Ross was advised by some friends and neighbors to yield to the demands of the extortioners, and several men of means offered him loans or gifts of such funds as he was not able to raise himself. Accordingly he signified his intention of arriving at a bargain, and the mysterious John wrote him two or three well-veiled letters which were intended to test his good faith. At this point the father and the abductors seemed about to agree, when the officials again intervened and caused the grocer to change his mood. He declared in an advertisement that he would not compound a felony by paying money for the return of his child. But this stand had hardly been taken when Mrs. Ross’ pitiful anxiety caused another change of front. Unquestionably this vacillation had a harmful effect in more than one direction. Its most serious consequence was that it gave the abductors the impression that they were dealing with a man who did not know his own mind, could not be relied upon to keep his promises, and was obviously in the control of the officers. Accordingly they moved with supercaution and began to impose impossible conditions. By this time they had written the parents of their prisoner at least a dozen letters, each containing more terrifying threats than its antecedents. To look this correspondence over at this late day is to see the nervousness of the abductors, slowly mounting to the point of extreme danger to the child. But Mr. Ross failed to see the peril, or was overpersuaded by official opinion. At this crucial point in the negotiations the blunder of all blunders was made. Philadelphia was tremulous with excitement. The police of every American city were looking for the apparition of the boy or his kidnappers. Officials in the chief British and Continental ports were watching arriving ships for the fugitives, and millions of newspaper readers were following the case in eager suspense. Naturally the police and the other officials of Philadelphia felt that the eyes of the world were upon them. They quite humanly decided on a course calculated to bring them celebrity in case of success and ample justification in case of failure. In other words, they made the gesture typical of baffled officialdom, without respect to the safety of the missing child or the real interests of its parents. At a meeting presided over by the mayor, attended by leading citizens and advised by the chiefs of the police, a reward of twenty thousand dollars, to match the amount of ransom demanded, was subscribed and advertised. The terms called for “evidence leading to the capture and conviction of the abductors of Charlie Ross and the safe return of the child,” conditions which may be cynically viewed as incongruous. The following day the chief of police announced that his men, should they participate in the successful coup, would claim no part of the reward.