THE NEW FACILITIES FOR ASSASSINATION.
I T is difficult, when one reads, as we have all been doing day
after day for a fortnight, accounts of the explosion in the Winter Palace, not to ask ourselves whether the new methods of assassination placed by science at the disposal of fanatics or criminals have or have not greatly increased the danger of Kings, and ruling men in general. Their lives are very import- ant factors in politics, and it is difficult, amidst all the stories now abroad, to doubt that, especially in the case of Kings, the chance of long life among such persons has of late a good deal diminished. Attempts at assassination have been very frequent during the last twenty years, and have not been altogether unsuccessful. The course of history was probably changed by Orsini's attempt; the United States suffered a terrible loss in the death of President Lincoln, who would certainly have succeeded General Grant, even if he had been permitted to quit the White House for a time ; Prim's death seriously affected the fortunes of Spain, and indirectly brought back the Bour- bons; while the attempts on the Emperor of Germany and the Czar have given new energy and arguments to the reaction- aries, and have certainly convulsed all Russia. Such attempts, too, are quite likely to become more frequent. The masses are studying politics much more than they ever did, and if among a hundred thousand politicians one is usually a destructive fanatic, the multiplication of the number of politicians by ten, even if the proportions do not change, must increase the risk very perceptibly. The proportion of destructive fanatics, too, may alter for the worse, and it is probable it does. There is a tendency in many of the theories of the day towards destructiveness, and towards an ex- tinction of that respect for dignities which undoubtedly for many ages helped to preserve Kings and Premiers, as it still helps in some degree to preserve the Popes, the only Sovereigns who have never been openly assailed. A notion that a great person, and especially a king, is, because he is great, an injury to society, is quite as widely diffused as it ever was ; while the delusion that, in killing him, the killer may produce an anarchy out of which a better society may arise prevails more than ever before, and affects, we suspect, the minds of those crypto-lunatics who arc always more or less dangerous to Sovereigns—great people interesting diseased minds—to the great increase of Royal risk. The decline of belief in a future state, so marked in most revolutionary parties, operates, of course, in the same direction, releasing, as it does, the fanatics from their last remaining restraint. They were always free from the dread of disgrace or suffering in this world, and now they believe in no other. Unbelief may develope a Solavieff, but not a Ravaillac. And finally, the Nihilists' own argument, quoted in the Edinburgh Review—the alteration of manners which forbids legal cruelty—has un- doubtedly had its influence. An assassin can no longer, even though his victim is a king, be burned, or broken on the wheel, or torn by horses, or tortured in any way, but ie simply hanged, or beheaded, or garotted, or put to death in the national fashion, whatever it be, like any other murderer. The effect of the change is, perhaps, not great; but more persons fear death by torture than fear it by the bullet or the rope ; and political assassins, being of necessity somewhat imaginative, the pro- portion among them may be large. The danger, therefore, of Kings has increased, from many causes ; and if science had really made a great addition to it, the situation would be very serious indeed, for men who undoubtedly are already most uncomfortably placed. The public does not, we fancy, hear of all the attempts on Royalties, and most certainly does not hear of all the baffled plots, which are so numerous that there are at least half-a. dozen very great men in Europe who, in their own judgment— be it sound or unsound—are living as on the battle-field, with the shot whizzing about their ears. We are not writing on gossip only, when we say that more than one Royal person has trained himself to a patience which has in it fur his friends
something very touching,—a resignation as to an unjust but inevitable doom. Nor are statesmen very much safer, the notion that elected heads of the State are never killed being purely imaginary. Prince Bismarck is quite as much threatened as any king, precautions have been taken before now to guard English Ministers, and the only two completed political assassi- nations of our day—for Charles of Parma was killed by private vengeance—were those of the President of the United States, and Prim, the Administrator of Spain.
Fortunately—for we confess we are not of those who believe that good can possibly come out of wilful crimes—the increase of the power of assassins derived from scientific discovery is probably not great, or may be even non-existent. More kings were killed before gunpowder was discovered than after, and the same remark may yet prove to be true of dynamite. Whether attempts will be more frequent, is as yet uncertain. Of course, when a weapon can be used which kills at a distance, and which may destroy the indica- tions leading to detection, the Societies or Parties willing to assassinate may find it easier to secure agents. That is certainly the case in Irish agrarian murders, where the murderer, when hired, and not himself full of passion, almost invariably employs the rifle, to increase his chance of getting away ; but the men who kill kings are usually either desperate or fanatical, and are likely to feel the one deterrent influence attending such methods, the risk of injuring the innocent, more than bravos would. That has not been the case in Russia, we admit ; but the Russian assassins come out of a sect which has the enthusiasm of destruction on it, rather than mere hatred to kings,—and that is, as yet, only a local phenomenon. Be the truth on that point, however, what it may, there can be no doubt that the use of scientific apparatus both increases the chance of detection, renders failure much more probable, and by involving the innocent disturbs the minds of the actual agents in the crime. It is next to impossible, if a Sovereign, or a President, or an Imperial Chan- cellor goes abroad at all, to stop a workman like Hodel or Otero from stationing himself somewhere ea route, and taking a shot at his adversary the instant he appears. No watchfulness, no guardianship, nothing indeed but seclusion, will prevent that ; but the use of machinery may be prevented. The men who make the machines may give warning, and so may those who see them being used, while their possession may in most cases be rendered illegal under heavy penalties. We should certainly make the manufacture of a " Thomas " apparatus a crime throughout Europe. In most countries, the laying of trains such as blew up the Czar's train and the Winter Palace would be noticed and reported on; while so many must know the secret that, as happened in both those instances, warnings may be forwarded to the intended victim. Besides, a great deal of brain is required of the assassin, at a moment when his self-command is affected. He must be of the class which can manage scientific instruments— that is, must more or less realise what he is doing—yet must adjust everything, while momently risking a disgraceful death, with the coolness of a soldier and the calculating skill of _a mathematician. He has not to fire a shot with his pistol, or to make a spring with his knife, but to spend hours, or days, or weeks in preparation, to calculate inches of distance and seconds of time ; and all the while to organise an escape which, if he uses such means, he is sure not to forego. He can escape, from the very method of his crime, and he will try to do it. A man in the position of Hodel or Otero gives himself up all through. He knows perfectly well that within so many seconds of his shot being fired he will be in the hands of a crowd mad for his life—a frightful position in itself—and no more thinks of escape than a soldier in a forlorn-hope, or a sailor when the shells come thick. Either may survive, but dodging will not help either. The man, on the other hand, who explodes a box of dynamite or a barrel of gunpowder through a long train of powder or by an electric wire, is neces- sarily at a distance, necessarily alone or with comrades, and necessarily able to escape, or at least to make a bolt for it. Accordingly, having the chance, he is careful of the chance ; and that consideration, together with the fact that he is shaken, as he must be shaken, by the approaching death of innocent persons—innocent, that is, even in his own perverted view —and with the other fact that his enemy is invisible, all com- bine to destroy the coolness necessary to success. The torpedo explodes at the wrong moment, and though it produces more effect on Europe than a knife or a bullet would, it has not pro- duced it on the body of the intended victim. The misery of the Kings is frightfully enhanced by the use of scientific appliances, because they render precaution of so little avail, and, as it were, make the danger perpetually present; but, we suspect, the actual danger is not. The result to the world may be even worse, because power exercised under such conditions of fear or rage is sure to be badly exercised ; but we are not discussing that, but the actual risk of life in an actuary's sense. We should say that though it had increased, perhaps dreadfully increased, from the increase in the number of potential assassins, it had decreased from the resort to scientific methods of assassination. Neither bomb nor dynamite-box is as certain as the pistol.
Of course, these arguments would not apply entirely to the use of poison, but the danger to politicians from poison is but slight. Poisoning is a domestic crime. It is ex- cessively difficult for an outsider to get at a king's food, for cooks are Conservatives to a man, being dependent on the rich, very comfortable, and very much praised, and measures of precaution are pretty easy. No slow poison could be used by an outsider, and a quick one is baffled by the Oriental device of appointing a taster. Besides, the Revolutionary does not want to poison, or to cause death by any means which could be represented as natural. He wants not only to kill, but to make his deed reverberate, to cause a tremendous impact on society, and, if possible, to destroy, or help to destroy, a hated system; and poison would not do that. Outside Turkey, we cannot remember that any great person has died in modern Europe from poison administered by enemies; and of the ancient cases, probably a majority were blunders of excited courtiers or ignorant physicians, or were deaths caused by poison uninten- tionally given in dangerous drugs, or through careless cooking. Everybody said, at the time, that Charles II. was poisoned, but there was as little evidence for the crime as there was apparent motive. James did not kill him, and nobody else particularly wanted his death. Poison will not, we think, be tried, and other methods of assassination have not in reality improved.
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