Page:America Fallen!.djvu/125

Rh again to crush the life out of that hope-abandoned mob.

And just at this very hour, as though the anguish were not complete, the lawless element in the city broke loose in every quarter in a wild orgie of pillage and arson. From many a resort of crime and infamy, the gunman, the safe-cracker, and all the brood that hides from law and order streamed forth to gather in the spoil. The police, aye the whole ten thousand of them, swept off their feet by the wild terror of Manhattan's millions, were unable to co-operate for effective work. Crime had found its millennium. Into the jewelry stores, into the houses of the rich on Fifth Avenue and the West Side, a mob, armed and stopping at no crime of violence, broke its way, gathering into grip and handbag, or thrusting into pocket at each grasp, the ransom of a prince!

The terror of the bombardment swept