and holding the reader's attention may be employed to advantage.
How a current event, in this instance the opening of a trial, gives opportunity for an interesting feature article explaining the situation, picturing vividly the persons involved, and developing the "human interest" element in the case, is well illustrated in the following story written by a correspondent of the New York Tribune:
Union City, Tenn., Dec. 13.—Clad in rough homespun,
with ragged trousers tucked deep into cowskin boots innocent
of polish, with straggling beards and huge slouch hats, but
always with the inevitable long barrelled rifle or big pistol
in plain view, the denizens of the Reelfoot Lake region are
assembling in this quaint little town to-night for the opening
scene to-morrow of the Night Rider trials.
They are friends and relatives of the men who are held under military guard at the barracks. They ignore the townspeople, or look at them with scowls. When they meet one another a silent nod or a whispered word is all that passes. Silently and singly they wander through the streets, or stand for hours outside the barracks, gazing curiously up at the windows of the room in which their friends are held incommunicado. Sometimes they approach the trim young sentries on guard, taking careful inventory of the glistening bayonets and rifles.
They feel keenly this trouble, these rough but simple men of the Tennessee backwoods. They believe that they are persecuted and that the entire world is against them. "Old Tom" Johnson, who, the state says, was the first leader of the band, but was deposed because his immense stature and huge hand easily identified him, expresses the belief of most of them when he says:
"It's like this heah, stranger. God, He put them red hills up theah. An' He put some of us pooh folks, that he didn't have no room foh nowheah else, up theah, too. An' then He saw that we couldn't make a livin' farmin', so He ordered an earthquake, an' the earthquake left a big hole. Next He filled the hole with watah an' put fish in it. Then He knew we could make a livin' between farmin' and fishin'. But
