The appalling explosion which checked the impending conflict between the volunteers and the Leaguers, causing the latter to melt away from Lincoln’s Inn and rush in surging hordes in the direction of Clerkenwell, was the most terrible outrage that had yet befallen the alarmed capital. It was not without precedent; indeed precedent was, in some respects, carefully followed by the organisers of this desperate attempt to release the imprisoned incendiaries. Nearly fifty years earlier the prison wall had been blown down for a somewhat similar purpose by a desperate gang of Fenians. The effect of that diabolical outrage on the policy of Mr Gladstone is matter of history. On that occasion many houses in Corporation Lane were partially wrecked, four persons were instantly killed, and some forty others were maimed or injured in various degrees. The immediate object of the prisoners, however, was not attained, for, though a considerable breach was made in the prison wall, none escaped. On the present occasion the damage to life and limb was somewhat less; only two were killed, and thirty-one injured, but the destruction to property was far more extensive than before. The latter fact was, to some extent, explained when it was ascertained that there had been in reality two explosions, different in character, but rapid in succession. Early in the afternoon all the prisoners had been taken into the prison-yard for exercise, as usual. Raggett, one of the alleged incendiaries (son of the half crazy shoemaker), was observed to fall out shortly after a small indiarubber ball was thrown over the wall. The ball was supposed to have been thrown by a street boy, and a warder threw it back, not dreaming that it was in reality a pre-concerted signal. Raggett was ordered to join the ranks, but made some excuse about a nail in his boot hurting him, and obstinately kept aloof.