DYNAMITERS

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 110, 5 November 1937, Page 11

DYNAMITERS

LONDON OUTRAGES

LITTLE-KNOWN SERIES

(By "Autolycus.")

Guy Fawkes, a man of rare control of himself, has furnished the name to a small boys' festival. He alone is remembered by the public as the participator in an attempt to blow up the House of Parliament. And many of those who chanted invective against him in their youth no doubt imagine that this was the nearest that the British House of Parliament ever came to being blown up. But they are wrong. It was blown up in January, 1885. This affair, though overshadowed in the histories of the time by the disturbances in the Sudan, the fears for the fate of Gordon, and the fall of Khartoum, was the culmination of two decades of the use of dynamite as an instrument of politics. In 1867 there, had been a scene of "desolation and of frightful disaster" as the result of a Fenian rescue plan at the House of Detention. In the early months of 1884 there were explosions in St. James's Square and at Scotland Yard. There was also an Unsuccessful attempt at the foot of the Nelson Column. In 1883 the Government had even been provoked into the passage of an Explosive Substances Act. This measure followed an explosion at the offices of the Local Government Board and the discovery of a manufactory of nitro-glycerine at Birmingham. Sir William Harcourt's Bill provided for punishment for these offences, and made persons who were responsible for dangerous explosions liable to penal servitude for life. For conspiracy, or an attempt to commit such an act, the sentence might be 20 years' imprisonment. Even the posI session of an explosive substance rendered the owner liable to 14 years' imprisonment, if the circumstances were suspicious. *AT ONE SITTING. The Bill was put through the House of Commons at one, sitting, but provoked a singular scene in the House of Lords where Lord Salisbury, unaffected by appeals to consider the danger to public safety, opposed the measure and produced the opinion of a Ger? man chemist named Liebig that a nation's prosperity might be measured by the amount of" sulphuric acid it used. However, even this did not prevent the Bill from becoming law next day. ' ■ ' .'■■'■'■.' The explosion campaign was not without its attendant humour. It had been intended to blow up the house of Mr. Justice Hawkins in Tilney Street, but the plans miscarried and the explosion was arranged at the wrong house. "Well," commented Mr. Justice Hawkins, "If they think they're going to frighten me by blowing up Esher, they're very much mistaken." The House of Commons explosiori on January 24, 1885, resulted in considerable damage. "We found," wrote Algernon West, "all the windows of Westminster Hall blown out, and a hole at the top of the crypt at the bottom of the steps of the great hall, and on going hrough the main lobby into the House we found the gallery under which. I had sa often sat on; the Goyerriment'side of the House blown to pieces and'the'beams and glass scattered in every direction." . Two police constables and three others were seriously hurt. William Cole picked up a blazing parcel and saved the building; he received the Albert Medal in Westminster Hall on March 26 for his act of bravery. On the same day an explosion at the Tower seriously injured 16 visitors. John Cunningham and Harry Burton were arrested fot complicity in these crimes and were sentenced to penal servitude for life.