Leading merchants and the heads of firms had sudden important business calls to visit Newchang or Harbin, and _they_ secured places on the trains which left more or less regularly every day. The retailers thought the present the best opportunity to make a fortune by realizing their stock at famine prices. On some goods the retail prices were doubled in a day, and quadrupled within a week. Having trusted to Chinese workmen for their preparation, at once provisions ran short when their services could not be obtained. There were no bakers and no butchers at work, until the masters organized fresh staffs from among the troops. Within the first week I had to buy half a loaf at the Saratoff restaurant in order to have bread for breakfast the next day. Two days afterwards I had purchased the whole stock of plain biscuits the storekeepers possessed. There was plenty of water in the wells, but no coolies to carry it; the public baths were closed because there were no Chinese to keep the fires going; coals were cheap enough at the compounds but, again, no means of getting them home. All the horses and carts which had not been requisitioned by the authorities were earning double their cost each day in taking the more valuable household effects of residents to the wharf, the station, or by road to Dalny. There were no boys to wait on one, or to do housework; cooks were at a premium; restaurant waiters and carriage drivers were in the army reserve, and doing their turns of sentry go. The sanitary corps broke down completely. Laundries ceased to exist. Never in so short a time did the social organization of a civilized community go so completely to pieces. To make matters worse, there was a dearth of ready money. The Russo-Chinese bank, the only bank permitted in the town, had been damaged during the bombardment, and was removed to fresh premises in the New Town. When finally it was duly installed there and opened its doors for business, it would receive money only, and pay none away! It was long weeks before it again got into proper working order; when that was accomplished most of the staff were transferred north to Newchang, Mukden and Harbin, and disorder was again manifest. The confusion and disorder in the town were not worse than the derangement of routine and subversion of order in the official departments. When the Post Office reopened, one could scarcely get within its doors so great was the crush. Inside there was little chance of getting even a stamp delivered to one, or to get a letter accepted for registration. The guns in the forts were fired in desultory fashion night and day at almost every object seen moving on the water. It was unsafe to take a boat in the harbour, for there rifle fire at people in sampans and ship’s gigs was both frequent and disastrous.