Democratic Sentinel, Volume 2, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 September 1878 — Eight Persons Killed by an Infernal Machine. [ARTICLE]

Eight Persons Killed by an Infernal Machine.

Infernal machines have been employed of late with fatal effect in several cities and towns of Mexico. At San Angel, a little town five or six miles from the capital of the country, a party of six ladies and three gentlemen assembled to open a box assuming to have come from Southern France, and to contain Lourdes water and a number of rosaries that had been blessed by the Pope. One box opened, another was disclosed, and, as they were trying to get into the second, a tremendous explosion took place and every person but one was instantly killed. The box contained nitro-glycerine, and was evident ly prepared for assassination, though why any of the party mentioned should have incurred any such deadly enmity it is impossible to telL The terrible box, it is said, was sent to one of the ladies, remarkable for her amiability and benevolence. She was unmarried and a great favorite, and it is surmised that a semi-adventurer who had proposed to her and been rejected had adopted this method of revenge. Such a thing scarcely seems credible to us; but in Mexico anything criminal may happen, with or without provocation. There are men there who appear to practice assassination lest they may grow rusty in their murderous art. The Californians have a proverb that a mongrel Mexican is half-brother to the devil.