NEWS OF THE WEEK.
THE sensation of the week,—and it is well that it was not also the convulsion,—has arisen out of the discovery that on the last day of June and on July 3rd there arrived at Liverpool by the 'Malta,' of the Canard line, and the 'Bavarian,' of the Leyland line, ten infernal machines (like Thomassen's discovered at Bremen), containing cartridges composed of nitro-lignine, an explosive material analogous to gun-cotton, and a clock-work machinery running for six hours, intended to ignite it. The 'Government obtained information as to the consignment of these metal boxes, under the ironical description of "cement," from Boston to Liverpool, in time to send down an officer, who arrived only a few hours before the first vessel, when the false
cement" was at once discovered. One of the machines con- tained no less than 14 lb. of the explosive material, and none of them contained less than 2 lb. of it. The Fenian journals in the United States have for some time back been dwelling with much enthusiasm on "the science of dynamite," and some of their doctrines we have elsewhere placed before our readers. O'Donovan Rossa himself " regretfully " denies all knowledge of this particular item of the exports from the 'United States to Great Britain.
