London has been excited, though not alarmed, by the dis-
covery of a plot to blow up three great railway-stations- Victoria Street, Paddington, and- Charing Cross—with dyna- mite. According to the Home Secretary, the plot in all three cases was the same. A quantity of " atlas " dynamite, of American manufacture, was placed in a portmanteau or leather bag, with an American clock so arranged that at a certain hour- it would fire a detonator and explode the dynamite. The port- manteau, or bag, was then deposited in the luggage-room, to wait till called for, and its bearer departed, leaving his machine to explode of itself. In Charing Cross and Paddington the machinery failed, and the porters directed to search the luggage- discovered the infernal contrivances, so to speak, dead, the alarum movement having finished without an explosion. In the Victoria-Street Station, however, The explosion occurred early on Tuesday morning, and the luggage-room, booking- office, and waiting-rooms were blown into the air, while a fire broke out from a shattered gas-pipe. This was, however, subdued, and as no lives were lost, and the rooms were only of lath and plaster, the damage done is valued at only 24,000. The intention, however, was to wreck the whole building, and kill all the passengers who might be in it, besides starting a great fire,—an almost unparalleled piece of villainy. The police have no clue as yet to the perpetrators, though it appeals certain, from the clothes and newspapers found in the machines, that they were Irish-Americans, probably the men who tried to wreck the Metropolitan trains, and whose object is clearly to wreak the maximum of harm on the innocent consistent with the perfect safety of their own lives. None of the hundreds threatened in these attempts have been in any way the enemies. of Ireland.
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