The Central Glamorgan Gazette, and General, Commercial, and Agricultural Advertiser. — 1879-12-12 (Bridgend, Mid Glamorgan, Wales)

THE PLOT AGAINST TIIE CZAR-HOW THE SCHEME WAS WORKED.  The 7iines correspondent at Berlin telegraphs : The assassins who attempted the life of the Czar the other day at Moscow seem to be still at large. In St. Petersburg it is now believed that the young man previously arrested at Elizabetgrad with canisters of dynamite and packets of poison on his person belongs to the nefarious ring of conspirators who mined the Moscow line; but ho obstinately refuses to give the least account of himself. The police, however, have subjected to a searching examination the Moscow notary in whose presence last September was executed the contract for the sale of the house adjoining the railway which served the conspirators as point d'appra in their murderous enterprise. The price of the tenement was 2,500 roiihl s, Or about £370 sterling—a proof among others that the plotters were possessed of wealth. Few were observed to enter '..heir dwelling in the daytime, though equipages were often heard to draw up before their door at night. Sedulous care, however, it seems, had been taken by the solitary inmates of the cottage to make a very favourable impression on any casual comers. That the patriotism, for example, of the indwellers might never be so much as doubted, portraits of the Emperor end of members of his family were hung conspicuously round the walls, while their fervid piety was attested by the display of several images of the saints' before which the pale and penitential taper was constantly burning. Certain appearances once, indeed, attracted neighbourly curiosity as to what was going on within this monastic domicile, but the occupant seems to have obviated all further inquiries by explaining that he was merely seeking to enhance the utility Of his dwelling by having a cellar sunk in it. As a matter of fact, however, the late explosion has revealed what he and his accomplices were doing. First of all the assassins sank a shaft about 18ft. deep under the floor of their dwelling, and from which they laboriously bored or tunnelled a passage to a point about 50 yards distant, under the permmient way of the adjacent railway line, where they constructed a spacious chamber for the fatal charge, which one authority estimates to have consisted of about 100 pounds of blasting powder, though nitro-glycerine would seem to have been also need. The connecting tunnel or passage aforesaid, of triangular form, measured over Oft. high, and about 215 n. at the base, being walled with planks and even bricks to prevent its falling in. In the course of their excavations the murderers, it is calculated, must have had to remove 90,000 lbs. weight of soil, and the silent secrecy with which they did their work testifies to the terrible earnestness of their resolution. That they had wealth at their command has been already indicated, while the fact of their having planned and carried out is mining operation which would do credit to the ablest heads among the Imperial engineers proves them to have been no mere vulgar criminals. Their infernal purpose, however, would probably have been baffled in its full extent even had the passage of the Imperial trains in their usual order enabled them to apply the electric spark at the proper moment, for the line at the spot is double, and the engines, it seems, contrary to custom, did not on that particular evening approach Moscow by that set of metals directly under whicii the charge was stored. Ilow destructive this was may be judeed from the fact that the mere shock of the I xplosion was felt at the distance of a mile, end that the steel rails were completely shivered, sleepers and heavy clods of frozen earth being flung about fifty yards away from the linc.