Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 December 1875 — The Mosel Murder. [ARTICLE]

The Mosel Murder.

The rhymester who wrote that “ horrors pile on horrors’ head” was referring, we believe, to an unpleasant legend concerning the nature of hell, but if he had beep prophesying about the recent news from Bremen be could not have better hit the nail upon the head. Such a fiendish scheme as that revealed by the investigation into the dynamite explosion on the wharf at Bremer Haven has scarcely ever been heard of before. One of the crimes which damns Nero’s name to everlasting infamy is his attempt to have a ship containing a dozen people sunk in deep water, but Thomas, to whom Nero was nobody, deliberately planned an explosion on midocean, which would have sent the steamer Mosel, with every soul on board, reeling down to sure destruction. The idea that a man of this century should be capable of planning such a frightful scheme is simply terrible. The story of’ the crime is still, in some respects, incomplete, but all the main points are known. William King Thomas', the wholesale murderer, was a native of Brooklyn, N. Y. He married at New Orleans and lived in Virginia during the war, when he made a fortune by blockade-running. Upon the collapse of the Confederacy he fled to Germany, where he has since lived under the assumed name of Thomassen. Having lost his ill-gotten gains by speculation, he laid the plan which has cost the world nearly 100 lives already and which may lead other miscreants to similar blood-curdling crimes hereafter. He had an explosive machine made. It consisted of a barrel divided into two parts, one filled with dynamite, the other occupied by clockwork so arranged that at the end of eight or ten days the deadly dynamite would be exploded by a sudden blow. He intended to hav£ this shipped at Bremen upon the Deutschland, which he was to leave himself at Southampton. At the latter port a number of cases of rubbish, insured as very costly goods, were to be placed on board. Then the Deutschland was to steam westward on the broad Atlantic, crowded with passengers, laden with hopes. The conspirators—for Thomas has confessed that he had accomplices in New York—expected that when the vessel was out of sight of land, out of reach of all help, there would be a shock like that of a whirlwind, a column of flame like that of a volcanic eruption. The steamer would be blown into infinitesimal fragments. Passengers and crew would be hurled instantly into eternity. Days and weeks would wear wearily on without news of the missing vessel, and, while hundreds of families were settling down into the dull agony of hopeless grief, the parties to this hellish plot would collect the fictitious insurance, the bloodmoney of their guilt, and so repair their shattered fortunes. The infernal machine was not ready when the Deutschland sailed, and the latter therefore escaped this Charybdis to strike upon the Scylla of the “Kentish Knock.” The Mosel was file next steamer of the same line. By some piece of good fortune —comparatively good, positively bad, since it cost 100 lives —the dynamite exploded on 7 the wharf at Bremer Haven instead of in midocean. Thomas, who was already on the Mosel, was driven by a guilty conscience to attempt to commit suicide. He was promptly arrested and his wounds* bandaged. He tore off the bandages only to have thepi replaced, but at last succeeded in killing himself as effectually as he had the murdered hundred. He died Thursday. He is beyond the reach of human but perhaps his accomplices may be discovered. If so, the Scriptural law’ ot an eye for an eye, etc., would be satisfied by tying them into a small schooner above a case of dynamite, with a clockwork attachment, towing the vessel out to sea, setting the machinery for an explosion in twenty-four hours, and then leaving the wretches to their own thoughts meantime. The plot may have been suggested by an attempt said to have been made in 1856 to destroy the steamer Oriel, sailing from the same port of Bremer Haven. Two cases heavily insured and purporting to contain silk, but really packed with combustibles and with a clock-work apparatus for striking sparks, were shipped upon her. She was stopped by a telegram from the last light-house on the coast. The mechanic employed by the conspirators had confessed the crime at the last moment. The cases were taken back to Bremen, where they served as mute witnesses against the two persons, father and son, who were arrested. The former committed suicide; the latter is now in prison at Bremen under a life sentence; the mechanic is said to live on Staten Island. Another hypothesis is that some novel—for instance, Reade’s “ Foul Play”—suggested the foul scheme. Stories of shrewd crime not unfrequently have this effect, A still more horrible idea is that this plan has been successfully tried before. May it not explain the mysterious disappearance of some of the missing steamers of the last few years? The dispatches say that Thomas had ordered twenty infernal machines from the mechanic w’ho made the one designed to destroy the Mosel. Would he have done this if the plan had not been found to be a success? The theory is a startling onej but not untenable. In any event, the world is well rid of this dynamite devil.—OAtcayo Tribune, Dec. 18.

The first spelling-bee in England was held recently at Islington, “under the American rules,” Webster’s dictionary being the standard. Thirty-two gentlemen and eighteen ladies essayed their skill before a crowded audience. In the end the sexes divided the prizes equally, though the first prize fell to a gentleman. The words that proved too much for the powers of all except the prize-takers were not very difficult. “Rhododendron,” “apocryphal,” “philippic,” “hebdomadally,” and “ camelopard” put a large number hopelessly out of the contest, and at last “ sesquipedalian” was onlyspelt correctly by Mr. Jameson, the winner. Prizes, to the amount of £8 rewarded the six successful spellers out of the fifty who entered. A workingmen’s excursion from England to America, next year is proposed, leaving Liverpool early in June, visiting New York, Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Chicago, Niagara Falls and the chief cities of Canada, and embarking at Quebec for Europe about the middle of August. < i f One of the teachers at a publie school in Taunton, Mass., w ishing to impress his pupils, inquired, the other day: “Do you think my head is stuffed with cotton ?” “Yes, sir,” said a very prompt, but slightly deaf, girl who had misunderstood the question. 3 Yov can go to the Black Hills and loat around in that dcfiglitlul region all winter, if you want to. There is nothing to hinder’so romantic a trip now—the troops stationed about that country being Withdrawn into cold-weather quarters at Fort Laramie. ,