The Commonweal/Volume 1/Number 1/Signs of the Times (continued)

SIGNS OF THE TIMES.

⟨This⟩ Saturday, 24th January, three explosions within less than ten (illegible text) spread destruction and terror in London, and what is worse, (illegible text) a considerable number of absolutely harmless people. The (illegible text) frenzy against the perpetrators knows no bounds: if any one had been caught in the act he would have been torn to pieces.

---

But who are the perpetrators? The Fenians, it is said. May be. It is likely enough that Irish hands laid down the dynamite and lighted the fuse. Still, all allowance made for a fanaticism kindled by the British treatment of Ireland and of Irish political prisoners, the probability is that this peculiar form of fanaticism would have died out long since, in consequence of the ridiculous disproportion between the effects of the conspirators and the effect of their deeds—unless there is some one behind them, who follows up a deliberate aim in these otherwise aimless explosions. Is it likely that people will be found who risk over and over again penal servitude for life, or even hanging, for the pleasure of blowing up a portion of a railway tunnel, or of inflicting damage to the value of a flea-bite on London Bridge, unless these people are the conscious or unconscious tools of other people, who use them for purposes of their own?

---

We all know that for years Russia has been bombarding the British Government with notes, memoirs, memorandums, and the like, with the view of obtaining a treaty for the extradition of political refugees, so-called regicides, &c. Now the present state of this affair is as follows. On the 15th January, Madame Olga Novikoff, in the Pall Mall Gazette, calls upon England to deliver up to Russia all those people like Hartmann, Kropotkine, and Stepniak, who were sheltered in England “all the while they plotted murder against us” (whoever that may be) “in Russia.” If England were to hand them over to Russia, she would only do what she now must ask America to do for her, namely, to hand over the Irish dynamiters.

---

On the morning of the 24th January the London papers published the purport of an agreement arrived at between Russia and Prussia for the extradition of political criminals—the very agreement Russia would give almost anything to get out of England.

---

On the afternoon of the same 24th January, at two o'clock, the explosion(illegible text)ur, at the very moment they ought to have occurred if (illegible text) some one or (illegible text) interest of Russia. The good (illegible text) the morning, and (illegible text) appropriate warning of the (illegible text) in the ⟨after⟩noon—surely that (illegible text) John Bull round!

---

Now, we merely mark these coincidences. We recall at the same time that Russian diplomacy is well known to be the most unscrupulous of all, having always a band of subordinate agents at its beck and call, ready to commit any infamy, and at the same time held in such a position that they can be sacrificed, when necessary, with the utmost equanimity—agents, too, who often exceed their precise order, and do little jobs on speculation. And regarding the strange coincidence as above, is there, indeed, no shadow of a suspicion falling upon such hangers-on, recognised or, perhaps, unrecognised, of Russian diplomacy?

---

“The detection of the dynamites is . . . really a matter which can only be satisfactorily dealt with by international action.” Thus the Daily News, the most Governmentally-inspired organ, of January 2(illegible text)th. Our notes were written the day before.

---

Laundries are not under the factory Acts. As a consequence the masters squeeze six days' work out of four days' time. The masters are paid by the piece, the hands by the (illegible text).

---

(illegible text) the Press generally (illegible text) the murder of the Egyptian (illegible text) English mercenaries (illegible text)ing (illegible text) every (illegible text) the English soldiers who, (illegible text), do to de(illegible text)e done to death by, the (illegible text) people. But your sorrow for ⟨the⟩ murdered patriots ought to be (illegible text).

---

As to the officers. They ought to have known better than the rank and file. They have come at least within the (illegible text) of contact with the better tendencies of to-day. The better sort among English officers must feel something of the wickedness of the (illegible text) business.

---

Sympathising, we believe, as deeply as (illegible text) the sufferings of those English families in which an eternal (illegible text) been made by war, we yet protest most strongly against the(illegible text) Press in demi-deifying our countrymen who have fallen, (illegible text) word of the brave defenders of their native land who peri(illegible text)⟨.⟩

---

When this high falutin' is to the fore, let (illegible text)ember that every (illegible text)ish soldier that dies in Egypt is, as (illegible text) the position of a (illegible text) is killed in an attempt (illegible text)