I have always found newspaper men exceedingly prosaic. The following cutting from a New York paper demonstrates my point:
A fire in the upper West Side caused a great deal of disturbance yesterday morning, when police reserves from three stations fought with firemen to keep excited passers-by from entering the burning building. For two hours thirty or forty hooded men endeavored to rescue the inmates, and caused a great deal of disturbance. The police were unable to explain why utter strangers should take such an interest in one poor perishing wretch, since it was later ascertained that the house was occupied by an eccentric professor and misanthrope who is suspected of bootlegging operations. Patrolman Henley, from the West 93rd Street Station, claims that one of the would-be rescuers removed his hood for a brief moment, and that his face was covered with fur, and eaten away at the corners. Luckily for Patrolman Henley's reputation he is known to suffer from migraine, and it is probable that what he imagined he saw had no basis in fact.
The wildly excited attempts of strangers to enter the building completely frustrated operations, and the unfortunate inmate perished. For a moment he was seen at the window, and those who were standing on the sidewalk immediately underneath declare that his hair and beard were actually on fire.
The upper portion of the building was completely destroyed. A number of curious bones were found in the room, including the skeleton of a gigantic dog. During the past week three previous fires have been reported in the neighborhood, and the police are investigating rumors of a firebug.
The Caves of Kooli-Kan
By Robert S. Carr
Where a grim and ghastly river wrapped in brooding menace flows
Through a barren blackened mountain that was never known to man,
In an awful land of silence where the sun all blood-red shows,
Lie those shrieking pits of horror called the Caves of Kooli-Kan.
Down the grim and ghastly river, clothed in lurid lights, come boats
Full of great black hairy Somethings with a hundred staring eyes,
Who converse on grisly subjects in their low and froglike notes,
Bathed in bloody beams of sunlight which come dripping from the skies.
Where the boats stop at a landing built of countless polished bones,
There the huge and hairy Somethings, full of mutterings, climb out,
To descend a gloomy stairway from whence issue tortured groans,
Mixed with peals of ghoulish laughter from that awful realm of doubt.
Some foul, sweaty, slimy substance from the walls exudes in beads,
For the barren, blackened mountain has, for ages steeped in sin,
Acted as the bridal chamber of the blackest, foulest deeds,
As the cradle of the creature called the Never-Should-Have-Been.
Huge, uncouth, misshapen Things whose screams of pain the senses numb.
Mighty, voiceless grim Unknowns with wings like bats the darkness fan;
All the wild-eyed stark mad terror for a million years to come
Haunts those shrieking pits of horror called the Caves of Kooli-Kan.
