he telegraph offices, at the City Hall and
at most of the public buildings, and as early as this, on the morning of
May seventh, troops for the march eastward were being landed at the pier
at Oakland. A standing garrison of only five thousand men was left in
San Francisco, and these at once occupied the coast-batteries and
prepared them for defense. The same thing was of course done with the
docks and the naval station, with Oakland and all the other towns
situated on the bay.

The sudden appearance of the enemy had in every case had a positively
paralyzing effect. Among the inhabitants of the coast the terrible
feeling prevailed everywhere that this was the end, that nothing could
be done against an enemy whose soldiers crept out of every hole and
cranny, and even when a few courageous men did unite for the purpose of
defending their homes, they found no followers. It is a pity that others
did not show the resolute courage of a Mexican fisherman's wife, who
reached the harbor of San Francisco with a good catch early on Monday
morning and made fast to the pier close to a Japanese destroyer. Almost
immediately a Japanese petty officer came on board and demanded the
catch for the use of the Japanese army. The woman, a coarse beauty with
a fine mustache, planted herself in front of the Jap and shouted: "What,
you shrimp, you want our fish, do you?" and seizing a good-sized silver
fish lying on the deck, she boxed the astonished warrior's ears right
and left till he fell over backwards into the water and swam quickly
back to the destroyer, snorting like a seal, amidst the laughter of the
bystanders.

The question naturally suggests itself at this point: Why didn't a
people as determined as the Americans rise like one man and, arming
themselves with revolvers and pistols and if it came to the worst with
such primitive weapons as knives and spokes, attack the various small
Japanese garrisons and free their country from this flood of swarming
yellow ants? The white handbills posted up at every street corner
furnished the answer to the question.

The municipal authorities were made responsible to the Japanese military
governor, who was clever enough to leave the entire American municipal
administration unaltered, even down to the smallest detail. Even the
local police remained in office. The whole civil life went on as before,
and only the machine-guns in front of the Japanese guard-houses situated
at the various centers of