The Novi Krai newspaper was, as I have already pointed out, perhaps even a greater opponent of the Japanese than Baron Ginsberg: and consequently it was but poetic justice, I suppose, when a Japanese shell broke all the windows in its office and wounded the manager. Although most of its staff and compositors were drafted into the army, the Novi Krai continued to appear until the end of the war.
The overcrowding on the trains that carried away the first batches of fugitives was almost incredible. Inside the carriages, people were packed on top of one another like herrings, outside they crowded the steps all night. After leaving Port Arthur the conductor requested the gentlemen to leave the train to the women and children; but the gentlemen pointed out forcibly that many of the women carried large packages, which should be thrown out of the windows, and inveighed with tears in their eyes against the cruelty of separating husbands from wives and brothers from sisters.
Finally, they carried their point and were allowed to continue their journey. Some of these " gentlemen " were in such a state of panic that, as I have already remarked, even in Newchwang, Shan-haikwan and Ching-wan-tao they hardly felt themselves to be secure. It was strange the effect this panic had on some people. Silent men became loquacious, guarded men freely disclosed their vulgarity and self-conceit. Most of them seemed to attach too much value to their lives. For example, one obscure individual requested me to telegraph to Europe, as an item of news that would profoundly interest the public, the one fact that he was safe.