Page:Magdalen by J S Machar.pdf/101



HE town of the realm and crown has three thousand inhabitants, one church, twenty inns, a brewery, and a distillery, and two newspapers which appear once every two weeks,—the ýs Gazette, a faithful organ of the conservative fathers of the town and The Free Citizen, the militant voice of the ruthless Opposition (the reader will find their genesis a few lines farther down).

The common is large and beautiful, the patrician houses about it forming a square. Above them rises the townhall with a dilapidated reddish tower, in the spire of which a two-tailed lion turns with the wind. In the centre there is a stone statue of Jan of