The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1909-09-03

at him from boards. This incomplete bulletin was the most poignant note in the whole discord of si- lenee The very letters, with their pa1lidiy white background, kept repeating the question with hi deous intensity he crawled about forcing himself to examine each bit of paper that lay dead before yawning doors. As he persisted the tumu1t of his nearly. destroyed faculties quieted and the insane rushing hither and hither of his thoughts longer seembed to fill the entire city with their clamor
 For several minutes he sought in the remnants of the newspapers for some clue to the cause of his astounding isolation; but he could find nothing that gave him any help except the perusal of their columns strengthened him in self-control. Then he upon bit of "copy", blown from some window, or else dropped by some newswrter in his flight from the building Like the bulletin it reflected dazed increduty, the groping of an astounded mind attempting grapple with the incompr ehensb1e It began; Are to believe that the millions of hur- rying, toilng, Respondent, triumphant vesactuated by all-encompassng, a1l-pervading spirit of self ishness-have engendered some awful physical force, personality, in the very mountains of steel and stone they have created, and does this Thing feed upon that which created it?"
 In the next few pages the writer widowed in a sea of words, evidently writing in frenzied search for some expression that would convey intelligence; but finally in despair at finding an adequate voca- bulary he had crossed them out Near the end the copy ntelligb1e yet did not presume to state fact Instead, it asked Are there undreaed of forces in the atmosphere enve1opng the city? Have the passionate endeavors for se1fpreservatio for gain, for ustfu triunphs-exha1ed for years-at last produced concrete result? And has the final total solid6ed into physical, tangible Thing, the like of which before existed? Why not? Whence the first awful forms of life that over ran the world in the beginning?"
 All this gave answer the staring bulletin but it allowed the reader to sanely pursue useless endeavor to hit upon a solution. Whatever had caused New York to become solitude it some thing entirely undreamed of before in the history of the world It not pestilence, it not physical menace that could be met by mans cunning resstance-it something infinite in potentiality; something that great people had fled before, had been eliminated by, in single night Then he membered the mildewed papers in Madison Square and wondered if he had not slept longer than night
 On another piece of "copy" he foud scrawled. "More in heaven and earth than ever dreamed of in thy philosophy"
 And again. in reporters story of the first appearance of the phenomenon, Thing-written doubtfully-he read in part, follows: "The report of wraith-lke vaporous shape that extirpates all forms of life it passes over, bas been consistently teephoned into the various precinct stations that it no longer be ignored and quiet investigation is foot. It is said that whole families have disappeared from the crowded foreign quarters; while many reports have been made of strange dis appearances from the hotel and office sections. It is also rumored that in several theatres only small per cent. of the patrons forth yesterday and that the greater portion of the audiences simply melted away if they had never been. This is preposterous that it could be written if it for the mysterious disappearance last night of Avenue cafe for the purpose of secret conference, and who never out Nor have they been by their friends families.
 While speculation is flying from ridiculous silently apprehensive of something they cannot name, and leaving the city by thousands, hourly.
 This probably of the fist intimatiors in print he decided, of the strange visitation Besides bulletins, dated from Washington. The first said: Professor Muehlanrk announced he has discovered that new force exists in certain atmospheric belts, where huge numbers of people gathered within nstantaneously fatal to all forms of life, and