the original Latin of the Roman
Daily Evening Fasces of that date--second edition:

Our usually quiet city of Rome was thrown into a state of wild excitement
yesterday by the occurrence of one of those bloody affrays which sicken
the heart and fill the soul with fear, while they inspire all thinking
men with forebodings for the future of a city where human life is held so
cheaply and the gravest laws are so openly set at defiance. As the
result of that affray, it is our painful duty, as public journalists, to
record the death of one of our most esteemed citizens--a man whose name
is known wherever this paper circulates, and where fame it has been our
pleasure and our privilege to extend, and also to protect from the tongue
of slander and falsehood, to the best of our poor ability. We refer to
Mr. J. Caesar, the Emperor-elect.

The facts of the case, as nearly as our reporter could determine them
from the conflicting statements of eye-witnesses, were about as
follows:-- The affair was an election row, of course. Nine-tenths of the
ghastly butcheries that disgrace the city nowadays grow out of the
bickerings and jealousies and animosities engendered by these accursed
elections. Rome would be the gainer by it if her very constables were
elected to serve a century; for in our experience we have never even been
able to choose a dog-pelter without celebrating the event with a dozen
knockdowns and a general cramming of the station-house with drunken
vagabonds overnight. It is said that when the immense majority for Caesar
at the polls in the market was declared the other day, and the crown was
offered to that gentleman, even his amazing unselfishness in refusing it
three times was not sufficient to save him from the whispered insults of
such me