It is common belief
that no cause is too sacred or no consequence too grave to give pause to
the editorial rapacity for news. The present instance disproved that
supposition. No journal, yellow or otherwise, contained a line of
suggestion that anything beyond annoyance was to be feared from these
queer manifestations.
The consequences on a mixed population like that of New York were very
peculiar. The people naturally divided themselves into three classes. In
the first were those who had received their warning from logic, friends,
or the outside world; and who either promptly left town or, being unable
to do so, lived in fear. In the second were all that numerous body who,
neurasthenically unbalanced or near the overbalance, shut instinctively
the eyes of their reason and glowed with a devastating and fanatical
religious zeal. Among these, so exextraordinarily are we constituted,
almost immediately grew up various sects, uniting only in the belief that
the wrath of God was upon an iniquitous people.
By far the largest class of all, comprising the every-day busy bulk of
the people, were those who accepted the thing at its face value, read its
own papers, went about its business, and spared time to laugh at the
absurdities or growl at the inconveniences of the phenomena. With true
American adaptability, it speedily accustomed itself to both the
expectation of, and the coping with, unusual conditions.
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