The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1876-05-08

l
The physical features of the explosion in
Jersey City will no doubt have thorough
scientific investigation. 1t was in every re-
spect remarkable. Although not one life
was lost the effects of the explosion were
felt within radius of ten miles, and yet
were, so far as we can ascertain, not felt
with equal force. In Jersey City houses
were shaken from their bases to their roofs,
glass was shivered, and the gaslght was ex-
tinguished. The North River, with its bed
of mud, did not prevent the shock from
reaching the island of New York. There
was not only reverberation of the air. but
a tremor of the earth. The East River did
not stop the force of the explosion, which
was distinctly felt in Brooklyn. 1t is
singular fact that, although it was felt at
| Wallack's Theatre, ''the audience rising en-
masse," we are told, thinking it was an
earthquake" it was not noticed by people in
that immediate neighborhood. These facts
and those which are yet to be asccrtained
will furnish a basis for very interesting
| by two rivers felt conclusions which seemed
to be simultaneous, and yet the force of the
explosion appeared to be uncqually dis
tributed
But the event has deeper interest than
can be found in physical phenomena. There
are grave suspicious that this explosion was
not the result Of an accident, but that it was
carefully arranged for purposes of revenge
and crime. There has been for several
weeks a large number of laborcrs employed
in building the new tunnel of the Della
ware and Lackawanna Railroad Company,
twelve hundred or more, and there have
been several strikes for increased wages, and
much bitter feeling between the men who
would work and the men who would not.
The strikers have vowed that they would
have revenge, and the evidence we
print to-day indicates that they sought to
find it by this colossal crime. They in
tended, it is said, not only to destroy the
new Bergen tunnel, but to kill large num-
Der of men, non-strikers, who were to leave
work at the time of tho explosion, and who
would necessarily pass near the magazine.
If this theory be true-and we arc sorry to
say that it is probably true, and certainly
made possible by the recent revelations
Of the Molly Maguires in the coal
regions-then we have in our work
ing classes moral elements of destruc-
ton more alarming than any that
exist in dynamite. If these dissatisfied
strikers, in order to revenge their real or
fancied wrongs upon contractor or COM
pany, or their more intelligent fellows, de-
liberately fired magazine, the explosion Of
which destroyed the property of men who
had never injured them and might have
lost hundreds of lives, they were worse than
the Turks who massacred the other day the
Christians in Salonica It was cowardly
and brutal. The innocent and the offenders
might have been involved alike in the catas-
trophe. Such a crime recalls the Thomassen
plot to destroy an ocean steamer by the ex-
plosion Of dynamite, for the purpose of OBJ
tanning the insurance upon worthless goods
he had shipped. 1t must be conceded that
these Molly Naguires were not quite as iiend-
ish as the devil who invented an Internal
machine to sink the Mosel, with oil her crew,
to the bottom Of the Atlantic. They acted
from passion and sought revenge, while he
was moved by the coolest calcu-
lation, and had but mercenary aims
Yet when we consider such delicate
degrees of crime there is very little differ
ence between them. 1t is hardly worth
while to debate the question whether one
murderer is blacker than another We can
only look down into abysses ofhorrible posi-
bilities. Here We are confronted with the
fact that our society contains moral forces Of
ignorance and passion and diabolical cum
ming, which, like the three ingredients of gun
powder -nitre, sulphur and carbon-when
Justly combined, need only a spark to
scatter destruction all around Our
duty is to make such combinations
impossible to stamp out the organizations
which are the parents Of these crimes. If
the magazine Mt the Bergen tunnel was
kindled by the Molly Maguires there can be
no higher duty imposed upon the authori-
ties than to find out the ringlcadors and
make Of them examples which shall be more
terrible than even the explosion they
planned.