six
o'clock A.M.
A knot of people in a street , is like a drift of wood in a river . It chokes up the stream , and catches all the other wood that is floating down . The police had in vain tried to clear out this human throng . They had waged the following contests with their fellow citizens , since six o'clock A.M. : -- first , they had driven the Jersey market wagons to the street corner below ; second , they had tumbled the butcher boys out of the trees , where they hung like a strange species of fruit ; third , they had cleared a space of ten feet square in front of the house . Having done thus much , the police paused from exhaustion , and endured the jokes of the populace with philosophic disdain . Three policemen guarded the door , within which no one was admitted but the coroner , the jury , witnesses , a few political friends of the coroner , who exhibited passes from him , and about twenty-five reporters , fifteen of whom really belonged to newspapers , and the remainder had a general connection with the press , which could never be clearly defined and established . To the magic word `` reporter , '' accompanied by the flourish of a pencil and a roll of paper , the three policemen smiled obsequiously , and unbarred the way .