Evening star., 1915-05-23


They were as helpless their 100000
employees. To leave their city meant
for owners and workers alike TO 20
away barehanded and pauperized
There was nothing TO do except 10
stay.
All these manufa ctories and indus
tries of the city had la bored so furious
ly in the last week to produce mer-
chandise and ship IL that at last the
railroads We're unable TO handle the
rush of freight Every yard was piled
high with goods destined for the in
terror that could NOT be loaded. All the
sidings were clogeed. There were lines
of freight trains with not a gap be
tween them stretching from the Hud-
son river stra ght across the New Jer-
sey meadows and on into the yards and
sidings of New Jersey towns miles
from New York.
No freight coming in. For three
days everything had been sidetracked
clear the tracks for provisions. The
authorities. with the citizens commit
tee. unab BILE to guess what the enemy
might do. had decided that all efforts
must he subservient to the effort to
stock the town with food
Already the city had taken over the
entire business of distributing food
stuffs. Nothing could be sold except
in quantities and at prices fixed by
ordinance.
The city's people often had been told
by their statisticians that they al
ways were within q few days of fam
inc. Now they realized what II meant.
The congested tracks had cut down
their coal supply. All interurban trans
portation had to be reduced to save
power. Somewhere in the narrow val
leys leading from Lake Champlain on
crowded rails were the enormous rolls
of paper needed to feed the city $
presses. The morning newspapers had
to be cut down to four pages of small
size. There was no sporting news in
the papers, no foreign news and no
financial news.
Within the short time that had elapsed
since the occupation of New England s
mill cities the city had used up a
great part of it's stocks of textiles.
There was shortage of coffee. of spices.
of all the stuffs that ordinarily came
in by sea.
Hostile cruisers and destroyers pa
trolled all the Atlantic coast. taking
the precaution merely to stay out of
range of the harbor defenses. They
captured every vessel. large or small.
that ventured to leave a port, and sent
it into Narragansett bay or Buzzards
bay a prize.
So thoroughly had New York's sea
gate been locked that it had trouble
even to dispose of it's garbage, be-
cause tugboat captains feared to ven
ture far enough to sea to dump it.
Wherever men turned, whatever they
tried to do, it was as If there lay a
great. dead hand on the city.
The only activity that remained in
full progress, apparently, was the ac-
tivity of the new bulletin boards The
newspa pers had erected them every
where, in all the squares. Far into
the night they were served
Almost continually since the battle
of the Connecticut they had been an
nouncing the names of New Engla nd
places successively taken by the ap-
preaching army. Now. suddenly, their
news shifted. bulletin went up
dated from Eatons Neck, Long Island
Large fleet of steamers" it said
crossing Long Island Sound from di-
rection of New Haven. apparently
bound for this shore ;
Two passenger steamers of New
Haven line said the next bulletin,
five large freighters. eight lighters.
Making for coast east of Oyster Bay"
From oyster Bay came a dispatch:
Fifteen vessels putting into Cold
Spring harbor, with large number of
troops. 1t is believed that these are
forces conveyed over the Sound in
vessels captured at New Haven, to
move against New York through Long
Island"
Village of Cold Spring occupied.
Troops approaching Oyster Bay" was
the news that grew in great letters
on the boards an hour later. Nothing
more came from either of these two
points. Evidently the enemy had cut
communication at once
News began to arrive now from the
Connecticut shore. The advancing firces
having Joined west of Bridgeport, were
moving in mass along the contracted
coastal plain of southwestern Con-
necticut. Troop trains. preceded by
armored pilot engines. rolled in long
procession along the whole system of
the New York. New Haven and Hart
ford railroad. all the tracks of which
had been repaired by civilians i'm
pressed to do the work. On all the
many tracks there was affic in only
one direction-weStWard. toward New
York. The trains, moving in echelon,
went forward steadily as clock work
Along the ma gnificent motor road
that was the old Boston Post road cav
airy and motor patrols and detach-
ments advancing in the same direction
seized town after town.
They occupied Fairfield, where Paul
Revere stopped over night on his way
to report to Washington. They en-
tered with swords clanking and i'm
perious motor horns croaking into old
Saugatusk, where the colonials had
fought Gen. Tryon when he londed
and South Norwalk. They quartered
men in the estates of Darien.
They swept on through rich Stam-
ford, whose inhabitants are Connecti-
cut people by residence and New
Workers by occupation They took
Greenwich.
From Roslyn, Long Island, came word
that all the invading vessels that could
find room at the Cold Spring wharves
were unloading material. The char
acter of the derricks that had been rig
eed. said the report, indicated that ex-
tremely heavy guns were being han
died.
A bulletin that went up Immediately
afterward announced that the army
was crossing the state line from Con-
necticut into New York, and that ad-
vance patrols already were passing
through the New York state town of
Port Chester.
The enemy was now only twenty five
miles from New York city. This, and
the actual entrance into state territory,
caused a senseless. headlong fright. II
spread even into the councils OF the
citizens committee and city ofncials IN
the city hall. Men jumped to their feet
and exclaimed that the bridges over the
Harlem must be dynamited at once.
Others proposed to demoltsh the great
suspension bridges by cutting away
the suspending rods and letting the
roadways fall into the East river. that
the Long Island invader might be kept
from crossing.
II was only the final flare up of
nerye-rasped helplessly cornered men.
The least Intelligent people in the
streets could perceive that nothing ex-
cent cannons. and cannons again, could.
stop this invader. who came with war