THE DYNAMITE DANGER.
IN the Spectator of October 19th, 1878, the present writer called attention to the very slight evidence producible for the fixed impression in the European mind that Science would always be found friendly to the happiness of the human race. That impres- sion is exactly contrary to the idea current in the middle ages, when men supposed that science was akin to magic, and if not in- evitably diabolic, at least deserving of the suspicion of the wise. There were doubts even about medicine, while a mechanician, and still more a chemist, of any unusual attainments was held to be a kind of sorcerer, whom the Church would do well to hand over to the secular arm. After the invention of printing, this feeling gradually died away, till, from the first ascent of the Montgolfiers in their perfectly useless balloon to the discovery of the electric light, every scientific discovery was hailed with a sort of rapture of popular applause. Anybody who ap- plied scientific knowledge to the work of life was regarded as a benefactor; and if he died a millionaire, as Arkwright did and Bessemer will, was quoted in books like Mr. Smiles' as an instance of the success achieved by industry and brain. The time, however, has arrived when we may be on the edge of a reversion to the ancient feeling. The contingency to which we pointed in 1878 as probable has occurred. Science, which had armed civilisation, has now armed savagery. The bad and the mad have obtained from science command of a strong weapon of destruction, which they can carry about, can conceal, and can use without committing suicide, and the whole world is the worse for " a triumph of the intellect." The dangerous classes have learned from the savants that nitric acid mixed in a certain proportion with any combustible, cotton, or glycerine, or the like, will make an explosive of great force, and that by using very simple means they can keep and fire the mixture without executing themselves. Some chemist, or firework-maker, or ex- perimental artillerist has told them that, though the best nitro-explosives are highly dangerous to keep or use, poor explosives of the kind can be kept or fired safely, if only made active by a little fulminate of mercury. A minute metal capsule of that substance explodes with such energy that, to use common words, it fires all the atoms in the mass of an in- different preparation of nitricised cotton or glycerine, or other combustible, in the same indivisible point of time, and makes the preparation as effective in shattering power as if it were of the highest, and, therefore, most dangerous quality. A slow fuse, which is in principle only improved touchwood, fires the ful- minate, the fulminate fires the " dynamite "—nitricised cotton— and there is a bombshell as destructive as any artillerist can throw. Anybody, good or bad, can, in fact, with the help of a chemical student, firework-maker, or assistant in a gun foundry,
place himself in possession of a battery of artillery which is not, as batteries go, very powerful, and cannot be used from a dis- tance, but still can for purposes of pure destruction be made highly efficient. Anybody careless of life, with a pound of dynamite and a pinch of the fulminate of mercury, can make himself as dangerous as if ho could direct an eighty-ton gun. Science has, in fact, armed men with- out distinction of character with a strong weapon, and we are witnessing the beginning of the result. It is only the begin- Ding, for the callous races have not yet learned the facts, or the kind of advantage which the new agent will give, say, to the Chinese, who do not mind expending themselves, and who might conquer Asia with explosives without drawing a sword; but even the beginning is not pleasant. Everywhere, except, as yet, in America, the enemies of society, whether good or bad—for it is bad analysis to lump them all together—are excited by possession of the new power, are using it, and, still more, are threatening to use it, with results which positively intoxicate them till their consciences are paralysed as by a strong drug. That effect of power of any sort has been noted for ages, and we are writing gravely when we state our belief that on some natures this power of using dynamite has a directly demoral- ising effect, like that of despotic authority on some others. The disparity between the means and the result tempts them, till the injury to mankind dies away out of the thoughts of men who, if only compelled to witness the suffering they cause, would feel like the wretched man found dying this week in St. Petersburg. He had pledged himself to kill the Czar, and at a Guards' dinner in the disguise of a waiter actually reached the Sovereign's person. He was, however, too close; he realised the horror of his own deed, and rather than perform it, stepped out and killed himself. It was not fear,—he could have killed himself just as easily a moment after the assassination ; it was conscience, to which suicide appeared either a less crime than murder, or—for we must allow for the Continental opinion on the subject — no crime at all. The new power is therefore frequently used, how frequently the world scarcely perceives. The big explosions drown in the general memory the little explosions, but they are so frequent that we believe it no exaggeration to say that no week passes without some act of wilful destruction in which a nitrous compound has been employed. In Russia, in Austria, in France, in Spain, in England, in Belgium, " an explosion," now directed against a church, again against a bank, often against a counting-house, and anon against a public building, is always happening.
It is natural enough under such circumstances that there should be first panic and then keen inquiry into .methods of prevention, and the panic is not diminished by the conclu- sion to which we believe Governments and savants have as yet alike been driven, that very little more can be done in the way of precaution, and that society must be protected by the old device of incessant watchfulness. The manufacture of the nitricised compounds cannot be 6ffectnally forbidden. The best way to restrict it, no doubt, as Truth has suggested, is to regu- late the making of nitric acid ; but experience shows that the most dangerous of fall anarchists are the lower men of science and the workmen trained in laboratories, who feel with a half-lunatic bitterness the difference between their intellectual acquirements and their position,—and under the advice of such men, nitric acid can be made almost as easily as illicit potheen. It is, after all, only a product of nitrate of potash and oil of vitriol properly heated up, and neither substance can be made inaccessible to chemists. As to suppressing the application of the acid, when obtained, to combustibles, we might as well try to suppress lucifer-matches. " Dynamite "—the acid once granted—can be made in a barn, or a forest, or a room in a great city, and its manufacture can no more be prevented than illicit distillation. Terror will not do it, for the illicit manufacturers can trust one another so far; and if we go too far in terror, the tribunals will not convict. Moreover, Governments and miners both want the explosives, and it is from official stores and mining stores that the regular Anarchists have usually procured it. The reports are. constant, especially in Russia, of large thefts from the arsenals and from manufactories such as the one which is recently reported to have despatched fifty tons in a single ship. A crusade against dynamite would require the consent of all Governments, those of Asia included, and of all men with chemical knowledge; and such a consensus is not, in the present state of the world, to be procured. To arrange that the posses-
sion of a nitricised combustible without a special licence, only to be issued from Ministries of the Interior, should be a highly penal offence, would, no doubt, facilitate the action of the police, but then it would also facilitate malignant denunciations to an almost unbearable degree. No one would be safe against the possible finding of dynamite on his premises, and chemists especially would lead miserable lives. As to punishing its use, the law is already severe enough. To blow up a human being is a capital offence, and to try to blow up a building is punishable with fourteen years' penal servitude, and if we made the latter offence capital, we should only increase the readiness to take life, and perhaps demoralise juries.
There is very little to be done, except watch, and, so far as possible, avoid panic. The reasons for the latter are patent, but still, fear tends to exaggeration. The precise force of dynamite varies under conditions not yet fully known, but the experts think ten times the force of gunpowder a fair description, and ten times two or three pounds of powder will not destroy a town. Even larger quantities can only wreck the spaces they can reach, and their effects can no more go through a curvature of the earth than the effects of gunpowder can. It is more than doubt- ful, for example, if the means exist of destroying the House of Commons, as has been threatened in the anonymous letter to the Member for Helston, unless the criminal could not only enter the Palace of Westminster, but would consent to his own nearly inevit- able destruction. As for the " far stronger means than dynamite " talked of in American meetings, they either do not exist, or they require for their manufacture and use that supreme self- devotion which is so rarely found in the enemies of society when required to do work involving their own lives. Those who would risk being blown up to kill an emperor will not risk being blown up to manufacture the needful detonator. The "fulminates " so often talked of have an objection to be called into existence, and resent the processes with an energy against which science has hitherto struggled in vain ; while the asphyxi- ating agents are probably not very destructive. The evidence is very imperfect, because even men of science cannot make ex- periments in massacre; but Members of the House may be fairly sure that they cannot be all choked at once. The vapour of prussic acid, to describe unscientifically the most deadly of known asphyxiators, would give them time to get away, though the hindmost might have fainting fits. Of course, agents far stronger than any known may yet be discovered, and human society may have a difficult battle to fight, but after all, human nature does not change its characteristics. There never has been a time in history when a discontented sailor could not fire his ship, or a discontented reaper destroy the ricks, or a dis- contented criminal kill anybody he chose, if he would give his own life in exchange. The people of Moscow knew no science when they fired. their city, and the Communists of Paris did more harm with their cans of earth-oil than the " Dynamiteurs " have ever done since Man has always been able to destroy if he pleased, and the new power of knocking great holes in houses, though terrible to individuals, is against States less for- midable than it appears. The rage against society has been inten- sified of late, and the rage against particular Governments ; but after all, the old impulses were quite as formidable. We think the Fenians horrid, but the thatchers of Calcutta, quite ordinary and skilful workmen, used, when work was slack, to make the adjutant birds carry fireballs (gools, made of' rice and powdered coal) to the roofs, burn down a few acres of thickly inhabited houses, and then go to work for a few months to rethatch the new buildings. Malice is nearly as dangerous as fanaticism, greed as dreaminess, the hatred that comes of want as the hatred that springs from brooding over the miseries of Ireland. The Armada was at least as formidable as "Mr. Crowe, of Peoria," if there is such a person, yet,—" Afflavit Dens, et dissipati aunt."
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