A MURDEROUS PLOT. Exposure of an Attempt to Kill Emperor William and Bismarck.

Te Aroha News, Volume II, Issue 67, 13 September 1884, Page 4

A MURDEROUS PLOT. Exposure of an Attempt to Kill Emperor William and Bismarck.

London, July 17. — Despite the strenuous efforts of the German authorities to suppress the facts, it is evident that there is a substantial basis for general belief that a desperate effort was made to kill several august personages at the inauguration of the C4ermania monument, on the Niederwald, last September, The first hint of the conspiracy became public when the workmen who were completing the ornamented approaches to the monument this spring found a quantity of dynamite concealed in a drain-pipe. The discovery produced a great sensation, and a Government commission, consisting of military officers and engineers, was appointed to investigate. From time to time fragmentary reports of their discoveries leaked out, notwithstanding the efforts to keep the proceedings secret, and it became known that they had found traces of a mine of explosives directly under the road traversed by the Emperor, which might have blown the entire cortege skyward, except for the fortunate accident that the mine had become saturated by a heavy rainstorm. These revelations were followed by the arrest of a number of suspected conspirators, who were first examined before a commission, and then imprisoned at Stuttgart. The arrests revived the excitement, and it seemed necessary to do something to abate the alarm. Consequently, when the official report of the commission was made and the newspapers sought to learn its content3,they were officially informed that the commission had failed to find evidence of conspiracy, and were told that no information beyond that statement would be given to the public. The Stuttgart " Stoats- Auzeiger," however, managed to obtain the outline of a confession made by one of the alleged conspirators imprisoned at Stuttgart, and printed it as a matter of news. This provoked a fresh denial from official sources, coupled with an intimation that the Public Prosecutor at Berlin was making inquiries with a view of detecting and punishing those engaged in circulating lies calculated to disturb the public mind. Special reference was made to reports of the attempts upon the Emperior's life afc Ems, at Gratz, at Elberfield, and at theNiederwald celebration. The " Staats-Anzeiger " regarded this attack upon its veracity as a challenge, and set to work to verify and complete its report of the confession. It has just published the results of its latest investigations, which show that the chief prisoners confined at Stuttgart are two anarchists named Rumpsch and Knechler. The one who has confessed is Rumpsch, and in his confession he admits that there was a lyell-considered plot having for its object the terrorising of all Europe by wholesale murder, of which the Emperor, Crown Prince, Bismarck and others of the distinguished assemblage expected to be present, were to, be among the victims,