The Anarchist mania is rising to strange heights in France.
On Friday week, a man, believed to be named Gallo, though he himself gives a Polish name, walked into the gallery of the Bourse, and flung down a bottle filled with liquid among the brokers congregated on the floor. He expected it to explode, and as it did not, he drew a revolver, and fired five shots at the assembled brokers, the bullets, fortunately, striking only the floor and the wall. He was knocked down and taken to the station, and before the investigating Magistrate avowed his crime with the utmost coolness. He meant massacre, he says, and regrets he failed, his intention having been to give a shock to the bour- geois system of society. He was once imprisoned for coining, but since then has been a compositor ; he speaks five languages, and, in the opinion of the police, is a regular and formidable agent of the Anarchists. What good he proposed to do by murdering innocent brokers, is to most men absolutely unintelligible ; but it seems clear that he was ready to give his life for his own idea, which could in no way tend to his own benefit. It is this mix- ture of philanthropy with criminality and folly which is so startling in the new fanatics ; but we suppose it has existed before in some religious persecutors. They, however, thought they were ensuring the safety of their own souls, while the new men do not believe that they possess any.
