A Dynamite Scare.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XIX, Issue 5952, 23 May 1894, Page 3

A Dynamite Scare.

m Chief Inspector Peel, who has retired from Scotland Yard on a pension, tells the following story : " I have not had much to do with the tracking down of the dynamite outrages in London, bat I had "to do with what would undoubtedly have been a dynamite scare had it been allowed to come to light. What I'm about to tell you is new. At the time the dynamite apprehensions were in the air—when people were full of the subject—two yonns; fellows deposited a canvas handbag at King's Cross station. In a little while something was detected ticking away inside the bag, and at once suspicion was aroused. The railway police rushed round to the King's Cross Police Station, and eventually I got to the scene. Nobody had wanted to open the bag, bat it was necessary for someDody to do more than look at it. Mind yon, I was far from relishing the job, partkolary as I could hear the infernal something inside ticking away in the merriest fashion. I donx know that I

have ever been a nervous man, but 111 confess that the perspiration rolled down my face in drops like small eggs, and people looked on near enough to get blown up if there was to be any blowing up. Precisely, just as you judged—human nature. The bag was locked, but I got a key which opened it, and what met my eyes were three pads of wadding. Meantime the ticking went on. only it sounded louder now and more disagreeable. Under the wadding were three pieces of a hard brown substance, two bricks and a machine—the ticking thing. This was an American alarm clock with a copper wire attached, which I immediately cut. Having cut the wire, I knew that however the affair might end, there could hardly be an explosion. It was a scare, a set and deliberate scare, the brown substance proving to be slate; the bricks, just bricks with a name on each of them ; the American alarm clock, the ordinary article plus the copper wire. There was no explosive at all in the bag, but if a serious explosion had been intended it could hardly have been other than a most destructive one, having regard to where the bag was. I judged that there was a connection between the name on the bricks and an attempt at a very enterprising advertisement. In view of the state of the public mind it was thought best to simply be quiet."