Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-04-13
ARSON AND ANARCHY.
The Gang Which Has Been Firing
Brooklyn Tenement Houses Is
UNEARTHED AND BROKEN ATLAsT.
Bladder Bombs Filled With q Chemical
Compound We're Used.
THEIR PORTUGUESE EXPERT MISSING

NEW YORK, April 1.-THE existence of
band of firebugs and Anarchists in Brook
lyn was discovered to-day. Two men are
in Jail One of the accomplices of the gang
has made full confession to the specific
charge on which he and his principal are
under arrest. The police and Fire Marshal
are convinced that they have at last caught
the incendiaries who are responsible for
most of the tenement house fires in Brook
lyn since January /.
The confession of the accomplice describes
in detail the methods employed by the
villains. This description shows that the
arson was the work of men who not only were
familiar with strong combustibles, but were
intelligent enough to lay their plans with
circu inspection which long defed investi-
cation. They would go to the dwellers in
tenement houses who carried proportion
ately large insurance on their furniture and
persons and take percentage of the insur-
ance money in payment for their work.
Threatened With Poisoned Finger Nails.
They usually sought, according to their
con nfessions, to intimidate their new accom-
plices by threatening them with swift and
mysterious death. They told the accom-
plice, who has made the confession, that
they would scratch him with poisoned finger
nails if he ever divu lged the crimes which
they had committed.
The incendiary fire which led to the arrest
of the two men now in Jail, was started in
the rooms of John Gottlieb Steinbrenner on
March 29. The house is a tenement The
flames we're checked before they had done
much damage. After the fire had been put
out Fire Marshal Lewis found in the rooms
three bladders filled with strange combusti-
bles. Most of the furniture had been taken
away. What was left in the rooms was not
worth more than $40. Steinbrenner was in
sured for 500 in the Guardian Company.
Steinbrenner was arrested and confessed
that the premises were set on fire with
volatile combustible held in kind of a
bladder, with fuse attached. Gunpowder
surrounded the fuse in piece of muslin,
which was sewn together to prevent the
powder from being separated; then some
brown paper, folded, was used to start the
fire.
He Gives the Ringleader Away.
He named Herman Albrecht as the prime
mover in the conspiracy, as the person who
supplied the material for causing the fire,
and who was to receive $50 when Steinbren-
ner collected his insurance. Albrect was
also arrested. He denies having fired the
tenement himself. He says Portuguese
Anarchist went with him to the place, and,
after he (Albrecht) had unlocked the door
the Portuguese went in and lighted one of
the fuses. Johu Schiebel, Bertha Schiebel
and four little Schiebels occupied the rooms
directly back of the Steinbrenners. Had the
explosion occurred as designed they would
have probably been killed. There were
about 20 tenants in the building, which was
a three-story brick structure, when the
Steinbrenner tenement was fired.
Albrecht is an Anarchist well-known to
the police of Brooklyn. He has defiant
He told Detective Campbell he
met the Portuguese in this city one day.
and there planned to burn, kill and pillage
and to foster Anarchist ideas He pretends
not to know the Portuguese's name. The
police are looking for him, and if he has
not already escaped they expect to get him
in a few days. Albrecht is leader in the
Anarchist colony, to which
the murder Of Mrs. Boschinsky and her son
Isaac last December were traced.
Albrecht's Portuguese accomplice, the
police say, must be an experienced chemist.
The composition of the volatile substance
in the bladder bombs shows the work of
man well acquainted with chemistry.