Exposition Dark for First Time

Illumination Dispensed With out of Respect to the President.
——
Midway, Usually Merry, Was Filled with Gloom and Solitude.

     The Pan-American was in deep gloom last night, the Midway being closed and the wonderful illumination of the grounds omitted for the first time since the Exposition opened last May. The illumination was suspended and the Midway shows closed by order of Director-General Buchanan, immediately after it was learned that President McKinley had been seriously wounded. The throngs of people on the grounds hovered about the Temple of Music with a morbid interest, although it was closed and dark; they wandered everywhere where they might hear of the President’s condition and of the anarchist who shot him. In front of the hospital was a throng of probably 8,000 people who stood with uncovered heads and in respectful silence, as the executive head of the nation was tenderly borne out of the exposition hospital.
     It was an impressive scene.
     The crowds of people drifted from the grounds and at 11 o’clock last night there were on the grounds only those whose duties required that they be there.
     All the evening and far into the night the streets down in the city were thronged; people stood in front of the newspaper offices, the hotels and the telegraph offices, and eagerly read bulletins which were posted. At 1 o’clock this morning, there were thousands of persons awaiting news of the condition of the President.