Even this communication did not mean much to the police, though they had not, at that early stage of the mystery, the troublesome flood of crank letters to plead as an excuse for their disbelief. As a matter of fact, this first letter came before there had been anything but the briefest and most conservative announcements in the newspapers, and it should have been apparent to any one that there was nothing fraudulent about it. Yet the police officials dawdled. A second message from the mysterious John wakened them at last to action. On the morning of July 7, Mr. Ross received a longer communication, unquestionably from the writer of the first, in which he was told that his appeal to the detectives would be vain. He must meet the terms of the ransom, twenty thousand dollars, or he would be the murderer of his own child. The writer declared that no power in the universe would discover the boy, or restore him to his father, without payment of the money, and he added that if the father sent detectives too near the hiding place of the boy he would thereby be sealing the doom of his son. The letter closed with most terrifying threats. The kidnappers were frankly out to get money, and they would have it, either from Ross or from others. If he failed to yield, his child would be slain as an example to others, so that they would act more wisely when their children were taken. Ross would see his child either alive or dead. If he paid, the boy would be brought back alive; if not, his father would behold his corpse. Ross’ willingness to come to terms must be signified by the insertion of these words into the _Ledger_: “Ros, we be willing to negotiate.” Such an epistle blew away all doubts, and the Charlie Ross terror burst upon Philadelphia and surrounding communities the following morning in full virulence. The police surrounded the city, guarded every out-going road, searched the trains and boats, went through all the craft lying in the rivers, spread the dragnet for all the known criminals in town and immediately began a house-to-house search, an almost unprecedented proceeding in a republic. The newspapers grew more inflammatory with every fresh edition. At once the mad pack of anonymous letter writers took up the cry, writing to the police and to the unfortunate parents, who were forced to read with an anxious eye whatever came to their door, a most insulting and disheartening array of fulminations which caused the collapse of the already overburdened mother.