Zig Zag Chat About Town [excerpt]

     A striking symbolical picture hangs over the entrance to Keeler’s hotel on Broadway. On a lonely cliff overhanging the sea are two female figures, Europe and Columbia, the latter with her face buried in her companion’s lap in an agony of weeping. Europe is soothing Columbia and gazing off across the stretch of water over which a boat is bearing the bier of William McKinley. At the helm is a figure with a scythe, evidently representing death, and the bark is headed straight for the unknown horizon. The whole conception is impressive and many persons stop to look at the picture, which is done with crayon in black and white.

——————————

     Photographs and lithographs of the late President McKinley are finding a ready sale on the streets of Albany, and a score of enterprising young men are reaping plentiful profits in selling them. On Pearl and State streets and Broadway, yesterday afternoon, yenders [sic] mingled with the throngs and sold pictures of the martyred President. The pictures were in all sizes and shapes from a likeness on a button to a larg[e] crayon or solar print. The fakirs continued their business until after the theatres were closed finding a large sale to the patrons as they left Proctor’s, Leland and Harmanus Bleecker Hall. In the Leland one of the performers, a free hand artist, attempts to make a charcoal drawing of President McKinley. The likeness is not very good and the audience seemed to feel that there was no adequate way of expressing its feelings. It rather cast a gloom over all. Finally when the likeness of the departed President was thrown on the screen from the stereopticon the audience applauded, but one could deadily [sic] appreciate that the audience wished a better way to express its feelings.