Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 December 1895 — BOMBS TO BIG MEN. [ARTICLE]

BOMBS TO BIG MEN.

Infernal Machines Sent to Armour and Pullman. Two crudely constructed infernal machines were mailed in Chicago Monday morning to George M. Pullman and Philip D. Armour. They did not reach the destinations the sender of them intended, but were taken possession of by Capt. Stuart, of the Postal Secret Service. Capt. Stuart also has in his charge S. A. Owens, who says he heard two men talking of their scheme to kill Pullman and Armour, and almost ran his legs off Sunday night to warn them of the fate in store for them. The deadly character of the machines was demonstrated by an examination of their contents and by igniting some of the powder removed from them, as well as a part of the fuse which completed the mechanism of a contrivance so arranged that the removal of the lids of the boxes which comiK>sed the outer casings of the devices would result in the ignition of the powder and the fuse which was trained into a lead pipe. The package addressed to Mr. Armour was unwrapped carefully. When the paper had been removed it was found to contain a thin box about 6 inches long, 1% inches wide and inches deep. It was made of wood taken from a cigar box. The three sides had been nailed together, but on top there was a sliding lid. It had been made rather rudely, the lid especially being roughly shaped and working badly. Inside was a piece of lead pipe three-quarters of an inch in diameter and as long as the interior length of the box. Both ends of the lead pipe were plugged with corks. All around this pipe and completely filling the box was black, coarse powder, as a match applied easily proved it to be. There was a hole in the side of the lead pipe, and in this was fastened a piece of fuse three inches long. On the under side of the sliding lid was glued a piece of sandpaper. Covering the powder inside was an other piece of sandpaper, with the rough side turned upward. Between the two sandpaper surfaces the heads of a number of parlor matches had been placed, with more powder scattered in between. The whole machine was fastened so that if the sliding lid had been moved as much as one-fourth of an inch one of the matches must have become ignited by the grinding sandpaper surfaces. No matter what was contained inside the piece of lead pipe, a quarter of a pound of gunpowder must have been exploded, and experts say that alone would have done considerable damage to the person drawing the lid. Both machines were constructed upon the same principle.