Although there was now a cessation of real attacks by the Monster, the public feeling rose to very fever height. As one newspaper remarked: "The Monster is now a mischief of more than common magnitude. Inhuman himself, the villainy is visited upon all who are of the same sex: alike the source of apprehension, terror, and flight. It is really distressing to walk our streets towards evening. Every woman we meet regards us with distrust, shrinks sidling from our touch, and expects a poignard to pierce what gallantry, and manhood, consider as sacred. There must be a very criminal supineness somewhere, or these execrable villains would, with greater speed, expiate with their lives, the insulted humanity of being." As an example of the pitch to which the excitement was wrought, the following case may be taken. A man met a girl, and went with her into a public-house. They sat down, and he showed her an artificial bouquet, or nosegay, as it was then called, which he had in his hand, and begged her to accept it. The girl, in taking hold of it, felt something prick her, and it made her hand bleed. She went away, and told the story to some of her friends, who immediately insisted that it must be the Monster, and that a dagger was certainly concealed in the nosegay. The man was in consequence arrested, and kept all night in the watch-house. On enquiry in the morning, it was found that the girl's hand had only been pricked by the wire used to bind the flowers together, and the poor man was, of course, discharged.