PLOT TO BLOW UP THE GERMAN EMBASSY. Abortive Trial of the Accused. Story of the Case.

Te Aroha News, Volume I, Issue 43, 29 March 1884, Page 5

PLOT TO BLOW UP THE GERMAN EMBASSY. Abortive Trial of the Accused. Story of the Case.

Great regret has been felt all over the country this last week at the abortive result of the trial of Woolf and Bondurand, the two foreigners who are accused of having conspired to blow up the German Embassy, if not exactly a la Guy Fawkes, in a somewhai similar manner. The case occupied a judge and jury several days, but no verdict was arrived at. Apparently, after being locked up for nearly six hours on the evening of the 19th January, the jury found themselves in the anomalous position of being eleven to one in favour of a conviction or an acquittal. The arguments or the obstinacy of the unit absolutely prevailed against the overwhelming majority, and when Sunday morning approached, the irate Judge found himself obliged to discharge the jury. Thus the whole weary business must be re-commenced do novo. From beginning to end the case is remarkable. Wm. Woolf is a native of Switzerland, described as a chemist, but also following in the trades of interpreter, lodg-ing-house keeper, showman, and police spy on foreigners resident in the English metropolis. Edward Bondarand, his colleague in suspected guilt, is French, and a porson with fewer callings, but probably not limiting himself to the useful trade of a baker. The charge against them was of being in illegal possession of explosives, but of course the ulterior object sought to be compassed, according to the accusation was a terrible explosion of an infernal machine in the streets of London. Sir Wm. Harcourt's new Explosive Act, passed in the days followidg the revelations of Gallagher and Whiteheads dastardly dynamite plot, has not hitherto been found very useful ; but, had that Act not been in existence, the offence of which the prisoners were accused was one that could quite well have been punished under the ordinary criminal law alone. The whole tale is a narrative of low cunning and vulgar treachery, even supposing it not to include intentions of diabolical and cold - blooded cruelty. It is fortunate for society that the men who plot outrages are frequently traitors who do not scruple to turn round upon old associates, and inform against them ; and in the present instance we owe the discovery of this infamous scheme to injure the German Embassy, presuming it to have been really devised, to the treachery of a man who, for a time at least, was, by his own confession, an accomplice and tool of the principal offenders • According to the evidence of the informor, the two prisoners and others, whatever was their motive in wishing to create , an explosion, evidently considered that their chance of escape was pretty good. They were to drive in a cab until they arrived close to the German Embassy. Then they were to place the iron kettle and the zinc pail, already filled with gunpowder and pieces of iron, and with fuses attached, on the roadway, and casually ignite the fuse with a match or a cigar-end. There was plenty of time, as Colonel Majendie explained, for everybody to run away after depositing these infernal machines before the explosion would occur. The same experienced authority stated that the effect of the amount of gunpowder contained in the two receptacles would have been to do considerable damage to property in the neighbourhood, and very probably to kill any persons who might be passingatthctime. Thegunpswcler, of which there was fifteen pounds, would, with the weight of scrap-iron on the top of it, explode in the same way as a shell, and no doubt scatter death and mutilation around. This atrocious scheme was really hatched— say the prosecution — between the two men, Woolf and Bondurand — with the help of others — and would have been executed but for the timely arrest of the former at his lodgings in Vincent Square, Westminster. ' Shortly afterwards his supposed partner in the business, Edward Bondurand, was also apprehended. Since that time the two men have been busily engaged in trying te throw the blame on each other's shoulders, or on those of Louis Bondurand, brother of Edward, as well as a mysterious foreigner, and an equally mysterious polico officer, who were said by them to have been implicated in the conspiracy. To understand the story ot all we must look to the evidence of Jacob Kallborn, alias Leon Ferrall,^and his sworn testimony is tainted by the fact that he deliberately entered into this plot and helped the con spirators. However, it is owing to this man's information that the authorities at Scotland Yard were apprised of the contemplated outrage. What does this somewhat suspicious witness affirm ? He says that Woolf used to talk about the reward of one thousand pounds promised by the Government for the discovery of the perpetrators of the Underground Railway explosions, and how easy it would be to perform some parallel outrage and obtain the reward which would no doubt be offered. The plan was to effect the explosion themselves, and then to inform against some innocent person : and Woolf deputed Kallborn to find out " some German — it didn't matter who," in whose house a few scraps of paper and a little bottle of red ink were to be placed. That was all ; but then, part of the conspirators' plot was that they should drop on the ground, at the scene of the explosion, a letter written in red ink, containing threats or expressions of hatred against the German Emperor. Such a letter was actually found in the house where Woolf lived ; and, unless the whole story is a wicked conspiracy of Kallborn and Bondurand against Woolf, this fact seems to throw some probability over the tale told by Kallborn, the approver. Following the latter's statement, the sole object of these wicked plotters was to reap a pecuniary profit out of the murder of unoffending London citizens. Woolf told Kallborn, the latter said, that the iron kettle and the zinc pail, with their destructive contents, would create an "awful crack," and appeared pleased with the idea of the slaughter which might ensue. " The more people that were killed the better," because then the reward offered would be proportionately increased. Such was the plain businesslike view which the Crown put forward as having been taken by Woolf, and presumably also by Bondurand, of the wholesale massacre which they sought to perpetrate. It was enough for them to know that a good deal of brick wall would be blown in, that all the glass in the houses anywhere near would be shattered in fragments, and that any passeix-by at the time would be shockingly maimed and mutilated, if not actually killed. In pursuit of this fiendish design —on the theory that the informer's evidence is trustworthy — Kallborn was taken into the confidence of the other miscreants, and was promised a reward of one hundred pounds as his share of the booty. Accordingly, he and Bondurand went to the shop of an ironmonger near Charing Cross, and, while the latter waited outside with a bag to contain the purchase, Kallborn entered

and bought fourteen or fifteen pounds of guupowder, for which lie paid thirty-five shillings. Then, says Kallborn, the powder was taken to Panton-streefc, where Woolf lived at that time, and was afterwards transferred to Vincent Square, where it was found by the police. On the 22nd of November last year, when the explosion was to take place, it appears that the informer got frightened at what he had done. He therefore repaired to Scotland Yard, and told the police what was intended. Later in the day he seems to have gone again, accompanied by Louis Bondurand, and then the police and the two informers went straight to Vincent Square and arrested Woolf, with all the proofs of some murderous design lying in the attic which he occupied. Louis Bondurand, however, appears to have considered discretion the better part of valour, and lied. The result of the trial will certainly not tend to deter ill-disrjosed wretches from attempting explosions in order to gain money ; but there is every reason to hope that the mystery attaching to the explosives found in Vincent Square will not last beyond the next trial,