The Sun. — 1867-12-16 (London, England)

REWARD.  " MURDER AND OUTRAGE BY EXPLOSION OF GUNPOWDER.  " Whereas about 3.45 p.m. on Friday, the 13th inst., the prison wall of the Middlesex House of Detention, Clerkenwell, was blown down by an explosion of gunpowder, maliciously placed there, and several houses in Corporation-lane were destroyed b 3. the explosion, and divers persons killed and dangerously mutilated thereby, £3OO reward will be paid by her Majesty's Government to any one who shall give such information as'shall lead to the apprehension and conviction of the persons who conveyed the empowder and caused the above explosion. And the Secretary of State for the Home Department will advise the grant of her Majesty's gracious pardon to any accomplice, not being the person who actually set fire to the gunpowder, who shall give such information as shall lead to the same result. A further reward of £lOO will also be paid to anyone who shall give such information as shall lead to the apprehension and conviction of any accomplices in the offence, not being the persons for whose apprehension and conviction a reward of £3OO is offered. The gunpowder, it is believed, was brought in a large cask on a dark-coloured truck with low sides. " Information to be given to the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis, 4, Whitehall-place, London ; at the 'Detective-office, Scotland-yard ; or at any of the metropolitan police-stations. " RICHARD MAYNE, 'The Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis. " Metropolitan Police-office, 4, Whitehall-place, Dec. 14, 1867."  The most welcome of all the visitors to the scene were the representatives of the Government. Mr. Hardy and Mr. Montague Corry, private secretary of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, took with them £5OO to meet the immediate wants of the distressed. No praise is necessary for such a thoughtful and humane act. Mr. Corry again visited Clerkenwell yesterday and distributed about £lOO in sums of from one to five sovereigns. Yesterday collections were made in several of the parish churches and other places of worship, and further efforts are announced. Mr. M'Cullagh Torrens, M.P. for Finsbury, has spent his time since the calamity occurred in promoting arrangements for the welfare of the injured. Many of their friends presented themselves st St. Bartholomew's Hospital yesterday afternoon, but it was deemed unadvisable to admit them in the present state of the patients. Mr. Torrens, having been supplied with the necessary information, addressed some tranquillising remarks to the crowd, which then withdrew. An intelligible account has been obtained of the manner in which the crime was committed, and connecting beyond all doubt the two men Desmond and Allen, and the woman Justice, now in custody, with the conspiracy. On Friday afternoon, between two and three o'clock, John Moore, the chief warder of the House of Detention, had his attention called by a police .constable to the fact of a man, the prisoner Allen, loitering outside the prison, and refusing to go away. He was joined by the woman Justice, who had been in the habit of visiting the Fenian prisoner Casey while under remand, and who had taken his dinner into the prison that very day. They appeared to be reconnoitring the prison. The chief warder had seen the prisoner Allen on the top of one of the adjoining houses, and had observed that he came down and talked to five or six other men. He went to apprise the governor of the suspicious circumstance, and while ho was so engaged the explosion occurred. Ambrose Sutton, a constable in plain clothes of the A reserve division, had been employed to watch the House of Detention outside since Burke and Casey had been confined there. At twenty minutes to four o'clock on Friday he saw the woman Justice and the man Allen near St. James's-walk, which is in the immediate neighbour. hood. The woman had been in the House of Detention at one o'clock and Allen had waited outside. When she came out she joined Allen and conversed with him for seine time. Desmond then appeared, and took part in the conversation, which lasted over twenty minutes. Towards its conclusion a third man joined them, and as they parted the man who had arrived last pushed against Constable Sutton by accident, and, having begged his pardon, asked him a trifling question, to which the constable, who had thus an opportunity of observing him, replied that he was a stranger to the neighbourhood. With that the third man walked on, and at the close of the conversation the constable saw Desmond go towards St. James's-walk. He then watched Desmond, and, having seen him go along Corporation-lane, observed him shortly afterwards drawing a truck with a barrel, which he put on the pavement. The constable had followed him  ~. ,~, ~~