An extraordinary, indeed almost unintelligible, story comes from New York.
Just before the departure of the Cunard liner Umbria ' on the 9th inst. the police were informed by letter that the Mafia Secret Society had declared war on Great Britain, and that a plot had been arranged to blow up the vessel with dynamite. All other steamers of the line would also be destroyed. Search was accordingly made, and a case containing a hundred pounds of an explosive powder, with a clockwork apparatus fitted to it, was discovered on the quay. The Italians of New York ridicule the story as far as the Mafia is concerned, and indeed it would be hard to conceive any motive for their connection with the outrage, which, if really intended and successful, might have produced a massacre of the lower Italians in New York. It is possible that the affair is a hoax originating in a bet, or was planned by a lunatic, but more probable that some person or persons at variance with the Cunard Company have tried, not indeed to commit wholesale murder, for there were no caps on the detonators, but to frighten intending passengers from taking berths on the Cunard steamers. The author of the plot or hoax will, if discovered, be severely dealt with, Americans decidedly disapproving of attempts either to murder or to terrify their wives and children.
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