Copyright, 1897, by Harper & Brothers. All Rights Reserved.
| published weekly. | NEW YORK, TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 1897. | five cents a copy. |
| vol. xviii.—no. 902. | two dollars a year. |
A WILD DAY IN '48.
BY WILLIAM BLACK.
There was a vague apprehension in the air; every one appeared consciousthat something was about to happen, though no one seemed to knowprecisely what; and so, as childhood is naturally curious, the writer ofthese lines, being then of the age of seven, managed to escape from thehouse unobserved, out into the great murmuring town. Half-frightenedglances turned towards the east were a kind of guidance; and in thatdirection he accordingly wandered, until he came in sight of acrowd—not a beautiful, richly colored, processional crowd such as mighthave gone through the streets of Florence in mediæval times, with boychoristers chanting, and maidens carrying palms, but a black and grimyand amorphous assemblage of men, silent, in deadly earnest, who at themoment were engaged in tearing down the tall iron railing surroundingGlasgow Green, in order to secure weapons for themselves. And this smallperson of seven thought that he too must be up and doing. The otherswere wresting these enormous bars from their soldered sockets; whyshould not he also be furnished with an implement of destruction? And sohe tugged and pulled and struggled; and yet the iron bar, about thriceas high as himself, remained