FENIANISM.

Westport Times, Volume II, Issue 182, 29 February 1868, Page 2

FENIANISM.

THE FENIAN OTJTKAGE ON THE CLEBKENWELL HOUSE OF DETECTION. A Fenian outrage, the enormity of which transcends by far that of Manchester, was perpetrated in London on Friday, Dec. 13. It had for its object the liberation of two Fenian prisoners, by blowing up with gunpowder the walls, if not the House of Detention, in which Burke and his comrade Casey are confined whilst under remand. The outrage succeeded so far as to effect an enormous breach in the wall, about 60 feet wide at the top, and lessening towards the ground. Unhappily, that was not the whole result. Innocent people —men, women, and children of all ages—some of whom happened to be passing at the time, were injured more or less severely by this modern gunpowder plot. The police appear to have snspected that some such attempt might be made, and the exterior of the House of Detention has been watched by detective police. It is stated that a house close to the north-western boundary of the prison has been suspected of being a Fenian rendezvous, and the facts, so far as they can be ascertained, seem to bear out the suspicion. The House of Detention is bounded on one side by Corporation Row. The prison wall on one side of the road is about twentyfive feet in height, and at the base 2 feet 3 inches thick, while at the top it is only a brick and a-half, or 14 inches. The surface of the ground on the prison side of the wall is from 4 feet to 6 feet below the roadway on the opposite side. It is used as a parade or air-ground for the prisoners, and is about 100 feet square. One of the sides of the prison is overlooked by the backs of the houses three or four stories high, and which are only separated from the prison wall by a very narrow passage, called Stratton's Yard. These houses front into "Wood-bridge-street. The houses in Corporation Row are three stories, and were occupied chiefly by artificers and warders of the prison. The top room of one of these houses had been unoccupied for some time, but on Friday one of the warders of the prison called the attention of an officer of the prison named Moore to a circumstance which he considered suspicious. The room commanded a full view of the prison yard, and from its opened window was leaning a woman with a jug in her hand, and behind her were four or five men, all straining to be aa near the

window as they could, with the object apparently of seeing something that was taking plaeo in tho street below. It was five minutes after this circumstance that tho explosion occurred. The house in question was soon gutted, but what become of the persona is a mystery. As an ordinary rule, Captain Codd has been in the habit of exercising his prisoners in the yard between three and half-past four o'clock in the afternoon, but on Friday ho exercised them from a quarter-past ten in the morning. He had been visited by Mr Pownall, who directed him not to exercise the prisoners at the ordinary hour. Mr Pownall gave this direction in consequence of a communication he had that afternoon received from the Home Office. The governor of the prison took the precaution to communicate.with Sir Richard Mayno, who, however, had already stationed a large body of police outside the prison, walls. They found a cordon round the prison, and had done so night and day for the past month.

THE EXPLOSION. On Friday, Sutton, Ranger, and Knowles, three officers, went on duty at about: twelve o'clock, when they noticed three men and a woman of suspicious appearance and still more suspicious behaviour. Finding the officers watching them they separated and went different ways. They again congregated in the vicinity of the prison, where, being again alarmed, one of the men, who is known, and who has for some time been suspected, drove off" in a cab, while ±he others again separated, each being dogged by an officer. About half-past three o'clock the detectives finally watched the party into St. James's Place, opposite the prison, and saw them turn into St. James's Passage. After a brief parley, Ranger and ; nowles, I went up St. James's Place to reach

the end of St. James's Passage, and Sutton went down Rosoman-street to guard the end of Corporation-lane. Just as Ranger and Knowles reached the end of the passage they met Wo of the men and the woman running at full speed up the passage, and at once stopped and arrested them. Scarcelyhad they seized them when a tremendous explosion took place, which almost prostrated the struggling group, followed by a shower of dust, the cra3h of falling houses, and after a moment's deathly silence the shrieks and wails of wounded men, women, and children. Sutton had just reached the corner of Corporation-lane when he saw one of the Fenians running close alongside the prison wall and just turning the corner into Rosomanstreet, to go in the direction of Clerkenwell Green. The officer started in pursuit, but just as he reached the middle of Corporation-lane the explosion took place, and he was prostrated and partially stunned. Rising as rapidly as possible he saw the Fenian, who had been protected by the S.W. wall of the prison, turning the corner of a street in the distance, whence he was lost to view and effected his escape. The scoundrel is the man who was known as a suspicious character to the police, and whose appearance with his companions on Friday first excited the grave suspicions of the detectives. The captured Fenians were taken to

the House of Detention. One of them gave the name of Jeremiah Allen, and says he is a bootmaker, and 36 years of age. The other states that his name is Timothy Desmond, and that he is a tailor, and 46 years of age. Both were shabbily dressed. The eye of Desmond is injured. The woman's name is Ann Justice, and her age is thirty. She has been in the daily habit of visiting the Fenian Casey at the prison, and visited him on Friday. CAUSE Or THE DISASTER. The wretches seem to have placed a barrel of gunpowder against the prison wall, lighted a fuse, and then endeavored to escape. The effect of the explosion was to blow in a triangular section of the prison wall, of about twenty feet at the base by sixty or seventy feet at the summit; to level the house immediately opposite, burying all within it under the ruins; to destroy sixteen or seventeen houses right and lefc and immediately in the rear, wounding many of the inhabitants, and more or less to injure between 200 and 300 of the houses adjacent. Several persons were reported to have been

aken out of the ruined houses dead, and about forty greviously wounded, to say nothing of those more slightly injured. Some almost miraculous escapes are reported of persons just opposite to the explosion, some of whom are stated to have seen the transaction. One poor woman, who was totally buried in the fallen ruins, but who was extricated without serious injury, soon recovered sufficiently to make a statement. If what was currently reported of her in the neighborhood is correct, the red haired Fenian who has escaped

deliberately carried n large-sized barrel, evidently of great weight, out of St. James's Passage, and set it down by the prison wall. lie then struck a lucifer match to light a fuse inserted in the side of the barrel. The match went out, and he threw it, with t.n expression of rage, on the ground. At that moment one of the other men stepped out of St. James's Passage, and handed him another match. This iynited. the fuse was lit, and the Fenians decamped in the way described. The poor woman did not realize what was about to occur till she was blinded and stunned by the explosion, remembering nothing more till she had been brought to, lifter being extricated from the ruins of the fallen bouse. The effects of the explosion were soon visible. The windows of the prison itself, of coarse glass more than a quarter of an inch thick, were to a large extent broken, and the side of the building immediately facing the outer wall in which the breach was made, and about 150 feet from it, bears the marks of the bricks which were hurled against it by the explosion. The houses opposite, numbering respectively 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7, may bo said to have been entirely demolished. The greatest suffering was experienced, and it is said that in one family alone, the father, wife, and three children are now lying in the hospital injured. RosomarNstreet, Woodbridge-street, Coburg-slreet, Northampton Eow, Bowling Green Lane, Bowling Green Bow, Meredith-street, and the courts and passages adjoining bear unrnistakeable traces of the catastrophe. In many of these places the fronts of the houses are all but shattered, and the misery occasioned in some of the poor families cannot easily be described. In "Woodbridge-street every bmise in the street has been damage-d, in some instances the glass and frames having been completely blown out. The houses in the neigborhood were terribly shaken, and many a jeweller and watchmaker's diamond and implements of trade were thrown upon the floor and damaged.

The confusion which occurred after the explosion had taken place was extraordinary, and the only wonder is that many more lives were not sacrificed. Every exertion was made by the police and the fire brigade to prevent this. Some of the houses in Corporation Row which were most severely damaged were at once pulled down. About 500 of the Metropolitan Police were on duty keeping off the crowd and preserving order, and 100 of the Fusilier Guards. Many of the "county magistrates were in attendance, and the Lord Mayor, after con&iderable difficulty, got admitted. It should be mentioned that the gentleman who recognised his lordship among the mob and made him known to the police, was robbed of a valuable watch.

ATTEMPT OP THE FEMALE PRISONER TO COMMIT SUICIDE.

The woman Justicehad been locked up by herself on Friday in a cell for safecustody. About ten o'clock in the evening she made a determined attempt to committed suicide by strangulation. She was fortunately discovered before she had succeeded in her design. To prevent a repetition of the attempt she was handcuffed, and warders were placed in her cell to watch her. THE KILLED AND WOtrNDED. A large majority of the wounded were taken to the hospital, in cabs, carts, trucks, or indeed anything that could be secured. As to the number it is impossible to say. Upwards of 100 have been injured. The following are the names of the dead at St Bartholomew's Hospital:—"William Clutton, a woman named Hutchinsou (whose husband, aged 3S, is in a very precarious state), and a girl named Abbott, about 1 years old. Her mother, Maria Abbott, is also a patient. The following are the in-patients: — John Abbott, 13, No. 5, Corporation Lane ; two children, Charles and

Martha Perry, 4 and 5 respectively ; Caleb Beckett, 28 ; John Harvey, 41; "William Abott, 18 ; William Kitchener, 55 ; John Walker and Thomas Wheeler; Thomas Hutchinson, 38; Ann Cross, 8 ; Maria Giles, 39; Margaret Moseley; Sarah Hartley, 41; Thomas Hprtley, 8 ; and two other hoys named Harley, all of the same family ; Harriet Thomson, a baby (unc 1 aimed) ; Elizabeth Williams ; Eliza-. Holder, 56; Elizabeth Hodgkinson» Maria Abbot, and a child not known ; Elizabeth Thompson; Mary Ann Chattlebird ; AnnaM. Abbott, another Elizabeth Thompson, 48: Mary A. Miles (old) ; Martha Evans, 67 ; Ann Bennett, 67 ; and Mary Anne Young. At the Free Hospital, Gray's Inn Lane, are —Anna Maria Thompson, 4 ; Anna Roberts, 30.; Arthur Abbott, 4 ; and Minnie Abbott, 4 ; Humphrey Evans, 66 ; and a boy two years a-half old, calling himself Tommy. One of

the six was not expected to live. In the Clerkenwell Workhouse there are four children and one old man lying injured—Charles Moseley, aged 35 years, two little children named Brand, and two otber children named Eayner.