With that mocking perversity which confutes the weatherwise, the frost and bitter wind had given place to heavy rainstorms. The wind, veering round to south-west late on Boxing Day, blew with an ever-growing force and fury, and made the night of December 26th one of terrible memory for many years to come. In London and Westminster alone a million pounds’ worth of damage resulted from the tempest, and the tale of ships wrecked and lives lost all round the coast was only to be told later on and by instalments. The traffic on nearly every railway was now disorganised, and a strike of the railway men had become imminent. The cutting of telegraph wires by the Leaguers had already gone far to keep Londoners in ignorance of momentous events happening outside the metropolitan area, and the great storm almost completed the work the Leaguers had left unfinished. But the partial isolation of the great town in other respects, and particularly the threatened dearth of food supplies, constituted a yet further cause of apprehension. Early on the morning of the 27th, the provision shops were besieged by people of all ranks, eager to lay in stores of every description--meat, vegetables, groceries, bread, and every kind of household necessaries. In many cases it became a raid, in which some paid monstrous prices, while in the scramble others secured provisions without paying for them at all. Great numbers of shops and stores were wholly cleared of stock, tradesmen and their assistants being overpowered, while customers hurrying homewards were frequently waylaid, maltreated, and robbed of their purchases. The tumult and excitement in the streets became appalling. Military patrols were now seen in some of the principal thoroughfares, but not in sufficient numbers to maintain good order. Here and there a band of hooligans, who smashed all the street lamps as they passed, were chased by troopers, but they generally escaped into side streets and alleys, and resumed their work of destruction in another quarter. Shutters were closed, and boarded windows met the eye in all directions. Wild rumours went round. There were, it was said, barricades at the West End. Martial law would be declared before the day was out. Stories were told of disaffection among the troops at Aldershot; of a night muster on Ascot Heath and a march through Windsor Great Park to the Castle. Another organised mob was reported to have assembled at Grange Wood, near Croydon, marching thence, with increasing swarms of adherents, through Camberwell, Walworth, and Lambeth, making, as some said, for the Archbishop’s Palace, or, as others declared, for the Houses of Parliament.