MEMORABLE EXPLOSIONS.

Dunstan Times, Issue 1210, 8 May 1885, Page 3

MEMORABLE EXPLOSIONS.

The attempts to blow up the Houses of Parliament and Tower of Loudon with dynamite recall similar attempts against persons and property in Knro, e during the last half century. The disposition to assail historic monuments, irrespective ot their relation to alleged abuses of the dav, which was shown in the attempt to blow up the Tower of Loudon, had been characteristic of a number of these attempts which it would be an abuse of words to cad vandalism, for the vandals at least did not assail structures identified with the progress of civdisation. They srao e the splendid edifices of a d caving Btate, and boldly advanced on their errand of purification through ruin, while the wretched hearers of dynamite skulked on their murderous path and imperilled hundreds of innocent lives to gratify tlieir insensate hatred. The previous attempts at destruction in the London underground railway tietray a similar spirit The attempted destruction of the grand monument at Neiderwald on the Khine, last year, also showed a senseless spiiit, for this monument repre euts the progress of Germany, which can only gain its full measure of constitutional liberty through the nniou which it symbolises. Fortuna elv, the conspirators engaged in this affair were arrested, a number of them being convicted and executed and others imprisoned Austria has within a year harboured similar conspirators, and the detection of their attempts to destroy one ot the Imperial Archdukes and to wreck a public building in Yienm is matter of recent history. Kven Italy has not been safe from the dynamitard, Turin having been the seen ot an attempted explosion within the past six months. As a general iule destructive explosions have lic-n directed against individual identified with a political system, instead of a.ainst his'oric sir ictures filled with innocent people. Kven the attempted demolition of the Winter Palace at St Petersburg several years ago was not caused by a desire to desiroy the icsidence ot Russian 1m peiialism, but b- a desperation to kdl the (Jza r and his reltiives When Alexander I was assassinated, March 13, 1811, the bombs thrown under his carriage were aimed at his life, and not at the lives which were imperilled by his proximity to him. It is noticeable though Q men Victoria has been shot at several times, yet she has never been made the target for explosives, and the same remark is true of the Emperor William ot Gerrna y. Louis Mapoleon, however, had to pass through a perilous ordeal, iu which others lost their live , by this means, disease is peculiarly interesting at this time, because England refused to give up the accomplices of the assassin, and the position she then assumed in regar I to the right of asylum has come back to plague her. Felice ' hsini, an Italian, having found that the English Government iu 1858 would not interfere to expel the A ustrians from his native land, and attributing their backwardness to the influence of Napoleon 111, resolved to destroy him. On the evening of January 14, as the Emperor and Empiess were nearing the door of the Paris Opera House, three shells or b >m is came bursting iu and about their carriage. They had been flung by Orsini and his companions, who, while failing to kill either the Emperor or Empress, destroyed 10 innocent persons and wounded 156 others It is nodeeab'e that the bombs used by Orsini and his party were manufactured in Birmingham, and were ordered for him by an Englishman. The four men implied'ad in the attempt on the Emperor’s l.fe were tried, two of them, one of whom was Orsiui, were executed, and the others were sentenced to penal servitude for life The French people were greatly excited against England, any under pressure from the Imperial Government Lord Palmerston introduced a bill for the suppn ssion and punishment of conspiracies. But public opinion was excited against th« French demands, which it was claimed sought to sacrifice the cherished English right ot asylum, and the. bill was dideated. Bernard, the Frenchman, living in London, who was implicated in the assassination, was tiled and acquitted, and it is a curious face in the curious series of coincidences, that he was defended by the very Edwin James, who afterwards practised law in New York And tina ly. 1 > id Palmerston’s Ministry went to pines

Because th • House <>} CViniuioiis ' *li'v Imd not u lif>li| tin 1 ion* .ll ** of the co lutrv H'l liciioit in replying to the ivcrimi ationn ot the French fJoveniment in t,ho m itter. I’l.p attempt on the life of Louis Ph llipe by Fieschi, July 38, 1835, also i' vo'ved the use of weapons which imperilled the lives ot others, and, wh le the King escaped, 12 persons were killed, and 40 wounded An infernal uniahine made of gim bombs did the work as .the royal procession ptssed the house in which the assa sin was secreted. B /en the two acc 'in • plicos, who came up one after another and tired at Louis Phillipe in th carriage, missed him. and the tw > subsequent attempts to construct infernal machines to destroy the King were discovered by the police. A memorable explosion which shook London on December 13, 1867, may fitly close the list of the-e a tempts to advance political ends by atrocious crimes. Some of the men who had rescued the two Fenian prisoners in Manchester concerned ia the rec nit uprising were confined in the Clerken wall House of Detention and th ir friends attempted a rescue by firing a barrel of cun powder just outside • he wall with a match and fuse. A large part i. f the prison wall was shatter© I, and a number of small houses in the vicinity were demolished. Twelve da iths of adults resulted from the ex* plosion, 120 persons were wounded, and 20 babbs died in premature bii th The prisoner, however, were not rescued, and, in fact, were in danger of being killed by their desperate friends These illustrations emphasise the les» sms taught by the recent dynamite explosions of the folly and wickedness of using explosives in public places to further the ends of fanaticism and dime. The horrors of the commune in Paris in the spring of 1871 were on such a revolutionary scale that they are not to be mentioned with the c-ses above cited as illustrating the mid attempts of a few individuals, though they enforce the sam- warning against reckless outbursts of violence.—Home paper.