The Sun. — 1858-09-13 (London, England)

DISTINGUISHED FUGITIVE.  Lastfinight a tall man, withrather a stooping gait, and about 60 years of age, entered a public newsroom at the M/-est-end of the metropolis. He was dressed from head to foot in a suit of shepherd's plaid, and carried a small carpetbag. Froil long exposure to wind and weather his features were well bronzed, and his appearance, which in such a place was rather calculated to attract notice, suggested the notion of a Highland sheep-farmer. To every person in the room, save one perhaps, he was an utter stranger, and yet he had a reputation which of its kind may be said to have been at one time, if not now, world-wide. For full three months of the present year his exploits and those of his confederates were a theme of conversation through all Europe, and his presence was so much in demand in this metropolis that the Government offered a reward of £2OO for his capture, and the Whiehers, Williamsons, and Fields, with the rest of the detectives here, on the continent, and in America, were upon. his trail night and day. He I contrived, however, to baffle all attempts at apprehension, and now—the storm over, the prosecution against him abandoned and the reward withdrawn, the fugitive free from justice returns to his native country a free man, and, one would hope, a sadder and a wiser one. By this time the reader will have anticipated the denouement of our story, and will be saying to himself; "It must be Allsop." Exactly so. " The man with the carpet-bag" is no other than the veritable Thomas Allsop. He it was, as we all recollect, who one day in December last wrote and despatched the little missive from Ginger's Hotel, Westminster, to a Mr. Taylor in Birmingham, ordering the manufacture of V certain small articles, which were subsequently used with such disastrous effects on the memorable night of the 14th of January in the Rue Lepelletier. He it was also who began the new year of 1857 by indicting another epistle, now matter of history, to his quondam friend Dr. Bernard, applying sundry complimentary epithets to the Emperor of the French ; who again, in the autumn of last year, raised £4,500 by mortgage upon his property in Surrey, which in considerable part furnished the sinews of war to Orsini and his confederates ; and who furnished the passport given to himself in 1851 by Lord Palmerston, to Orsini, by which he was enabled to travel from this country to Brussels and thence to Paris on the murderous enterprise which inflicted death on several innocent persons, cruel injuries on many more, and the forfeiture of his own troubled existence by an ignominious death. There is no doubt that Mr. Allsop has been in London for a week or two, though he has escaped observation until now by all save his own immediate relatives, and a few others. It is said that on quitting this country ho went first to the United States, and after remaining there some time proceeded to Mexico, and thence again to California. So soon as he found it was safe for him to do so, he returned direct to England. Mr. Allsop was at one time a member of the Stock Exchange, and resided at Nutfield-house, near Reigate, his own property. Ile formerly lived at Redhill, in the vicinity of Lincoln. In 1847, when Feargus O'Connor propounded his allotment scheme, he adopted the views of the Chartist leader in that respect, and joined in submitting the project to a practical trial on the estate at Red-hill. but it failed, as it did everywhere else. It is understood that Allsop censures the negligence of Dr. Bernard in not destroying the famous letter which he addressed to him on the Ist of January, 1857, and which, it will be remembered, was used in evidence against both parties on the trial of Dr. Bernard at the Old Bailey.