Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1912-05-24
GLASS sTILETTo IS INVISIBLE
Some Remarkable Weapons Carried
By Criminals In Europe.

BY Criminals In Europe.
The ordinary Paris apache or hooll-
gan invariably carries a revolver, and
most of the murders which have re-
Gently Mortified Paris have been COM
mitted with the ordinary siX-shooter.
The weapon which the police found
upon Provost, who lay in wait for a
bank messenger on April 2 last was
novelty. He and a friend named
Coulon planned to kill this messenger
in a way which would be least likely
to attract public attention.
Coulon carried a bludgeon with
which to stun the man. Provost had
medical syringe charged with that
most deadly of all poisons, prussic acid.
He confessed that he meant to squirt
| this down the victims throat, which
would have resulted in his instant
death.
A pistol which renders the person
fired at unconscious without seriously
injuring him was found upon hooli-
gan arrested in East London In Octo-
Der last. The cartridges contained a
mixture of gunpowder, burned cay
enne pepper and lycopodium. the
fumes of which caused the person fired
at to lose consciousness.
Very little originality Is shown by
the assassin. If he does not use a pis-
tol or a bomb he has recourse to an
ordinary knife. In almost all political
assassinations one of these three has
been used.
The only exception was Luccheni
the anarchist who so brutally killed
the unfortunate empress Of Austria at
Geneva. His weapon was file fixed
in a wooden handle and ground to a
keen point. This was afterward de-
stroyed by the Swiss authorities.
The blackjack" a variation Of the
old fashioned sandbag, Is a favorite
with the New York crook. Silent
takers" is another name given to
these deadly weapons, one blow from
which will stun the strongest man.
Some three years ago a man was
arrested in New York for the murder
of an old woman, who had been care
taker in an uptown fiat, and there
was found in his possession a black
jack, of which the head was a leather
pouch filled with small shot. The
handle was of plated leather nine
inches long. 1t weighed nearly two
pounds
A somewhat similar weapon was
taken from a man who Is now In Sing
Sing prison serving seven years for
murderous assault upon his en-
ployer, an Albany butcher. 1t has an
iron ball for a head and a length of
steel wire rope for handle.
AS diabolical a specimen of murder
Gus ingenuity as ever was discovered
by the police was found in the posses
sion of a Chinaman, who had been
working in a laundry in New Orleans
and who was believed to have intend
ed using it upon his employer.
It was a tiny stiletto, with handle
about as thick as a carpenters pen
cil and a blade four inches long OF
glass, pointed as keenly as a needle. A
tiny groove had been filed around the
blade close to the hilt. Suppose 1t was
driven into a mans body it would be
certain to break off at the groove and
leave three inches Of glass deep in his
flesh. What Is more the puncture
would be so tiny that it would proba-
bly, close at once and show no mark,
not even a single drop of blood.
blind elderly woman who was
found dead on the kitchen floor of
her house in Manchester had been
stabbed with a corn knife, which was
found on the floor beside her. The
murderer was never caught. And a
surgeons lancet was the weapon used
by the maniac who, in the year 1900,
stabbed no fewer than 80 people in the
streets of Kiel, and before he was at
last arrested caused a panic worse
than that produced by the Infamous
Jack the Ripper.
Perhaps the strangest weapon ever
used for killing was an umbrella. In
October, 1908, a man named Ernest
Smith was found dead in Chiswick
High street He had a punctured
wound in the eye which had reached
his brain, and which the doctors
agreed had undoubtedly been caused
by the steel ferule Of an umbrella
Pearson's Weekly.
ia One good term deserves another