One hundred years ago
London has been excited, though not alarmed, by the discovery of a plot to blow up three great railway stations -Victoria Street, Paddington, and Char- ing Cross — with dynamite. According to the Home Secretary, the plot in all three cases was the same. A quantity of `atlas' dynamite, of American manufac- ture, 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 portmanteau, 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 Pad- dington 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, book- ing office, and waiting rooms were blown into the air, while a fire broke out from a shattered gas pipe. This was, however, subdued, and no lives were lost. 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 un- paralleled piece of villainy.
Spectator, I March 1884
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