EXTRAORDINARY OUTRAGE.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1520, 30 March 1887, Page 2

EXTRAORDINARY OUTRAGE.

The American correspondent of a Dunodin exchange gives a long and circumstantial account of an extraordinary outrage committed m the Opera House, San Francisco, when Adelina Pntti was singinvr m " Lucia 6J LammeYmoor," on the night of February 9. It appears that an infernal machine, consisting of a pound package of : powder, with a vessel contaiuing turpentine, fireeticke, etc , attiched, was exploded m the gallery by an old man calling himself the " Rev. James Hodges," and who is the author of some highly inflammatory Socialistic pamphlets. Hodges, who was born m England, claims to be seventy-one years old. Ho is an old resident of San Francisco, and for some time gained a living as a vendor of patent medicines. When the Emperor of Russia was asaasßinated, he issued a pamphlet lauding the act. Fortunately (a lady who was flitting next to him, and whose arm was singed and cut, excepted)" this old miscreant seems to have been the only person "m ■ jured. His appearance, after the explosion is thus described :— " His face, which was covered with blood, was begrimed with Bmoke. He wore no hat, and it oould be seen that his iron-grey hair was | burned from the forehead halfway back ! oa the skull, while his whiskers were also singed and burned ; his nose, which hid evidently been struck with what exploded, was bleeding profusely, and his appearance waß that of one who had received the full force of the explosive " It is marvellous that m the crowded theatre the offender was almost the only sufferer, as there might easily have been an appalling loss of life. The "Chronicle 1 ' says :— " If the infernal machine had been thrown at the chandelier, and put out the lights, if it had exploded among the audience, it it. had atruok a box, or the stage, or even if it had ended its existence m mid-air, no one on earth could have saved hundreds of lives from do. Btruction ; and such a death, to be trampled under foot, crushed out of all resemblance to humanity, and m a moment to be trausformed from animated life to repulsive senseless clay. The theatre was packed ; the people were bo thick ani bo close that locomotion at a snail like pace was almost impossible Terrible would have been the result if all these thousands of happy people had be»n suddenly transformed into a shrieking, howling mob battling for life The scenes of the Vienna Opera House would have been re enacted." As it was though there was a deafening explosion and pieces of burning material, apparently cotton, fell from the gallerj down towards the orchestra, causing a momentary excitement, the persistent manner m which the upper gallery occupants, thinkiog that the hoodlums had attempted some cracker diversions, yelled out "eit down," convinced the bulk of the audience that it was tho wisest thing to remain m their seats. Patti then appeared on the stage to sing " Home, sweet Homo," her oalmess restoring that of the audience, and thus what otherwise must have proved a terrible calamity waß averted. Some pooplo think that Hodges is -a " crank," but the heads of the Police Department consider him an anarchist, and believe his design was to spread .death and destruction around.