Anarchy and Anarchists: A History of the Red Terror and the Social Revolution in America and Europe; Communism, Socialism, and Nihilism in Doctrine and in Deed; The Chicago Haymarket Conspiracy and the Detection and Trial of the ConspiratorsSchaack, Michael J.
History
Anarchy and Anarchists: A History of the Red Terror and the Social Revolution in America and Europe; Communism, Socialism, and Nihilism in Doctrine and in Deed; The Chicago Haymarket Conspiracy and the Detection and Trial of the Conspirators
In the meantime the police, with the utmost difficulty, rescued the
first bomb-thrower from the maddened mob. The man, whose name proved to
be Risakoff, coolly thanked the officers for preserving him, and then
tried to swallow some poison which he had ready. In this he was foiled,
and he was taken to prison.
[Illustration: THE CZAR’S CARRIAGE AFTER THE EXPLOSION.
From a Photograph.]
The infernal machine used by Elnikoff was about 7½ inches in height,
and its construction is exemplified in the annexed diagram. Metal tubes
(_b b_) filled with chlorate of potash, and enclosing glass tubes
(_c c_) filled with sulphuric acid (commonly called oil of vitriol),
intersect the cylinder. Around the glass tubes are rings of iron (_d
d_) closely attached as weights. The construction is such that, no
matter how the bomb falls, one of the glass tubes is sure to break. The
chlorate of potash in that case, combining with the sulphuric acid,
ignites at once, and the flames communicate over the fuse (_f f_) with
the piston (_e_), filled with fulminate of silver. The concussion thus
caused explodes the dynamite or “black jelly” (_a_) with which the
cylinder is closely packed.
[Illustration]
I said above that Jelaboff, the real leader of the conspiracy, had been
arrested on the 10th. He was merely a suspect, and it was some time
before the police realized what an important arrest had been made.
Only two hours before the murder of the Emperor, Jelaboff’s house was
searched, and there was found a great quantity of black dynamite,
India rubber tubes, fuses and other articles. Jelaboff had been living
here with a woman who was called Lidia Voinoff. This Lidia Voinoff was
arrested on the Newsky Prospect, on March 22nd, and almost immediately
identified as Sophia Perowskaja, the young woman who had given the
handkerchief signal to the bomb-throwers, and who was wanted besides
for the Moscow railway mine case. On the prisoner were found papers
which led to the search of a house on Telejewskaia Street, where a
man named Sablin committed suicide immediately on the appearance of
the police, and a woman named Hessy Helfmann was arrested. A regular
Nihilist arsenal of black jelly, fuses, maps of different districts of
St. Petersburg, with the Czar’s usual routes marked upon them, copies
of papers from the secret press, etc., were found. While the police
were still engaged in the search of the premises Timothy Mikhaeloff
came in by accident. He was taken, and on him was found a copy of the
new Czar’s proclamation, and penciled on the back were the names of
three shops with three different hours in the afternoon. The officers
descended on these places and gathered in customers, shop-keepers and
everybody else about the place,—a process which brought in Kibaltchik,
the Nihilist chemist and bomb-maker.
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