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Ernest Alfred Vizetelly. The Anarchists: Their Faith and Their Record. Turnbull and Spears Printers, Edingurgh, 1911.

THE ANARCHISTS

THEIR FAITH AND THEIR RECORD

CHAPTER 8: The French Terror



(1894)

Swiss Enactments against Propaganda by Deed--The Avengers of Vaillant--The Explosion at the Cafe Terminus, Paris--The career of Emile Henry--The Affair of Martial Bourdin at Greenwich-- Trial and Execution of Emile Henry--Jean Pauwels and the Affairs in the Faubourg St Martin and the Rue St Jacques-- Nervous Tension in Paris--Trials of Anarchists at Vienna and Berlin--Prosecutions in France--The Case of Gaston Richard-- Proceedings against Anarchist Writers: Jean Grave and Maurice Charnay--The Doctrine of Anti- Militarism--Jean Pauwels killed at the Madeleine--The Cafe Foyot Explosion and Laurent- Tailhade --May Day, 1894--Fall of Casimir- Perier's Ministry--The Dupuy Cabinet--The Career of Sadi Carnot--His Policy as President of the Republic--His Decision to retire--His Travels and personal Popularity--He starts for Lyons--His last Interview with his Children and Grandchildren--Lyons and its Population--Carnot entertained at a Banquet--His last Speech--He sets out for the Theatre--His Reception in the Rue de la Republique--His Assassination--The Italian Colony assailed--Attempt on Crispi at Rome--Measures against Anarchists in Italy--Murder of Signor Bandi--Queen Victoria and the German Kaiser on the Assassination of Carnot--Election of Casimir- Perier to the Presidency--Career of Santo Geronimo Caserio--His Sojourn at Cette--His Journey to Lyons--His Trial and Execution--Adolescent Crime.

BEFORE Vaillant was executed Switzerland had witnessed another outbreak in which Anarchists were concerned, and which arose, like the previous one, out of the hostility prevailingbetween Swiss and Italian workmen. Demonstrations, attended by explosions outside the Italian Consulate at Zurich, led to a serious encounter with the police and far from advancing Anarchist interests in any way did exactly the reverse, for the Confederation, long so lenient to the revolutionaries of all kinds on its territory now adopted additional special laws against that Propaganda by Deed which the Anarchists seemed to be adopting all the world over. It was enacted that ten years imprisonment with hard labour should be the minimum penalty for making use of explosives with a criminal design, that five years of like punishment should be alloted to those who prepared explosives or taught others to prepare them for criminal use, and that another five years should be the portion of any individual who might be convicted of having publicly or privately incited others to commit crimes against either persons or property, whether in Switzerland or elsewhere.

The enactment of those provisions demonstrated the folly of the Anarchists in introducing the methods of Propaganda by Deed into the only state of continental Europe which they had hitherto been able to regard as a fairly safe place of refuge. Switzerland, one of the most liberty- loving countries in the world, had long been loath to comply with the representations of the great Powers in respect either to right of asylum, or freedom of action among political refugees. It had only gradually conceded one or another point in proportion as either Nihilist or Anarchist Propaganda by Deed became more and more serious. When, however, there were attempts to carry on that propaganda on its own territory against its own government or officials, it at once decided to punish it severely--so differently does one judge things according as to whether one's own interests or merely those of other people are affected by them.

At the same time the Federal Council was undoubtedly influenced in its decision by the course of events in other countries, notably France. Five days after Vaillant had been guillotined the threat to avenge him was put into execution at a cafe near the well- known railway terminus called the Gare Saint Lazare. The enlargement Of that station some years previously had been attended Iby the demolition of several old houses and the building Iof an hotel' called the Hotel Terminus, on a spot where during the Bloody Week of May, 1871, we were fired upon by a party of Communards, a person with us being killed by one bullet, and our own escape from death being due solely to the presence of mind and alacrity of a good friend who has since joined the majority, Captain the Hon Dennis gingham, at that time Paris correspondent Of " The Pall Mall Gazette." On the side of the Rue Saint Lazare the ground floor of the hotel we have mentioned was fitted up as a cafe, where on the evening of February 12, 1894, a number of customers were assembled, when a bomb was suddenly flung among them, the result being that a gentleman, named Borde, was killed, and twenty other persons were injured. The young fellow who had committed this outrage ran off, firing several revolver shots at those who tried to stop him, but before long he was secured and removed to prison. He at first gave the name of Le Breton, but this proper appellation proved to be Emile Henry. Though born--curiously enough--in the great centre of Spanish Anarchism, Barcelona, he was the son of French parents who belonged to the bourgeoisie but whose family had produced various revolutionaries in previous times, notably at the period of the Paris Com mune Moreover, Emile Henry's elder brother, Fortune, was like him an Anarchist. Emile was extremely intelligent. Educated at the (code Jean- Baptiste Say in Paris, he had displayed great proficiency in mathematics, securing already at the age deg.of sixteen a bursary which entitled him to admission into the famous Ecole Polytechnique. On the ground, how ever, that he was opposed to militarism he did not enter that college, but took to commercial pursuits, being at first employed by one of his uncles, named Bordenave an engineer, who sent him to an establishment at Venice Returning to France, Henry next secured a situation with a cloth merchant at Roubaix, whom he left in order to apprentice himself to a clockmaker. It was afterwards asserted that he did so with the express object of studying a branch of mechanics which he might utilise in preparing a really effective infernal machine. However that may be, no long period elapsed before he gave up clockmaking and entered the employment of a Sculptor of ornamental work. At the same time he dabbled in Anarchism and sent occasional contributions to the review was entitled " L'En Dehors," some account of which was given in one of our previous chapters.

At the time of his arrest Henry ought really to have been in the army, but he had managed to evade incorporation owing to his birth abroad. His guilt in respect to the explosion at the Cafe Terminus was unquestionable, but, like a person proud of his achievements, he candidly informed the investigating magistrate that it was he who had deposited an infernal machine at the Paris offices of the Carmaux Mining Company on November 8, 1892, which machine had subsequently exploded at the Pohce Commissariat in the Rue des Bons Enfants. On being interrogated by the Procuror of the Republic respecting that affair, Henry reiterated his assertions, supplying particulars which confession was authentic. At the same time he declared that he had acted alone in the matter, having no accomplices whatever, the truth of which statement is extremely doubtful.

After the explosion in the Rue des Bons Enfants Henry had temporarily betaken himself to London, and if in this instance we may believe the frequently unreliable Mcmoirs of Henri Rochefort, he there openly boasted among Anarchist and other Revolutionary refugees that the outrage in question was his work Rochefort who had also been obliged to seek an asylum in London at that time, owing to his participation in the BouIangist intrigues, relates that Charles Malato, the well- known Anarchist writer, remarked to him one day : " There is a young fellow going about London saying that he is the author of the Rue des Bons Enfants explosion. He is evidently taking people in." In fact, nobody believed the story, but regarded it either as a young man's boasting, or as a romance concocted for the purpose of extracting money out of sympathisers with the cause Accepting Rochefort's account, however, there can be no doubt that Henry substantially told the truth, even though he always remained reticent or equivocated on such points as the procuring of the dynamite used in his apparatus, and the conveyance of the latter (which was extremely heavy) to the Avenue de ['Opera. Those were points, of course, which suggested the complicity of other people.

During the time which Henry spent in London a good many Anarchist refugees were to be found there. The sect also counted a certain number of English members and m December 1893 two attempts were made to hold Anarchist meetings in Trafalgar Square. But the police promptly intervened and dispersed the " demonstrators," who took to their heels chivied by the crowd. Three days after Henry flung his bomb into the Cafe Terminus, that is on February 15, 1894, a remarkable discovery was made in Greenwich Park at no great distance from the Observatory, a man's body being found there in a more or less mutilated condition. It was surmised that this individual had stumbled whilst walking, and had been killed by some explosives which he was undoubtedly carrying at the time. The police were apparently of opinion that he had entertained some design against the Observatory, but we doubt whether such was the case His name was Martial Bourdin, and he was of French nationality and an Anarchist in politics. We incline rather to the view that he may have betaken himself to Greenwich in order to meet somebody from whom he was to receive or to whom he was to deliver the chemicals which caused his death, and we greatly doubt whether they were intended for use in England. Had Bourdin been an Englishman such might certainly have been the case; but now that Switzerland was being gradually closed to foreign Anarchists, England was becoming their sole place of asylum, and it was incumbent on them all to do nothing which might tend to close the one open door that remained to them. We greatly doubt therefore whether Bourdin meditated an outrage in this country.

At that time the chief, or perhaps it is preferable to say the best known place in London where English and foreign Anarchists met, was the so- called Autonomie Club in Windmill Street, Tottenham Court Road, and the police raided that establishment on the day after Bourdin's death; but it does not appear that this raid yielded any notable results. Feeling was running high in London at that moment. The outrage at the Cafe Terminus in Paris was as still fresh in people's minds, and, besides, that city had since been the scene of two more explosions of which we shall presently give some account. Thus on February 29 on the removal of Bourdin's remains from an undertaker's shop in Chapel Street near Lisson Grove, for interment at St Pancras Cemetery at Finchley, Londoners gave free vent to their anti- Anarchist sentiments. Just before the little funeral procession, composed of a hearse and a mourning coach, started on its journey a body of Anarchists, carrying red flags edged with black, endeavoured to join it. But the police, who were present in force, ordered them to withdraw, and as they demurred to obeying they were forced to disperse leaving behind them their banners which were speedily torn up by the crowd. So antagonistic was the latter's demeanour that the police had considerable difficulty in protecting the hearse and the occupants of the mourning coach--a brother of the deceased and some friends--from violence At the cemetery an agitator of that time, named Quinn, who styled himself a " Christian Anarchist " (he had figured in the attempted demonstrations at Trafalgar Square), endeavoured to deliver a speech by the graveside, but he had only been able to utter the words: " Friends, Anarchists, comrades," when he was seized by the police, who kept him in custody until the departure of the mourning coach, in which he gladly took refuge from the ever- threatening crowd.

Let us now return to Emile Henry and say something of his trial and execution, reserving for the present an account of other incidents which followed his arrest. When he appeared in the dock at the Paris Assizes the jury saw before them a young fellow in his twenty- second year, slightly built, with a thin face, a sharp nose, a little down on his upper lip and a slight ruddy beard. The prisoner displayed great composure and considerable intelligence. He was plainly of a frigid, energetic, skeptical nature, and it was remarked at the time that, in the days of the first French Revolution, he might well have become one of the Commissaries of the Convention. Briefly, to some minds, he suggested Saint Just.

He made several remarkable admissions during his examination by the presiding judge. He declared for instance, that it had been his desire to cause as much havoc as possible, and that before throwing his bomb into the Cafe Terminus he had looked in at Bignon's Restaurant in the Avenue de l'Opera, and at the Cafe de La Paix on the Boulevards; but having found very few customers at either of those establishments he had gone farther afield. On arriving at last at the Cafe Terminus, and perceiving that it was being fairly well patronised, he had regarded it as a suitable spot for his purpose He cynically remarked, however, that he was dissatisfied with the result of the explosion, as he had hoped to kill at least fifteen people, and injure twenty or thirty others But he recognised that, by his own fault, his bomb had been imperfect. Henry indulged in no little raillery and repartee throughout his trial, and remained quite unmoved when sentence of death was passed upon him; but all his courage collapsed when he found himself in presence of the guillotine, on the morning of his execution, May 21.

As we previously indicated, some notable occurrences had followed his apprehension after the Cafe Terminus affair on February 12. The French authorities then decided on further perquisitions and arrests, among those who were committed to prison being Sebastien Faure, the guardian of Vaillant's little daughter. Next, on February, 19 came some mysterious affairs in two very different thoroughfares of Paris, one being the Faubourg St Martin, north of the Seine, and the other the Rue St Jacques, in the " Latin Quarter," south of the river. In each of those districts the local commissary of police received a letter stating that the writer, being overwhelmed by misfortune, had decided to take his life, and was anxious that nobody should be accused of an act for which he alone would be responsible. Both letters were signed "Etienne Rabardy," that being (as was afterwards discovered) the name of a man who had lost some papers establishing his identity, which papers had come into the possession of a certain Jean Pauwels, an Anarchist of Belgian nationality, then in Paris.

Of course the object of the letters was to attract the police to the addresses given in them. At each of those addresses there was an hotel meuble, where Pauwels had taken a room; and in each room he had left a bomb in such a position that it might fall and explode directly the police should have forced the door, which he locked from the outside, carrying the key away with him. The police naturally repaired to the two lodging houses, and at the one in the Rue St Jacques there was an explosion by which three persons were wounded, one of them the landlady of the house, being so severely injured that she soon afterwards died. In the Faubourg St Martin fortunately, the bomb fell without bursting, and was then carefully exploded by the police for fear lest it should do hurt or damage.

The nervous tension in Paris was at this time very great. After Vaillant's attempt at the Chamber of Deputies had come the Cafe Terminus affair; and now, although the casualties resulting from the Rue St Jacques explosion were less severe, they none the less supplied proof, as did the attempt in the Faubourg St Martin, that the Anarchists had by no means renounced their policy of homicide and destruction. The situation in the city reminded one of a famous saying. On May 31, 1830, less than two months before the Revolution of 1830 which overthrew Charles X., Count de Salvandy remarked to the Duke of Orleans (later King Louis Philippe) at a ball given by that Prince in honour of his brother- in- law Francis I., King of Naples: " This is quite a Neapolitan fete, Monseigneur. We are dancing on a volcano " Now the Parisians of 1894 felt that they also were on a volcano, and they lived in daily dread of some fresh eruption' which might occur at any moment, and in any part of the city. If a trifling mishap occurred to a tramcar, through an electric wire getting out of order, people imagined that an explosive had been deposited on the line, and a panic ensued. When an accident happened to the scenery of a naval piece performed at the Gaite Theatre, and a few ballet girls, acting as sailors, dropped on to the stage shaken, no doubt, but by no means seriously hurt, half the ladies in the audience screamed hysterically, and many people rushed away fearing lest they might be blown to pieces. " Les Anarchistes ! Une bombe ! " were the exclamations heard at the least untoward incident which occured in any place of public resort.

In other cities, also, the Anarchists and their doings were prominently en evidence at this time. On the very day of the Rue St Jacques affair, fourteen members of the sect, who had been arrested the previous year at Vienna in connection with a discovery of some explosives and a secret printing press, were arraigned there on charges of conspiring to change the form of government, stir up civil war, encourage the military to desert, and commit crimes with dynamite. These men outwardly belonged to a party of so- called " Independent Socialists," who had separated from the Social Democrats in 1892. They had two journals at their disposal, one in German, " Die Zukunft," the other in Czech, the " Volne Listy.'' Their trial resulted in eight of them being convicted, the principal ones, named Haspel and Hahnel, being sentenced to ten and eight years' rigorous imprisonment respectively, while to the remaining six prisoners terms of from two to four years were allotted. A couple of Anarchists, a certain Pawlowitz, a locksmith, and another named Petersdorf, a cloth worker, were also tried at Berlin about this time for using violent language at public meetings, but they escaped with sentences of nine and three months' imprisonment.

It was probably in the hope of reassuring the Parisians that M. Casimir- Perier and his colleague M. Raynal persevered in their policy of making perquisitions and arrests, and suppressing or seizing Anarchist periodicals. About this time, both in Paris and in the provinces a number of reputed Anarchists were tried and sentenced to imprisonments' chiefly for using threatening or abusive language in speeches or writings. There were, for instance, the cases of Herteau, Castel, Merigaud, and Rousset. The last named was a Social reformer, who, with the assistance of various charitably disposed people, had organised during the winter a service of meals for poverty stricken folk, meals at which addresses were delivered on social problems and their remedy. Some of the language used at these so- called soupes- comferences displeased the authorities who would not tolerate the slightest citicism of their actions, or even allow it to be said that Society itself was largely responsible for the evil which had sprung up in its midst; and thus Rousset was prosecuted and sentenced to imprisonment in spite of the good opinion entertained of him by many people who were in no sense Anarchists--such as Jules Simon, Leon Say, Charles Floquet, Paul de Cassagnac, Alphonse Daudet, Sarah Bernhardt, and Emile Zola. A case like that tended to bring the authorities and the judges into contempt. Had the prisoner been tried by jury he would probably have been acquitted.

It became the fashion at this time to regard almost every criminal as an Anarchist. Who, indeed, would commit theft, fraud, assault, or murder if he were not one ? This, of course, was the reduction ad absurdam of the repulsions which Anarchism inspired. Previously la sagesse des nations had proclaimed money to be the root of all evil; now Anarchism was set in money's place. Some light was cast on the methods of the French authorities in this respect by the case of Gaston Richard, an impulsive hot- headed youth of seventeen, who had been assistant to a pork- butcher, and had stabbed and thereby caused the death of the brother of a tavern- keeper at Courbevoie near Paris. " You are an Anarchist," said the judge to Richard at his trial. " No, Monsieur le Pre sident, I am not." " But you told the investigating magistrate you were." " Well, it was like this: every time the magistrate examined me he repeated: ' You are an Anarchist. You must be one to have killed that man in the way you did. Come, confess it, you belong to the Anarchists.' And at last I got so tired of always hearing him tell me I was an Anarchist that to put a stop to it I said to him one day: 'Well, yes, I am.' And that is the whole truth of the matter, Monsieur le President." We have little doubt that Richard told the truth. His story was quite in accordance with the spirit prevailing at the time, but the court treated it with incredulity. In England the case would have been treated as one of manslaughter rather than murder, but Richard was convicted of the latter crime (under extenuating cir cumstances) and sentenced to penal servitude for twenty years.

On the other hand, much as we favour the freedom of the press, we feel that there was justification for several of the proceedings which the authorities took in respect to Anarchist periodicals and pamphlets. It is easy to indulge in sophistry on such a subject. The line must be drawn somewhere. When a writer deliberately incites his readers to murder and rapine, when he preaches defiance to all laws, the destruction of every social rule' the community is well entitled to take action. Moreover' if we concede that a man has a right to attack a social system of which he disapproves, we must also acknowledge that this system has an equal right to defend itself. It follows that the former is not logically entitled to complain if he is worsted in the encounter which he himself has initiated. Jean Grave, a very able exponent of Anarchism, to whom we have previously referred more than once had penned an extremely well written but none the less absolutely subversive treatise entitled " La Societe mourante et 1 Anarchie." It was full Of insidious suggestions and incitements. The Society, which Grave declared to be dying, undertook, however, to show him that it was not in such a moribund condition as he asserted. He was therefore prosecuted for issuing the work in question. Writers like Octave Mirbeau, Paul Adam, and Bernard Lazare spoke in favour of it, but Grave was sentenced to two years imprisonment, and it was ordered that all the copies of his work which had been seized should be destroyed. As it happened, he profited by an amnesty granted in February, 1895, and thereupon published a treatise entitled " La Societe future," which he had written during his detention.

Another case was that of " Le Catechisme du Soldat," the work of a writer named Maurice Charnay, who held that no real fundamental change could be effected in the social system unless the armed forces of the State were, in the first instance, either got rid of or won over. He therefore set himself the task of preaching Anti- Militarism and inciting soldiers to refuse to do their duty. Anti- Militarism is, of course, a pet hobby with many well- meaning folk. Numerous are the pious people who never weary of telling us about our duty towards God, but who at the same time never breathe a word about duty towards one's country. We have personally seen too much of war to regard it otherwise than as the greatest of calamities, one which men should make every effort to avert; but whilst we continue to love our country' whilst we are beholden to the State for good and orderly government and protection and the furtherance of all the interests of the community, it is our duty to guard our country from those who may wish it ill, and to support the State by personal service.

Nowadays Socialists as well as Anarchists denounce Militarism, but we entertain no doubt that if Socialist rule should ever be established in Great Britain it will find itself constrained to establish some form of universal military service (if only by virtue of the principle that the same obligations rest on one and all), even if such service should not come before that time. Virtually all the Socialist theories embody principles of authority and compulsion. It is only the Anarchist theory which rejects both; and Anti- Militarism is the first step on the road to Anarchism. That is a point to be remembered by many pious folk, and selfish folk, and utopian dreamers also.

So well is it understood by the members of the Anarchist fraternity that of more recent years all their greatest, most determined and persistent efforts have been directed against Militarism in every form. If the Socialists on their side also oppose it, that is because, such as it exists, it constitutes an obstacle to their ascendancy. Once in power, however, they would revive and strengthen it for their own purposes.

Maurice Cha nay's " Catechisme du Soldat," more insidious, less openly violent, no doubt, than several subsequent publications, was, however, the first really systematic attempt to spread disaffection through the ranks of the French army. At the time he wrote, the matter was regarded as less serious than it is nowadays, and thus Charnay escaped with a sentence of six months' imprisonment.

On Thursday, March 15, a man was entering the Madeleine church in Paris, being just between the swinging doors, when there was a loud explosion and he fell to the ground. He must have had a bomb either in his pocket or in his hand at the moment, intending to fling it inside the church. He was found dead and horribly mutilated, but little damage was done to the building. This man, as the investigations established, was Jean Pauwels, the Belgian Anarchist of whom we previously spoke, and he was identified as the person who, in the month of February, had taken rooms in the Rue St Jacques and the Faubourg St Martin, and deposited explosives there. The information which the police secured respecting him led to the arrest of several persons, but as the authorities failed to establish their complicity in any of his doings they were released after a few weeks' detention. The police held that Pauwels had been a friend and confederate of Henry's, and that the bombs of the Faubourg St Martin, the Rue St Jacques, and the Madeleine had been prepared by Henry, and removed by Pauwels from Henry's lodgings immediately after the Cafe Terminus affair, and before any perquisition was made.

The next incident in the Propaganda by Deed occurred on April 4, when a bomb exploded outside the Cafe Foyot, near the Luxembourg Palace, and blew in its windows, a customer, M. Laurent Tailhade, who had written on the psychology of Anarchism, being slightly injured. M. Tailhade was also a poet, and there was a kind of poetic justice in his mishap, for in treating the question of bomb- throwing in one of his papers on Anarchism he had blandly inquired: " Qu'importe l'acte, si le geste est beau? ? " This experience at the Cafe Foyot must have shown him that the exploits of the Anarchists had to be considered from other points of view than that of mere artistry. The supposition that the outrage was directed against him personally, as he feigned deg. imagine would seem, by reason of his own Anarchist leanings to have been erroneous. It is far more likely that the attempt was suggested by the circumstance that several Senators frequently lunched at the Cafe Foyot. The person to whom the outrage was due was never discovered.

Owing to the vigilance of the authorities all over Europe there were but few disturbances this year in connection with the usual May Day celebrations. The most notable of them occurred at Ghent, in Belgium, and at Gratz, in Styria. In London some Anarchists attempted to organise a meeting in Hyde Park, but their platform was cleared by the crowd, and the police had to protect them from assault. In Paris discretion was deemed the better part of velour, and only a few men, who indulged rather too copiously in the flowing bowl, attempted to sing " La Ravachole" or the inspiring Anarchist hymn which began:

Aux idoles de la Patrie

Nous sacrifions le bonheur;

En pratiquant l'Idolatrie

Nous avons pourri notre coeur

Serons nous toujours les victimes

Des dirigeants et des coquins ?

Non ! Alors arretons les crimes

Par la mort des chefs assassins !

Chorus.

Debout, freres de misere

Pour nous y'a pas de frontiere.

Revoltons nous contre tout affameur !

Pour ecraser la Bourgeoisie,

Et supprimer la Tyrannie,

I1 faut lutter en chccur

Pour l'Anarchie !

On May II there was an explosion in the Avenue Kleber, but it did no damage; and on the 21st Emile Henry was executed, as we previously related. Those occurrences, apart from the prosecution of a few brawlers, were the only ones directly connected with Anarchism which took place that month in France. But on May 23, the Casimir- perier Ministry, having forbidden the employes of the State Railway Lines to send delegates to a Syndical Congress, found its policy condemned by the chamber of Deputies. The alarm which Vaillant's bomb had caused among the members of that assembly had now subsided, and in spite of the later deeds of Emile Henry and Pauwels, it was felt to an increasing degree in parlia mentary circles that the Government policy was becoming too reactionary. The Ministry did not appear to have Stamped out Anarchism, and on the other hand it had undoubtedly provoked discontent among the working classes generally. The debate, then, on the question of the railway employee and their congress ended by 265 deputies voting against the Government, which secured only 225 supporters. Casimir- Perier thereupon resigned of office.

On May 30, after considerable difficulty, a new Administration was formed by M. Charles Dupuy. His presence at the head of it signified that its home policy would be much the same as that of the previous Cabinet. All its members, excepting two, might be described as Conservative Republicans, the exceptions being M. Poincare, who took the department of Finances, and M. Barthou, who became Minister of Public Works. Dupuy allotted the Interior to himself, confirmed the subsequently notorious General Mercier as Minister of War, and selected M. Felix Faure, afterwards President of the Republic, as Minister of Marine; whilst the portfolio for Foreign Affairs was, for the first time, secured by M. Gabriel Hanotaux, the most Anglophobist of all the statesmen of the Third Republic, and for many years subsequently the determined enemy of Great Britain in every diplomatic field. The new Dupuy Cabinet was promptly dubbed the " Ministere des Jeunes," by which appella tion it is generally designated in French parliamentary history, and which it owed to the circumstance that Dupuy himself was then only forty- three years old Hanstaux forty- one, and Poincare thirty- four, none of their colleagues, moreover, having yet reached his sixtieth year.

Three weeks went by, and if the extremist parties were well pleased with the resignation of Casimir- Perier (who had again become President of the Chamber) they were by no means satisfied with Dupuy's return to Office. Still, there were only the usual "rumblings, and the Anarchists giving few signs of life, public confidence was steadily reviving when, on June 24 the country was again plunged into horror and indignant resentment by the assassination of President Carnot at Lyons.

Before relating the circumstances of that deplorable event it may be allowable, perhaps even advisable, to give some particulars concerning Carnot and his career. The old French saying, Les morts vont vise, was never more apposite than it is to- day. In the hurry- skurry of twentieth- century life the departed and their work are soon forgotten. We mentioned previously that Sadi Carnot was the grandson of Lazare Carnot, the great organiser of the First Republic's armies. Lazare also served under Napoleon during the Consulate, and again during the Hundred Days, when the Emperor was constrained to seek the support of the more liberal- minded politicians in France. Lazare Carnot was one of them, in fact his Republicanism was sincere, and it was inherited by his son, Louis Hippolyte, who, after the Revolution of 1848, became a member of the Provisional Government and subsequently resisted the Coup d'etat of Louis Napoleon. Both his sons, Marie Francois Sadi and Adolphe, entered the Ecole Polytechnique, and the former became a state engineer of the Roads and Bridges Service. He married the daughter of Dupont- white, the famous political economist and precursor of Christian Socialism, one of whose axioms was that " Society has the right to compel individuals to act rightly, and it is its duty to protect the weak from the strong." By his marriage with Mlle. Dupont- White, Sadi Carnot had a daughter, who married a M. Cunisset, and three sons, first, Lazare Hippolyte Sadi, who entered the army secondly, Ernest, who became a civil engineer; and thirdly, Francois Adolphe, also an engineer but of themechanical branch of the profession. Those three gentlemen are, we think, still among us, the eldest now being one of the historiographers of the French War Office.

During the Franco- German War their father devised an improved mitrailleuse, and submitted a model of it to Gambetta, who thereupon attached him to the War Department and afterwards made him Commissary of the Republic in three departments of Normandy, in which capacity he placed Havre in a state of defence, and did everything possible to ensure the revictualling of Paris by way of the Seine. On the arrival of peace Sadi Carnot was elected a deputy for the Cote d'Or, his family being of old Burgundian stock, though he himself was born at Limoges in 1837. In the National Assembly he became secretary to the group called the Republican Left, and after M. Grevy had been elected President of the Republic, he held, under the successive premierships of M. Waddington and M. Jules Ferry, the office of Under- Secretary for Public Works. Later he became Minister of that department, and subsequently Minister of Finances, in which latter post, rejecting many of the financial expedients hitherto employed, he prepared a very able Budget which the Chamber, however, foolishly rejected, in such wise that the financial position of the Republic went from bad to worse. It was at that period that' careless of all the intrigues which existed at the Elysee, Carnot stoutly refused to further the interests of a trading company patronised by M. Grevy's son in law, Daniel Wilson.

The latter's conduct brought about Grevy's overthrow' as we previously related; and it was then that Carnot whose reputation for integrity stood so high, was elected to the Presidency of the Republic, instead of that able statesman, Jules Ferry, whose star had set amidst the repulse of the French arms in the much mismanaged Tonquin enterprise. At this time, December, 1887 Carnot was fifty years of age. He had an intellectual energetic face, a full squarely- trimmed beard, long moustaches and closely cropped hair. His figure was of the average height and slim, and although his gait was somewhat awkward, for he was inclined to be knock kneed, his appearance was not devoid of dignity.

We previously indicated that the period of his Presi was one of great unrest in France. The situation was already very difficult at the time of his election, for the Boulangist agitation was steadily spreading through the country. Carnot's chief aim, therefore, was to pro- mote the concentration of all sincere Republicans, and he readily co- operated with his ministers in removing General Boulanger from active service. The first ad ministrations of his Presidency, those in which Tirard and Floquet successively held the premiership, were not strong ones however; and it was only on Tirard's return to office, with M. Constans as Minister of the Interior, that Boulangism was definitely crushed. Meantime, various financial scandals had arisen, and the failure of the Panama Canal Company led to prolonged excitement and frequent ministerial changes, in dealing with which the President exerted himself to steer a middle course, in the belief that men of moderate views were more truly representative of the nation than others, and more likely to carry the Republican ship safely into port in spite of the storms by which it was beset. Thus men like Loubet and Ribot took office. As we have seen, the premiership passed eventually to Charles Dupuy, and behind the Semblance of bonhomie which had enabled the latter to make his way in politics, there suddenly appeared a very authoritarian spirit, dating from the time when Dupuy had discharged the duties of a schoolmaster.

There had been strikes among the working classes under Loubet, strikes again under Ribot, but there were far more during Dupuy's first ministry, and he often dealt with them with a blundering energy which hastened the evolution of a part of the masses towards Socialism tended to promote Anarchist rebellion, and led also to disruption in the Republican ranks. Then, the Anarchist Terror being at its height, another reputed strong man Casimir- perier, for a time took Dupuy's place, and in like fashion came into collision with the masses.

With two such Prime Ministers as these, both of them men of masterful dispositions, Carnot's personal authority, which, while other administrations held office, had often been exercised with salutary effect, became very greatly reduced; and there can be no doubt that it was largely this circumstance which influenced the President in deciding that he would not seek re- election at the expiration of his term of office. He was not a weak man but at the same time he was not a match for either Casimir- Perier or Dupuy with their passion for mastery their determination to hold all authority in their own hands. Thus he resolved to retire, leaving them to fight out the question of supremacy, as they did, after his death, with the result that both of them had to retire from their respective offices, Casimir- Perier for his part withdrawing altogether from political life.

Whatever may have been the faults of his respective ministers Carnot personally was respected on all sides Throughout the periods of Boulangism and Panamisrn his sincere Republican views and steadfast integrity remained unchallenged.

And he also made himself very popular in the French provinces by the frequent visits which he paid to one or another of them. He surpassed all his predecessors in that respect, travelling hither and thither quite as often as Gambetta had done, inaugurating monuments and works of public utility, opening exhibitions, presiding over gatherings of many kinds in one and another region. And as he possessed a ready command of language, and showed tact, unbending whenever the occasion required it, he made himself much liked in many directions. It is true that at the time of the Paris Exhibition of 1889, while he was on his way to a festival at Versailles, he was fired at by a weak- witted young fellow named Perrin, who was afterwards sentenced to four months' imprisonment, but throughout all the Anarchist Terror in the capital there was never the slightest attempt upon Carnot's person, though he constantly showed himself in public.

Such then was the position when in June 1894, the President decided to visit a Colonial Exhibition which was being held at Lyons. It was due to private initiative, but had secured the support of the municipality which was very anxious to have the President as its guest. On June 23, then, Carnot quitted Paris, accompanied by M. Dupuy the Prime Minister, General Borius, and other members of the Presidential household. When the train stopped at Dijon he found several members of ;his family waiting at the railway station to exchange greetings with him en passant. They were his eldest son, Lieutenant Carnot, his daughter, Mme. Cunisset- Carnot, her husband and her children. There was a brief but cordial chat, the President embraced his children and grandchildren--for the last time, though he knew it not--and the train then went on its way.

Lyons is a city with which we are well acquainted, and we were taking a brief holiday there at the time of Carnot's visit. The population comprised then, as it does now, a small but very bigoted Clericalist party, and a rather larger body of moderate Republicans; but the majority was compounded of Radicals, often of extreme views' and Socialists of various schools, there being, moreover, a certain number of Anarchists scattered among the working classes. The reader will remember the case in which Prince Kropotkin figured. The Lyons workmen, generally, have often given serious trouble to the authorities, notably in connection with strikes, but, as a rule, the Lyonnese have a *frank, open, cordial disposition. The race there, however, is by no means a pure one. Folk flock to Lyons from several provinces, notably Dauphine and Savoy, there being likewise a foreign element composed chiefly of Swiss and Piedmontese. To many of these Lyons is like a half- way house, where they sojourn awhile before going northward to Paris.

Of whatever elements, however, the population of Lyons might be composed, the reception which it accorded the President on his arrival on the evening of Saturday June 23, was, by reason of his personal popularity, quite enthusiastic. On the morrow, Sunday, he held a series of receptions, visited the Colonial Exhibition, and, in the evening, dined as the city's guest at the stately Palais du Commerce, where the Lyons Bourse is held. His health was proposed by Dr Gailleton, the Radical mayor of the city; and in response to the toast Carnot delivered a brief but impressive speech, which, as his term of office was expiring, and he had already signified that he did not wish to be re- elected was generally regarded as his presidential vale, though nobody imagined that it was almost the last utterance of his life. It was an eloquent appeal for concord among Frenchmen in the name of the country which needed that all her children should remain united, in order that there might be no pause in her march towards progress and justice, of which it was fit she should set an example to the world.

The banquet over, the Presidential party and the guests made ready to repair to the Grand Theatre, where there was to be a gala performance. The distance thither was short, not more than a couple of furlongs, and as it was a beautiful June evening Carnot had originally proposed to go on foot. But some member of his family, it appears, told the mayor privately that the exertions of the day had somewhat tired the President; and, accordingly, Dr Gailleton had provided a landau. Carnot seated himself in this carriage with the mayor and Generals Borius and Voisin, the former being the chief of his military household and the latter the commander of the Lyons garrison. A detachment of Cuirassiers rode in front, and in this order the party turned out of the Place des Cordeliers into the Rue de la Republique.

That fine, broad thoroughfare, originally called the Rue Imperiale, for it was one of the improvements effected in Lyons under the Second Empire, was crowded with people of all classes of society, waiting to acclaim the President on his way to the theatre. There were folk at every window, and from the broad side- walks where men, women, and children were packed almost as closely as sardines, many had flowed into the roadway, the police and the soldiers who were greatly outnumbered being powerless to keep them back. In the space left free between those seething masses, the Cuirassiers of Carnot's escort could only walk their horses, and it was at the same pace that the carriage followed.

As it turned into the Rue de la Republique at a little past nine o'clock, loud shouts of " Vive Carnot ! Vive la Republique ! Vive le President ! " rang out from thousands of enthusiastic spectators. Smiling genially, Carnot' who was seated on the right- hand side of the landau , respond vociferous . outburtst by raising his hat and waving his hand. And anxious, so it seemed to be in closer touch with that exuberant cheering throng he told a Cuirassier who was riding beside him to draw back so that he might see and be seen the better. Unhappily' that order sealed his fate.

All at once a young man sprang to the landau, holding in his raised right hand a paper which was supposed to be a petition. The carriage- steps closed automatically, directly the doors were shut, but the vehicle was a low built- one, and the young fellow, resting his left hand on the top of the right hand door, raised himself and struck the President a terrific blow. Within the paper which he carried a poignard was concealed, and leaving this in the terrible wound which he had inflicted, the assassin sprang down, dived between the horses of the landau and those of the last row of Cuirassiers preceding it, and rushed across the street towards the spot where the present writer and one of his wife's brothers were standing in the crowd.

There was a pretty servant girl of eighteen or twenty near us, and she, like others, on seeing this young man with the excited face come rushing across the road, imagined that he had done something wrong, stolen a watch or a purse perhaps, for at this moment, on our side of the way, at all events, nobody knew exactly what had happened So she pluckily caught hold of his sleeve in order to detain him, whereupon, after wrenching himself free, he struck her in the breast. As she reeled backward towards us and we caught hold of her to prevent her from falling, there arose a loud shout of indignation at the fellow's cowardly act. He was seized by two or three policemen, and at virtually the same moment an officier- de- paix or some such official, ran up shouting " Hold him tight ! He has just assassinated the President ! "

Then the cries of indignation ended in a gasp of amazement meet, promptly followed, however, by a perfect clamour of horror and fury. Ugly was the rush which ensued' sweeping many of us off our feet, and it seemed for a moment as if the assassin would there and then be lynched. But policemen and soldiers fought their way to the spot, closed round him, drove back the crowd, and finally carried him away.

"I am wounded!" Carnot exclaimed at the moment he was struck. He had just sufficient strength to draw the poignard from his wound and drop it into the road, where it was afterwards found by the police; then, however, he sank back in the carriage and lost consciousness. Everything had taken place so suddenly, so rapidly, that it had been impossible for either Dr Gailleton, or General Borius or General Voisin to intervene. In that connection it will be remembered that when Benedetto Cairoli interposed between King Humbert and Passanante he was only able to do so after the latter had struck a first and ineffectual blow, and was about to attempt a second. Unfortunately there was no need for the assassin of Carnot to strike a second time; the one wound which he had inflicted was mortal. Afterwards, Dr Gailleton, being a medical man, did all he could for the unfortunate President, and on Dr Poncet, Professor of Surgery at the Lyons Faculty of Medicine, coming up, he also got into the carriage and rendered assistance, whilst the Cuirassiers drove the crowd to right and left, and the landau made its way to the Prefecture as speedily as possible.

We have said that the wound was mortal. Such, indeed, had been the force of the assassin's blow that his weapon had penetrated to a depth of about four and a half inches, perforating the liver and opening the vena porta Nothing could stop hemorrhage under such conditions, and thus all efforts made by the medical men proved unavailing. Nevertheless some three hours elapsed before Carnot expired. Cardinal Couillee, Archbishop deg.of Lyons, had previously administered extreme unction and among those who were with the unfortunate president, or in attendance at the Prefecture during his last hours, were his cousin, M. Simeon Carnot, and the latter's sister, the Prime Minister (who returned to Paris by special train that same night, and the representatives of Lyons in the Chamber and the Senate.

Late in the evening, before the President was dead, it became known that the crime had been perpetrated by an Italian, whereupon there was a perfect outburst of popular fury, directed against the entire Italian colony in the city. Some accounts in the English newspapers of that time says that the excesses which occurred were due to " roughs." That is not quite correct, for at the first moment, at all events, all sorts and conditions of people, carried away by the indignation which stirred their impetuous southern blood, joined in wrecking cafes, taverns, and provision- stores kept by Italians. The sight of any Italian name over a shop or an office provoked window- smashing, and, at times, pillage, in which last, of course, only the more disreputable people joined. At the same time there was many a pitched fight between French and Italian workmen. The present writer even found himself in a somewhat awkward predicament by reason of his surname, which, although not written nowadays as it was originally, still suggests an Italian name when it is pronounced, particularly by a Frenchman; and so concerned did his wife's relatives become lest he should meet with some unpleasant experience on this account that they cautioned all friends who knew him to address him by his Christian name only, during the remainder of his stay at Lyons. Fortunately, the actual excesses were checked before long by the police and the military, and as the circumstances of the assassination of Carnot became known, not a few people felt ashamed of the violence which, in the first outburst of indignation' they had offered to various law- abiding Italian tradesmen domiciled in their midst.

In Italy itself the sensation caused by the crime was profound. At Rome only eight days previously an Anarchist named Fega had fired on the septuagenarian statesman, Francesco Crispi, slightly wounding him, an affair which somewhat revived Crispi's waning popularity but ended for Fega in a sentence of twenty years imprisonment. The news of the assassination of Carnot arriving, as it were, atop of that attempt, impelled King Humbert's Government to vigorous action. Hundreds of Italian Anarchists were arrested. The times were even thought favourable for proceedings against the Italian Socialists, but the latter offered a vigorous resistance to the authorities. The Anarchists themselves did not appear intimidated. More than one outrage was perpetrated by those who remained at large, the worst being the murder of Signor Bandi, an old friend of Garibaldi's, who was stabbed to death in his office by a fanatical Anarchist, because he had issued in his journal " La Gazetta Livornese" an article condemning the assassination of Carnot. King Humbert, recalling his experience with Passanante, and knowing, moreover, that he himself was menaced by the Anarchist sect, hastened to express his sympathy With the Carnot family and France. As is usual, indeed, under such circumstances telegrams of condolence arrived, from every sovereign or chef d'etat. Among the most characteristic were those of Queen Victoria and the German Kaiser. The former told Mme. Carnot that her widow s heart bled for her; the latter declared that Carnot had been worthy of his great name and had died like a soldier. Wishing, moreover, to emphasise his sympathy the Kaiser ordered the release of two French officers (MM. Degouy and Delquey- Malavas) who had been committed to a German fortress for espionaage.

Meantime, the Prime Minister having returned to Paris, the Chambers met and resolved that national obsequies should be accorded to the deceased President. The remains reached Paris on June 26, and lay in state at the Elysee Palace. On July I, came the funeral when, after a religious service at Notre Dame where the Archbishop of Paris officiated, Sadi Carnot was laid to rest beside his illustrious grandfather under the dome of the Pantheon. Before then, that is on June 27, the Chamber and the Senate met in Congress at Versailles, and by 451 votes against 367--apportioned between Henri Brisson (195), Charles Dupuy (97), General Fevrier (53) and Emmanuel Arago (22)--Casimir- Perier was elected President of the Republic.

At Lyons the judicial and police authorities were busy inquiring into the circumstances of the crime and the antecedents of the prisoner. His correct name was Santo- Geronimo Caserio, and he was one of the half- dozen sons of a bargeman, plying his calling on the Po, and residing at Motta Visconti in Lombardy. Born there on 8th September 1873, Caserio when but thirteen years of age was apprenticed to a baker at Milan, where, listening to the chatter of sundry journeymen of his calling, he was soon won over to Anarchist ideas. At the age of eighteen he was sentenced to a term of imprison. for distributing Anarchist tracts to soldiers, after which, as he desired to avoid serving in the army himself he fled to Lugano in Switzerland. Thence he made his way to Geneva, and a little later came on to Lyons. He failed to obtain a situation there, it seems, but was recommended to go to Vienne, some nineteen miles further south, and he remained at work there until about the middle of October, 1893, when, hearing from Some acquaintance that an Italian baker named Vialla, in business at Cette, wished to secure the services of a joureyman of the same nationality as himself, he repaired to that town and obtained the situation.

The reader may be reminded that Cette is on the Mediterranean, south of Montpellier, and is the chief port of the wine region of the Midi. It has also a curious specialty: the manufacture of imitation wines, in regard to the variety if not the quantity of which it altogether surpasses Hamburg. You may obtain virtually every known " vintage " at Cette, and if it is not in stock, it will be supplied to you at a few days' notice. We once sampled at Cette all sorts of red wines, from Port full or tawny, rich or dry, to Hermitage and Margaux, and all sorts of white ones, from Sauternes and Chablis to Johannisberg and Imperial Tokay, and not a single specimen was genuine, though many were considerably like the real thing. It is claimed that these counterfeit wines are at least perfectly innocuous, but the manufacturers candidly admit that they themselves never drink them. Let us add that the products of Cette seldom come to this country. There are two special markets for them: the near East and South America, so it is as well to be careful when ordering wine at constantinople and Alexandria, or at Rio and Buenos Ayres.

But all that is en passant. Cette, one of France's dirtiest and most disagreeable towns, exports and imports many other things besides wine, and it has a working- class population which has often shown very Revolutionary proclivities. In the 80's and go's of the last century Socialist and Anarchist Congresses met at Cette, and, by reason of the port's intercourse with Barcelona, a certain number of Catalan Anarchists settled there. Caserio fell among the local members of the fraternity to which he already belonged. He was at Cette at the time when Vaillant threw his bomb in the Chamber of Deputies, and he heard and participated in all the talk which that deed inspired among a little knot of Anarchists who met now and again at an establishment called the Cafe du Gard. When the attempts to obtain a reprieve for Vaillant failed and he was executed, there came more than one threat to avenge him. How far Caserio may have been incited, how far he acted on his own initiative, will never be exactly known; but it may be said at once that all the stories which have frequently appeared in print to the effect that the assassination of the French President was planned in London are false from beginning to end. We have before us, also, a cir cumstantial narrative setting forth how lots were drawn at Antwerp to determine who should do the deed, and how, many names having been eliminated in successive " castings,,, there remained at last only four, one of a German, one of an Austrian, one of a French, and one of an Italian Anarchist. Pieces of paper, each bearing one deg.of those four names. were tossed, we are told, into a hat in presence of a party of Anarchists assembled on board a boat on the Scheldt, and the paper which was drawn bore, so the story runs, the Italian name--Caserio But the whole of that narrative, which does credit to the imaginative powers of the person who prepared it, is romance. Caserio, whom it represents as having been at Antwerp at the time, was never there in his life, nor was he ever in London. His crime was planned at Cette' and at Cette only.

We have indicated that he may have been incited to it, incited that is in a more or less indirect manner, by the perusal of Anarchist prints and the conversation of com races. But certainly he was not directly assisted to commit the crime. Had it been deliberately planned by him in conjunction with others, he would have secured adequate means to commit it, whereas he had to rely on his own slender pecuniary resources. After he had been more or less " wound up," as the saying goes, by all he heard and read of Vaillant's case, his narrow and very imperfectly educated mind appears to have brooded over it until he at last decided to avenge Vaillant's death by striking the President who had refused to grant a reprieve. Paris, however, was far away from Cette, and Caserio lacked the means to repair thither. Had there been a positive plot he would have been helped in that respect, but again we say there was no plot.

At last, the news that M. Carnot intended to visit Lyons was circulated by the whole French press, and Lyons being much nearer than Paris, and therefore easier of access, Caserio resolved to carry his design into effect there. On the morning of June 23 (the very day when the President left Paris) he deliberately picked a quarrel with his employer in order to secure instant dismissed and the payment of the wages due to him. He then found himself in possession of about 25 francs, a sovereign, provided with which he repaired to the shop of a cutler named Vaux, from whom he purchased a couteau- poignard in a case, for four shillings. The blade was marked " Toledo," but it was as counterfeit as were the wines of Cette, having really been made at Thiers in Auvergne.

There is, or at any rate there was, no absolutely direct railway service between Cette and Lyons, and Caserio had to proceed by successive stages, going first to Montpelier and thence to Tarascon. His resources were very slender, as we have shown and when on arriving at Tarascon he discovered that the most suitable train to Lyons only took first and second class passengers he was confronted by the fact that he had not sufficient money for a second class fare. Still he had enough to carry him as far as Vienne where he had worked the previous year, so he resolved to repair thither, hoping that he might be able to borrow from one of his former associates in that town, where he had known several Anarchists, the wherewithal to complete his journey. Thus he travelled by rail to Vienne; but he there failed to find the persons he wished to see, and now having but very little money left him was reduced to the necessity of proceeding to Lyons on foot. The distance is about nineteen miles but it did not frighten Caserio, who was young and active. He set out early in the afternoon (Sunday, June 24), obtained a lift on the road for a few miles, and reached Lyons a little after sunset, that is at about 8 P.M.

During his journey from Cette there had been abundant time for him to reflect on the deed which he contemplated. Many another man might have weakened in his purpose dur~ng that interval, but Caserio was as determined at the finish as at the start. One of the first things he did on arriving at Lyons was to purchase a newspaper in order to ascertain the Presidential programme. Then he followed the crowd to the Rue de la Republique and waited for his opportunity, with what result we know. At his trial, which took place early in August' his demeanour was generally placid. He had almost completed his twenty- first year, and certainly looked no older. but his calling had given him strong arms and shoulders A slight moustache shaded his upper lip, and at times a sly expression gleamed stealthily in his shifty, deep set eyes. There could be no doubt, however, that his intelligence was limited. He admitted that he had neglected his lessons when at school, adding: " If I had learnt more I should have been cleverer and better,, In regard to his crime he declared that it had been his object to avenge Vaillant, who had killed nobody and had therefore been unjustly put to death, and he steadily denied that he had had any accomplices or had taken anybody into his confidence. His parents, he said, had tried to dissuade him from Anarchist ideas, but he had preferred to go his own way. He asserted also that he had exclaimed: " Vive la Revolution ! " at the moment when he stabbed the President, and that he had shouted " Vive l'Anarchie ! " as he rushed across the Rue de la Republique. Though we did not hear those cries it is possible that Caserio raised them, and that they were lost amidst the many acclamations with which the President was being greeted. Until he was sentenced to death the prisoner retained his composure in court, but he then turned perceptibly pale and began to tremble. At his execution on August 16 he broke down completely. When he was awakened by the officials and told that his last hour had come he burst into convulsive sobs, and he was only with difficulty got ready for the guillotine. Henri had shrunk from the sight of the apparatus of death Caserio virtually had to be dragged to it, held on either side by the executioner's assistants. It was said in some of the reports of the time that he gasped " ViVe l'Anarchie ! " before being cast upon the bascule, but reality, he simply ejaculated, " I won't go ! I won't go ! " in the Lombardian dialect, much after the fashion of Some whimpering boy threatened with a flogging.

The reader will have observed that the crimes of both Emile Henry and Santo- Geronimo Caserio were fully premeditated and carried out with much determination. In one case we have seen Henry going from cafe to cafe until he at last found an establishment where, in his opinion' there was a sufficiently large number of customers to warrant the throwing of his bomb. In the other case we have seen Caserio, reduced to a few coppers, and yet trudging nearly twenty miles in order to commit a murder. When, however, the hour of expiation came they both collapsed, overcome by sheer physical dread. At the same time one was a young bourgeois of education and culture and the other a bargeman's son, able to read and write but knowing little else. Of the pair Henry was undoubtedly the worse character. With deliberate perversity he employed his intellectual gifts, his knowledge, for a criminal purpose; whereas Caserio's crime was largely the outcome of his ignorance, his narrow intellect which could not distinguish between what might be morally right and what might be morally wrong in all that he heard and read. We will leave sociologists to determine whether, and how, it is possible to prevent such cases as those of these young men. Quite apart from Anarchism, recent years have witnessed, so all the authorities tell us, a great increase of what is called adolescent crime. Education, as practiced, has not proved a preventative, for never was general knowledge more widely diffused among the young than it is nowadays. Perhaps the best remedy lies in the development of the moral side of education even though it be at the cost of some other part of the curriculum. We do not merely require able men. It is necessary that a better, fuller sense of right and wrong should permeate the community.

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