The Warwickshire Herald. — 1886-07-22 (Birmingham, West Midlands, England)

LOSIVES.  there as an ardent neophyte, eager to drink in the teachings of the mighty masters of murder, and if needs were, prepared to take the oath. Had the faction known that I was a ST. STEPHEN'S duel taking notes in their very midst, they would undoubtedly have made things rather unpleasant for me. However, I escaped notice, chiefly by displaying a hearty interest in the proceedings and joining enthusiastically in the choruses of applause. Peccavi I My cheers stuck somewhat in ray throat, but you will understand that I had to dissemble or be thrown out of a second floor window. I was enough of an opporfunist to dissemble "Ala is a nos moutons," or " diables." It was verging on nine when ray dynamitard friend and guide took me in tow and made tracks for the place of meeting. Imagine a dingy, dark house in a side street, shutters up, no light anywhere to be I seen, and very few people about. My escort knocks at the door, which opens ; a muttered word or two, my sleeve is plucked; I enter, and the door shuts again. The hall is dark sa e where at some distance away a dirty pane of glass admits one solitary gleam of light from a contiguous lamp-post. The darkness, the mystery are horrible, palpable to feeling as to sight, and I began to wish myself back again in the smoke-room of the hotel. I had no option, however, for my guide had moved on, leading me after him by the sleeve of my coat. I resolved to make the best of it, and, bethinking myself of the many other risky situations in which I had been, I screwed up my courage and stepped out manfully in the dark. We went up two flights of stairs; another colloquy, and a doors swings open. The voice here in the midst of the enemy, an unarmed English journalist of Tory proclivities making his deferential bow to an assemblage of dynamite desperadoes. I looked first of all for the great and only Rossa, but he was not to be seen. I understood afterwards that Rossa presides over the central section of the Brotherhood, and rarely puts in an appearance at the subsidiary branches. As it was necessary to conceal the fact that I was a Saxon, I had agreed beforehand to go as Monsieur Delaunay, a French sympathiser, and as such I was introduced to the boss-president. To prove the genuineness of my sympathies, I planked down ten dollars, my subscription to the skirmishing fund. This again was dissembling, and of a disagreeably practical nature. As I write, the harrowing thought occurs to me that some day I may be lifted skywards with dynamite that I have myself paid for. But to return from these little personal reflections. Counting heads, there were thirteen men present, and one young woman—a graceful colleen, with grey Irish eyes, and blue-black Irish hair. My entrance and that of my guide had somewhat disturbed the proceedings, but once we were seated— and woe's me I was near the table and the bombs all went smoothly again. A dissertation on explosives was being delivered by a German gentleman, whose lowly demeanour was the perfection of professional dignity. He had specimens of some infernal stuff or other before him, and my fell of hair rose on end on learning that " dis leetle packet vill verk the destruction of streets of houses. Twenty-five pounds vould lay a ceety in crumbling ashes." Meinheer dandled this choice product of the laboratory in his hand aud after sporting awhile with it, laid it down with studied carelessness. The dynamtters near him were evidently afraid that it would go off, for those near him shrank back. Then the lecture went on. It appears that the old and original dynamite is played , out, for a new substance has turned up which you can carry in the crown of your hat or in your tobacco pouch. This substance is so powerful that a piece a little larger than a tablet of soap may be relied on to shatter a big house into fragments. But I need not inform you by anticipation of its effects. I aml sorely afraid that you will have proof of its destructive powers before long. I asked if the staff scientist was the famous Mezzeroff, and was informed that Mezzeroff was lying by—whatever that may mean. This man was a refugee Nihilist, rejoicing in a name of the "three sneezes and a ski at the end."  lUT