Democratic Sentinel, Volume 9, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 February 1885 — ROSSA SHOT. [ARTICLE]

ROSSA SHOT.

• America’s Famous Dynamite Chieftain Brought to Earth by a Woman. The Back of the Irisman Perforated by One of Five Large Ballets. Effew Yojk special.] A slender young woman, neatly clad in black and wearing steel-bowed eye-glasses, sent a summons to O’Donovan Rossa to meet her in Chambers street, near Broadway, at 5 this afternoon. She had previously met Rossa, and he hastened to respond to her message, which was delivered-to him in his office, No. 12 Chambers street, by a District Telegraph boy. Rossa walked from his office to the place of rendezvous without any suspicion of impending danger. The greeting between the young woman and Rossa is described by those who witnessed it as being cordial. The couple remained standing on the sidewalk about two hundred feet from Broadway for two or three minutes and conversed in low tones. Then they stepped into the corridor leading from Chambers street into the Stewart Building. After a while they reappeared, and Rossa turned his face toward Broadway and started to walk away. The woman took a few steps with him, then stopped, raised her right arm, and there were a flash and a loud repoit. Rossa turned quickly, and beheld her within six feet of him, with a smoking revolver in her hand. A second-report followed almost immediately, and the assailed man instinctively raised his hands, as if to shield his head. The young woman stood perfectly still and fired three more shots at Rossa. The bullets rattled on the stone and glass of the Stewart Building. City Marshal James McAuley was present at the time, and, breaking through the crowd that had collected even before the shooting was over, seized the woman, who still held the smoking pistol in her hand, and told her she was under arrest. The woman offered no remonstrance, but allowed herself to be taken through the mass of citizens aud to the City Hall StationHouse. George W. Bartow, a merchant of 146 Reade street and Peter Y. Everett, formerly a reporter, who witnessed the shooting, accompanied captor and captive to the station, saying they would be witnesses. Wnen the woman had ceased firing O’Donovan arose to his feet and made an effort to find his way back to his office on Chambers street, which he had just left. He said: “I am shot,” trying to place his hand on his back under his shoulder-blade. After a few steps somebody in the crowd suggested that he should go to the Chambers Stree. Hospital. A c .uple of men lent their arms, and O’Donovan did as suggested and directed his steps toward the hospital. He walked all the way there, a d stance of nearly a quarter of a mile. He bled considerably on the way. Once in the hospital he was undressed and examined by Dr. Dennison. It was found that the bullet had entered his back directly below the left shoulderblade. The doctor pronounced the wound not of a dangerous character and began to probe for the ball. A great crowd off people had followed the wounded man down Chambers street and blocked the roadway in front of the hospital after the door was locked behind O’Donovan Rossa and his escort. Rossa had been placed in a cot in tbe same ward with Captain Phelan, who was stabbed by Richard Short in O’Donovan’s offioe several weeks ago. O’Donovan was within eight beds of Phelan. An examination of the wound by Dr. Kirby showed that the bullet had penetrated the back about half an inch above the left shoulder-blade. The ball ranged upward and inward toward the spinal column, but did not touch the vertebra. The bullet is evidently lodged in the muscles of the back, and beyond a slight shook Rossa has suffered little. It was at one time learned that the bullet bad penetrated the lung, but as the wounded man had expectorated no blood, this was afterward pronounced impossible. Had tbe spinal column been injured there would have been signs of paralysis, but none appeared. The doctors probed unsuccessfully for tbe bullet. They concluded that no Large blood-vessel had been injured, and as O’Donovan is a fleshy, muscular man of robust constitution there was no danger to be apprehended. Rossa, in the Chambers Street Hospital, made the following statement to Coroner Kennedy: “Saturday, Jan. 31. about 4 p. m., I received a letter at my office, No. 12 Chambers street. The message was in writing and was delivered by a messengerboy. The note stated that a woman wished to see me; that she was interested in the Irish cause and desired to assist it. She did not care to go to my office and remain waiting there until I came. She would only ask for ten minutes’ time, and the boy told me the woman was at the telegraph office in the Stewart Building, Broadway and Chambers street. I went with him and met her. I told her it would be well to go to some hotel, as tbe telegraph office was no place to talk Id. We came out and went to Sweeney’s Hotel. We went into the ladies’ parlor, and she said she would be able to give considerable money if anything good was done. She then said she would call Monday, Feb. 2, at 4p. m. Today she sent another message to my office and I went to the same telegraph office and there I met the woman. She showed me a paper which I was to sign. She then suggested that we go to some place. We walked down Chambers street toward Broadway, and when we got a short distance the woman stepped back and fired two or three shots at me. One of the balls entered my back. ”