The copper country evening news. [volume] (Calumet, Mich.) 18??-1907, 1897-02-16
CHAPTER
WHO IS CAPTAIN suANNoN?'

was found, sometimes scrawled in plain
rough capitals upon piece of paper
which was pinned TO the body of VIC
tim, sometimes rudely chalked in the
same lettering upon a door or wall,
this inscription: ''By order. Captain
Shannon.
Who Captain Shannon was the police
failed entirely to discover, although the
counties in which the crimes occurred
were secured from end to end, and every
person who was known to have been in
the neighborhood was subjected to the
severest examination. That some who
were so examined knew more than they
would tell there was reason to believe,
but so dreaded was the miscreant' s
name and so swift and terrible had oeen
the fate of those who in the past had
incurred his vengeance that neither
offers of reward nor threats of punish
ment could elicit anything but logged
denials
But when the conspirators carried the
war into the enemy's country and sue
cessfully accomplished the peculiarly
y daring crime which wrecked the police
headquarters at New Scotland Yard
the Indignation of the public knew no
bounds. If the emissaries Of Captain
Shannon could succeed in conveying an
internal machine into New Scotland
Yard itself, the whole community was,
so it was argued, at the mercy Of a
band of murderers.
The scene in the house of commons
on the night following the outrage was
one of great excitement. The chief Sec
rotary for Ireland declared in memo
rable speech that the purpose of the
crime was to terrorize and to intimi-
date. No loyal English or Irish citizen
would, ne was sure, be deferred from
doing his duty by such infamous acts,
but that they had to deal with murder
ers of the most determined type could
not be doubted. The whole conspiracy
was, in his opinion, the work of some
half dozen assassins, who were proba.
bly, the tools Of the monster calling
himself Captain Shannon in whose
too fertile brain the crimes had, he be-
lieved, originated, and under whose
devilishly planned directions they had
Icarried out.
cit, police had reason to suppose that
a. headquarters of the conspirators
3 in Ireland, in which country the
majority of the crimes-at all events of
che earlier crimes-had been commit
ted.
He regretted to say, but it was his
duty to say, that but for the disloyal
attitude of a section of the Irish people
who, from dastardly and contemplate
cowardice or from sympathy with the
assassins, had not only withheld the
evidence, but had on more than one &C.
;asial actually sought TO hinder the po-
ice in The execution of their duty, the
conspirators would long since have been
brought TO book.
The secretary then went on to de-
nounce in the strongest language what
he called the infamous conduct of the
disloyal Irish. He declared, amid ring
ing cheers, that the man or woman who
sought to shield such monster as Cap
tain Shannon or to protect him and his
confederates from justice was nothing
less than a murderer in the eyes of God
and of man. He informed the house
that, although the government had ac-
tually framed several important meas
ures which would 60 far to remove the
grievances of which Irishmen were
complaining, he for one ould, in view
If what had taken place, strenuously
oppose the consideration at that moment
If any measures which had even the
appearance of a concession to Irish de-
hands. 1t was repression, not conces.
ion, which must be melted out to trail
ors and murderers.
Within a month after the delivery of
his speech all England was Mortified
" the news of crime more wantonly
wicked than any outrage which had
'receded it, crime which resulted, as
is perpetrators must have known it
would result, in the wholesale murder
hundreds of inoffensive people, against
5hom, excepting for the fact that they
appened to be law abiding citizens, the
blowers of Captain Shannon could
ave no grievance.
All that was known was that re-
)ectably dressed young man, carrying
hat appeared to be about dozen well
'orn volumes from Nudes or some
Their circulating library, had entered
empty first class carriage at Aldgate
alton. These books were held together
2 a strap, as is usual when sending or
king volumes for exchange to the Ii
aries, and il had occurred to no one
ask to examine them, although the
: ficials at railway stations had, in
ew Of the recent outrages, been in
ructed to challenge every passenger
frying a suspicious looking parcel.
! The theory which was afterward put
I rward was that what appeared to be
/ parcel of volumes from a circulating
orary was in reality case cunningly
vered with the backs, bindings and
ges of books, and that this case con-
ined an internal machine Of the most
ably description. 1t was supposed
at the wretch in charge of it had pur-
sely entered an empty carriage that
might the better carry out bis in