Page:History of Washington The Rise and Progress of an American State, volume 4.djvu/441

 little air space a sleeping Chinaman would be content with, nor did they care specially about the enforcement of the ordinance in Chinatown. If they had they would have appealed to the constituted authorities to enforce it. What was wanted was a legal pretext for what they were about to do, and this was fixed upon.

Accordingly on the following morning early the committee, followed by a large number of their supporters, went to the Chinese quarter with wagons, and while some of them made inquiries at each house about the number of cubic feet of air per occupant they furnished, others invaded the premises and carried the goods they contained to the wagons. The Chinamen made no attempt at resistance—they knew it would be useless to do so. The police did nothing to stop what was going on, but rather gave it countenance by making no protest when demands were made upon the Chinamen to open their doors.

As soon as Sheriff McGraw was apprised of what was going on he hurried to the scene of action and commanded the crowd to disperse, but it only laughed and jeered at him and continued its work. He summoned a few of the bystanders, whom he knew and thought he could rely upon, to his assistance, and with their help attempted to put a stop to the work of eviction, but the crowd was too numerous and too determined for his small posse, and as soon as he stopped work at one place it was begun at another. Finally the fire bells were rung as a signal to the home guards to assemble, and they soon appeared, followed a little later by two companies of local militia.

But before this force could be assembled and effectively used about three hundred and fifty Chinamen, and their effects, had been driven or carried to the ocean dock, where