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 The newspaper articles had prepared men's minds for the reception of the idea.

By eight o'clock a number of boys and unemployed men had already started for the common to see the "dead men from Mars." That was the form the story took. I heard of it first from my newspaper boy, about a quarter to nine, when I went out to get my Daily Chronicle, I was naturally startled, and lost no time in going out and across the Ottershaw bridge to the sand-pits.