The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1879-01-16
DGWAY, COUNTY, Pa THURSDAY, JANUARY 49, 1879
ASSASSINATION.
Men In IIish Places who Were Attacked
During the Past Year.

nlen In IIish Places who Were Attacked
During the Past Year.
Four times within as many months
we're attempts made on the lives of three
sovereigns of Europe. The German
emperor was twice in danger. On the
afternoon OF May II, as he was riding in
the Avenue Unter der Linden, Berlin,
with the grand duchess of Baden, E.
FL. M, Hoedel, tinsmith and social
ist, shot at him with revolver. The
ball did no damage, and on his trial
Hoedel asserted that he did not aim at
the king. But evidence to the contrary
was overwhelming, and, in accordance
with the sentence, he was beheaded on
August Is. The second attempt on
Kaiser Wilhelm's life was made just
three weeks later, and as he was riding
through the same street, when X. E.
Nobiling, from q window in the third
story OF the house No. 18, discharged a
double. barreled gun at him and lodged
forty shot in his head and neck. In
spite of desperate resistance Nobiling
was Immediately arrested, but not until
he bad succeeded in inflicting upon him.
self dangerous wound, from which he
died on Sept. IL. He was an interna-
tionalist, and, unlike Hoedel, was man
of good education. The emperor's
wounds were SO serious that he was
obliged to resign the government into
the hands of the crown prince, until he
reassumed his power on Dec. 5.
On Oct. 20, as Alfonso, king of Spain,
was riding in the Gale Mayor, Madrid,
J. o. Moncasi, twenty. three years of
age, cooper by occupation and an in
ternationalist in political belief, shot at
him, but only succeeded in slightly
wounding soldier. On Nov. 7, an old
soldier unsuccessfully attempted to kill
the Spanish ex-minister of war, Bregua.
The last of the four attempts was on
the life of Humberto, king of Italy, and
was rendered possible only by his COM
mand that no guard should surround his
carriage as he entered cities in the
course of tour which he was making
through Italy. His intention was that
the presentation of petitions should be
entirely free. On Nov. II, as the car
riage containing the king, the queen,
and Prime Minister Carroll was entering
Naples in this unprotected manner,
Giovanni Passante, concealing knife
with a red banner, mounted on the steps
and aimed a deadly stab at Humbert's
heart. But the king defended himself
with his sword, and before the blow
could be repeated, Carroll, at the cost of
severe wound, had grappled with the
murderer, and in moment he was in
the custody of the police. He was
twenty nine years old, a cook by trade,
and, like Hoedel, Nobiling and Mon
casi, socialist or internationalist.
More sensational, and even, perhaps,
scarcely less important than these crimes,
was the unsuccessful attempt, on Feb.
9th, at st. Petersburg, of a young
woman-Vera Sassulitch by name-to
kill Gen. Trepoff, chief of the st. Peters
burg police. Her motive was personal
rather than political, but an idea of the
detestation in which the Russian police
is held may be gained from the fact that,
though she fired the shots in broad day.
light, as was abundantly shown by proof
and not denied by herself, she was acquit-
ted by the jury amid the applause of the
large and even brilliant audience in the
courtroom. Two high Russian police
officials were killed during the year
Baron Heyking. of Kiev, and Gen.
Mezentsoff, chief of the czar's private
police. These were political murders.
This mania for assassinations extended
even to Peru and japan. In the latter
country Mr.. Okubo, minister of the in.
terror, was almost hacked to pieces on
May 14th by six men armed with swords.
He was in reality the power behind the
throne, and was somewhat known in this
country as q member of the Iwakura
embassy of 1872. His assassins were of
the Samurai, or privileged class, and
professed, probably honestly, to have
acted from patriotic reasons.
In Lima, Peru, on Nov. 10th, Don
Manuel Pardo, ex-president of the re-
public and acting president of the sem
ate, was shot by Melchor Montoya, the
sergeant of his guard. The crime was
to be the first act of revolution, but
Montoya was deserted by his confeder-
ates.