seven o'clock
He begged the employees to keep calm , and assured them that it was no joke , but that San Francisco was really in the hands of the Japanese . It was the duty of the employees and the citizens , he said , to refrain from all resistance , so that a worse misfortune -- a bombardment , he added in a whisper -- might not befall the city . The men were obliged to give up any weapons they had in their possession , and these were collected by the Japanese . At seven o'clock , when these details had been attended to , and the few telegraph instruments which were kept in commission were being used by Japanese operators -- all the others had been rendered useless by the removal of some parts of the mechanism -- one of the regular operators asked to be allowed to speak to the Postmaster . Permission having been granted by the Japanese guard , he told his chief , in a low voice , that the moment the Japanese soldiers had taken possession of the telegraph room he had hurriedly dispatched a message to Sacramento , telling them that San Francisco had been surprised by the Japanese fleet and that the whole city was occupied by Japanese troops . `` I thank you in the name of our poor country , '' said the Postmaster , shaking the operator 's hand , `` I thank you with all my heart ; you have done a brave deed . '' Just at the time when the operator sent off his telegram to Sacramento , a little , yellow , narrow-eyed fellow , lying in a ditch many miles inland , far to the east of San Francisco , connected his Morse apparatus with the San Francisco-Sacramento telegraph-wire , and intercepted the following message : `` Chief of Police , Sacramento .