The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1883-03-24 00:00:00

THE RECENT EXPLOSION IN

WESTMINSTER.

The following bill has been issued by the Police
authorities :

I"Metropolitan Police. £l,OOO Reward. Whereas
at 9 p.m. on Thursday, March 15th, an explosion was
.caused at the Offices of the Local Government Board,
1`
in Charles-street, Westminster, and whereas explosive
material was placed an hour previously ii_ the vicinity
of The Times lublishing Office, Queen Victoria-street,
1 'i. 0,, with Like felonious intent, the above reward
of' one thousand pounds will be paid by the
Se cretary of State for the Home Department to
any* person, not being 6 member of a police force
in t he United Kingdom, who shall give such informa-
tiono private or otherwise, as shall lead to the appre-
hew non and moviction of the- perpetrators of either
outr age; and the Secretary of State for the Home
Department will advise the grant of her Majesty's
most/ gracious pardon, in addition to the payment of
said reward, to any accomplice not being the actual
perpetrator of either outrage. Information to be given
to the Dfrector of Criminal Investigations, Great
Scotland-yard, S.W., or at any police station.
(Signed) E. Y. W. HENDERSON, Commissioner of the
Polim of the Metropolis."

The Government experts in the subjects of explosions
and ex plosive compounds have been called upon to
investil ;ate and report upon the probable agent
employed in the outrage and it is believed that the evi-
dence Afforded by the nature of the damage will
enable them to form some definite conclusions
on the point. Dynamite and its kindred com-
pounds sae four times as powerful in their ex-
plosive effects as gunpowder, a professional opinion
may be readily given on view of the ruins as to
whether the mischlef has been effected by gunpowder
or some more violent agency. But supposing it to
have been one of the nitro-compounds, its particular
character will be diffioult, if not impossible, to dis-
tinguish. There is so little difference between them
that they may be pronounced, for all practical pur-
poses, the same thing.

The Times of Monday, in giving some particulars,
says :—The Government experts on explosives who
have been called to give their attention to the subject
have examined the whole spot with great minuteness,
and have come to some conclusions upon different
points. For instance, all doubts as to where the ex-
plosive material was placed have been pretty well set
at rest. It was a question whether the window of
the room looking on Charles-street had been broken,
and the material thrown into the room. It is the
decided opinion of the experts that the material was
not thrust into the writing-room, but that it was
placed on the window sill, as in the case at Playhouse.
yard. Moreover, the very spot is fixed by the experts
where the explosive was placed, splashes on the stone
wall of the window indicating with exactness and
clearness the first burst upwards of the explosive com-
pound. Any part of the window sill, or, indeed, of
any of the window sills on the ground floor of the
Government offices on the Charles-street side, could
have been reached from the street, and any person
could easily have thrust his arms through the stone
balustrade and have deposited unobserved a small
parcel on the sill of the window.
The interior of the office on the ground floor was
on Saturday inspected carefully by the Government
experts, and it is seen how very partially the ex
plosion had acted. The doors of several of the rooms
were not only broken into matchwood, but all the
framework of the doors had been torn from the walls.
At the end of the passage into which the room opens,
stood formerly a bust of Sir Robert Peel on the top of
a cupboard. This had been broken off the pedestal by
a wave of the explosion and hurled through a glass
door behind.

There is every reason to believe that the attack was
not intended for the Local Government Board Office,
but for the Home Office. The place where the attack
was made is thought by many to be part of the Home
Office. The Home Office itself could not be so easily
attacked, as it is always guarded by sentries, and police
are generally about the doori. The corner where the
attack was made is the most vulnerable part of the
offices at night. The crowds who thronged there on
Sunday last and on Saturday easily realised this fact,
and they pghibited their sympathy with the Ministry
on Saturday by crowding in Downing-street at the
time the Cabinet C.3ouncil wao called, and cheering the
Ministers as they passed in. Tho police kept the
crowd at a distance from the residence of the Prime
Minister, where the Council was held, and several of
the Ministers were under the protection of the detec-
tives in coming apd going.

Mr. Edwin Chadwick writes :--" I beg to observe
as characterizing the attempt to destroy the building
for the Local Government Board, that the primary
service of that )3osqd b in the improvement of the re-
lief to the desitute' as in the extension of public pro-
vision for the desitute sick, by sick asylums; in the
physical and mental training of orphan aucl deDtitute
children, of whom large proportions are Irish, and that
it is in the extension of sanitary works and in the direc-
tion of loAal sanitary service, in which during the last
decade a saving of a quarter of a million of lives has
been shown in England and Wales. A.nd it is this
Department, exercising the most bene4cent functions
almout of any Government in modern times, which
has been solectod
.as kt• foremost object of hostility and
destruction."

In consequence of the d'squietude which has re-
eultad from the above occurrences it has been deter-
mined to augment the hletropolitan Police Force. It
is stated that orders were given on Sp,turday to engage
1,000 more men as constables. The detective de-
partment will have also to be increased, as it has been
decided to double the strength of the staff on duty
during the nigh‘.

The Rev. W. D. Parish, vicar of Selmeston, Sussex,
writes to say that the explosion was heard there, a
distance f 45 miles in a straight line from Westminster
Bridge.

The American papers continue to express regret
for the Irish outrages in England, declaring that such
deeds vo*harm to the Irish cause by embittering the
English people.