ation of the Second Avenue Elevated, where he took an
uptown train to Forty-second Street. Then he walked over to Third Avenue
and took a downtown train, which was crowded to suffocation, as far as
Grand Street, for the purpose of reaching the Chinese quarter from the
uptown side. The trip had consumed fully two hours. At the crossing of
Grand and Mott Streets he found the entrance to the latter barred by a
line of policemen standing three deep. He showed his badge to a sergeant
and received permission to pass.

The dead silence of Mott Street seemed almost uncanny after the noisy
roar of the mob, the echoes of which still rang in his ears. The
basements of the houses were all barricaded with shutters or boards, the
doors were locked, and there was scarcely a light to be seen in the
windows of the upper stories. A person paying his first visit to this
busy, bustling ant-hill of yore would, if he had not been reminded by
the peculiar penetrating smell of the yellow race of their proximity,
scarcely have believed that he was really in the notorious Chinese
quarter of New York.

The policeman who acted as Robertson's guide told him that they had
known all about the movements and intentions of the mob long before it
had reached the police headquarters, by way of the Bowery and Elm
Street, and begun to force its way from the Bowery through some of the
side streets into the Chinese quarter. Fearing that the latter would be
set on fire, the chief of police had given orders to protect it from the
irresponsible mob by barricading the streets with all the available
members of the force. In this attempt, however, they had been only
partially successful. It was out of the question for six hundred men to
hold out against tens of thousands; the enormous pressure from the rear
had hurled the front rows like driftwood against the thin chain of
policemen, which, after a stubborn resistance, had simply been broken
through at several spots.

A hand-to-hand fight had ensued and shots were soon fired on both sides,
so that the police had to content themselves with an effort to check the
worst excesses. Then, too, the spirit of patriotism was just as rampant
in the breasts of the police as it was in the breasts of those who urged
on the mob. As it was impossible to catch hold of the treacherous
invaders themselves, their natural allies should at least not escape
unscathed. The Chinese were of course prepared for such an attack. The
howlin