Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1903-05-11
Crime or HoaXP

Suspicious are entertained by the New
York police officials that the box containing
dynamite which was found upon the pier
from which the steamer Umbria was soon
to sail last Saturday was not in fact an
internal machine" but was merely the
business end of hoax. In proof they point
to the fact that the box contained no full
inmate caps or other detonators for explod-
ing the dynamite. and that without them
there could have been no ignition of the
charge. Yet they do not deny that the box
contained one hundred pounds of genuine
dynamite, and that veritable mechanism
was in place with what appear to nave
been appliances for igniting fuse. Save
for the lack of decorating caps the box
was to all intents bomb of the most de-
structive character. The letter when
warned the police stated that the caps were
missing and that the box could not explode.
That letter Is the chief link in the chain OF
suspicion that the affair Is merely great
criminal hoax
The writer. employing clumsy disguise
OF an evidently American handwriting and
a SUCCESSFULLY manufactured italian name
hints that this non-explosive box of high
ly explosive material was sent merely to
show the officials what the society" could
dertaking to drive the British flag out OF
New York harbor. But he fails to state the
cause of the grievance of the society"
against English shipping. This lack of
motive for the crusade against the English
coupled with the extraordinary oircum-
stances and the nature of the letter itself,
leads almost inevitably to the conclusion
that the affair was hoax. There Is no
known issue between the English gov
ernment and the italian Malta, or any other
Italian organization. London has always
been the safest refuge In Europe for the
Italian consprators. 1t Is today the home
of band of the most malignant political
criminals of that nationality. Rather
should there be a feeling Of friendliness to-
ward that country than this suggested an
tagonism baseless and beyond comprehen-
sion.
II the box was really sent as a warning
OF some diabolical plot to destroy the En-
glish shipping the presence of the dyna-
mite was not necessary. packing case
containing sand would have served the
purpose quite as well. And, on the other
hand. the presence of the dynamite COM
picates the theory of hoax. Why should
the perpetrators of this dreadful joke want
90 take chances on the handling of such
large quantity of high explosive? Was it
their purpose to mystify the police and
public into a prolonged belief in the genu-
ineness of the Internal machine? Is there
here a hint of a desire on the part of q
crew of spacemakers to foment nine day
sensation? No punishment can be much
too severe for them If such are in the fact
the guilty ones. 1t is impossible to esti-
mate the agony of mind which such
hoax causes to thousands of people who are
themselves travelling or are about to travel
or who have friends or relatives on the
seas. A very serious business considera-
ton comes into the situation as well. If
this affair was designed and perpetrated
solely to arouse public fears and to create
a sensation the crime is almost as dastardly
as though the lives of the Umbria's COM
pany had been in fact imperiled
In this city some years ago two young
men more or less directly connected with
newspaper work perpetrated a bomb
hoax" sending an imitation Internal ma
chine to the home of the then Chief JUS
tice of the United States Supreme Court.
The fraudulent character of the device was
at once established but in the excitement
of the first discovery of the package. which
was sent through the mails. young rela
tive of the jurist lying i'll at his home. was
made worse and his death soon followed.
The case was not pressed against the per-
petrators, who were quickly identified
chiefly because of the desire of the chief
justice that the matter be dropped. 1t was
hoped, however, that the affair would be
the last of it's kind. The Umbria case
seems to suggest that the spirit of the
criminal faker is not quenched.