THE DYNAMITE SCARE.

Thames Star, Volume XIV, Issue 4492, 29 May 1883, Page 2

THE DYNAMITE SCARE.

The widespread alarm created throughout England by the exposure of the dynamite conspiracy, so far from being exaggerated, seems quite incommensurate with the magnitude of the danger under* gone. It is difficult to convey an adequate notion of the ruin arid devastation th^t would have occurred if, either by accident or design, the immence quantity of nitro-glycerine seized in the neighbor hood of the Strand bad been exploded in a populous. part of London. No such i mass of that compound has ever been de tonated even experimentally, and only those who have a- scientific knowledge of the power of explosives can picture to themselves the appalling spectacle of havoc and confusion that would have ensued within a vast area. The gas absorbed in the nitroglycerine , expands upon liberation to ten thousand times the bulk of the liquid itself, driving the atmosphere before it with such force/ that it acts with the power of a solid sob* stance, its destructive capacity being infinitely increased by its almost incalcaU able volume. In addition to this, the . j suffocating heat of the liberated gas would have caused nearly as great a sacrifice of human life as the wreck of the surround* ing property. It is stated that the infernal scheme planned by these mis-.... creants provided for the explosion of greafc quantities of nitro-glycerine simultaneously in different quarters of the Metropolis, a plot which, if carried out, wouli result in universal, and an absolutely inconceivable loss of life. That the vigilance of the police has succeeded in preventing this dreadful calamity fully entitles the force to the high compliments bestowed upon it by the Home Secretary, and it may be fairly presumed that the intense anxiety observable on all sides will render it impossible for the emissaries, of ' the dynamite gospel to penetrate, nowthe^ diabolical outrage has been so happily frustrated. .