The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1912-06-06
GLASS STHETTO is INVIBLE.
Some Remarkable Weapons Carried
BY Criminals in Europe.

!
| The ordinary Paris apache or hooli,
gan invariably carries revolver
and most of the murders which have
recently Mortified Paris have beer
committed 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 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 in
stant death.
A pistol which renders the person
fired at unconscious without serious
ly injuring him was found upon a
hooligan arrested in East London in
October last. The cartridges contain
ed a mixture of gunpowder, burned
cayenne 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
pistol or a bomb he has recourse to
an ordinary knife. In almost all po-
litical 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 a, file
fixed in a wooden handle and ground
to a keen point. This was afterward
destroyed by the Swiss authorities.
The blackjack" variation of the
old-fashioned sandbag, is a favorite
with the New York crook. fSilent
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 leather
pouch filed with small shot. The
handle was of painted 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 length of
steel wire rope for handle.
AS diabolicaI a specimen of MUIR
derous ingenuity as ever was dlscov-
cred by the police was found in the
possession of a Chinamsn, who had
been working in a laundry in New
Orleans and who was believed to
have intended using it upon his en-
ployer.
1t was a tiny stiletto, with a
handle about as thick as carpenter s
pencil, 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 it 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.
A blind elderly woman who was
found dead on the kitchen floor of
her house in Manchester had been
stabbed with 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 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 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.