Democratic Sentinel, Volume 11, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 November 1887 — LINGG’S SUICIDE. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

LINGG’S SUICIDE.

The Fire-Eating Anarchist Explodes a Detonating Cap in His Month. The Whole Lower Part of His Face Torn Away—Seven Hours of Agony. Sketch of the Life of the Most Venge* fill and Desperate of the Anarchists. I Chicago special.[ Louis Lingg, the maker of the bomb that was thrown at the Haymarket riot, created a tremendous sensation throughout the world by committing suicide in his cell at the county jail Thursday morning with a dynamite cartridge. At 8 :55 in the morning the current of daily business in the jail was hardly under way. Lineg had not yet risen, but had been awake and for some time reading by the light of a candle which stood on a small table to the righ*. of his cot He had lighted the candle himseif. although none of the jail officials observed him as he did so. At B'M o’clock Engelhardt had noticed the burning eandle, and the only idea it aroused in him was that Lingg was awa.ke. Engelhardt glanced into the cell and, seeing Lingg reading, said, cheerily.; “How do you feel this morning?" “Pretty well,” replied Lingg, merely glancing up and resuming his reading.

Fifteen minutes later, at 8:55 o’clock, a cloud of blue smoko rushed through the grated door of Lingg’s cel , and a report about as loud as the simultaneous discharge of both barrels of a shotgun rang through the jail. O’Neill, the deputy, >jwho was a prisoner ‘in his own cage, had been facing the outer office, and at the shock rushed against the gratin; with the im-

pression that the walls were falling. None of the deputies was watching him, but just at that moment the reporter had stopped to look in the cell. Lingg, who had been lying down, partially raised himself in his bunk and placed something between his lips It looked like a cigar, and when Lingg reached over tor the candle and placed it to his mouth his only observer supposed he was merely about to take a smoke. A moment later the explosion dispelled that thought. For a moment everybody in the jail stood paralyzed with horror. To add to the terror was the fear that the next moment the walls would come toppling over and bury all the inmates beneath the ruins. But no crash of falling walla followed the explosion, and the panic was soon over. Jailer Foiz was tho first to act, and was at hand when O’Neill recovered himself and flung open Lingg’s door. Through the ribbons of smoke it could be seen that the little cell was in great disorder. Books and papers were scattered about, the extinguished candle lay under tho table, the blankets had fallen from the cot. and upon the floor and clinging to the walls and furniture were pulpy and hard substances, the nature of which was n t at the moment apparent. Tne prisoner himself lay quietly upon his right side, with both bauds hanging as though in lan uor over the side of the cot. Folz and O Neill sei: ed him and drew him into the light The sight disclosed was horror itself. Lingg’s hel d fell oil his breast, while from his mouth, if the black and shaxioless orifice could still bear the name, there poured a torre-nt of blood. The nature of the wound was open evidence of its method of in i.ictioa. The desperate man had discharged an explosive in his mouth, with the design, doubtless, of blowing his head from his shoulders. He had failed of his complete purpose, but had succeeded in accomplishing an injury which, hal it not ended in death, would have left him a living monstrosity. Many among the men who gazed upon the dying anarchist had witnessed deaili alid disfiguration iu almost every form, but recoiled at this horror. Lingg’s entire lower jaw, the upper bony palate, the teeth, tongue, glands, and all the lower structure of his head, excepting only tho outer flesh, ha 1 been blown out through his lips, so that his face from his eves down hung like a hideous sack upon which his nose was a shapeless protuberance. It was teeth, blood, bones, and tlesh upon which the jailers trod and which they saw upon the walls and furniture. In the rush of discharging matter tho lips had been slit and distended so that they hung in thick, welted flaps that stirred as the blood and air from the lungs gushed through thorn. More frightful still, to the men who brought tho first relief, he was conscious, and looking up into their faces, groaned deeply. Lilting him as tenderly as they might in the excitemefit, they carried him from the cage, out of tho cell hall, through the offlee to the bath-room, where a cot was iinprovis rd. The Burgeons promptly washed out the bloodclotted cavity that was once a mouth, took up and tied several of tho arteries, applied antiseptic treatment to the torn surface, enveloped the whole in bandages, and lay the hopelessly injured m.-.n back to die. It was perhaps in keeping with his character that Lingg should face a death so horrible with composure and retain consciousness and perception of passing events until the drugs with which the surgeons filled his veins overcame him. Shortly after the dressing of his wounds had been begun he signed for pencil and paper, and as he did so it was noticed for the first time that his left band was shattered. The thumb was broken and the flesh ot his fingers lacerated. A writing block was held for him, and with a pencil iu his right hand ho wrote the following : "Besser aniehnen am Ruecken. Wenn ich liege kann ich nicht athmen. ” (Better bolster up my back; when I lie down I cannot breathe.) With this request the surgeons complied, and raised him into a sitting posture. Time and again he signed for water, and this was administered him through a long rubber tube thrust into his throat The instrument with which Lingg wrought his destruction was a percussion cap. In each of the four bomb < found in his cell some days before he killed himself there was one of these caps. An object so small could be concealed a'« out the person of a man so as to baffle tho closest examination. The cap consists merely of a copper shell an eighth of an inch in diameter and three-quarters of an i’-tch long, half filled with fulminate of mercury, and with a half-inch of fuse attached. Yet this small object explodes with the detonation of a gun, and with what violence Lingg’s wounds attest. After the surgeons had dressed his gaping wounds Lingg was propped up on a rough couch in tho bath-room and a heavy gray blanket was thrown over him. The surgeons had stopped the profuse flow of blood, but expressed no hope for his recovery. Hypodermic injections were made occasionally in the patient’s right arm and breast and stimulants were given, but they only served to prolong a life fast ebbing away. The desp rate man lived exactly seven hours after the cap had exploded. At the sound of the explosion, Parsons, who occupied the cell adjacent to Lingg’s, was on his feet, his face pressed close to the bars of his cell, and, in aloud voice, he cried: “Give me one of those bombs. I want to do the same thing.” Parsons was still shrieking out for a com-panion-piece to the Lingg article when the deputies hustled him down stairs and into the jail office, where hp and his fellow anarchists were thoroughly searched. Louis Lingg was tho youngest and the most reckless of the Chicago anarchists. For daring, unbridled deviltry he was without an equal. At the time the bomb was thrown he was only a little ov< r2l years old, and when he died was barely 23. He was a disciple of Herr Most, and his blood is on the head of his master. Lingg was born at Mannheim, a city of about 40,000 inhabitants, in the Grand Duchy of Baden, Germany. His mother still runs a notion store in that city, and is said to .be very well off. Lingg was absolutely without fear. He preached the use of dynamite and was always ready to practice what he preached. In his advocacy of force he was always far in advance of the other extreme anarchists of Chi:ago.

LOUIS Lingg