§ MR. CALLANI beg to give Notice that to-morrow I will ask the Chief Secretary for Ireland, If it is true, as stated in the semi-official report published in the London papers, that a diabolical attempt was made upon his life a day or two ago by means of some explosive substance contained in a dirty envelope?
§ MR. W. E. FORSTERPerhaps, Sir, it is better that I should answer this Question now. It is quite true that a day or two after I left Dublin a letter was received at the Castle addressed to me. The hon. Member states it was in a dirty envelope. It was an envelope which was much discoloured, and it seems to have excited the suspicion of the head messenger in the Office. He took it to one of the gentlemen in the Office, who, handling it carefully, began to open it; but, thinking it looked still more suspicious than at first, he sent for the police, by whom the letter was taken to a gentleman connected with the scientific department in Dublin. There it was first wetted, in order, as it was thought, to make it safe. It was then laid out in a secure place to dry, and turned out to be of very explosive composition, so much so that a portion of it spontaneously blew up while 143 on the table upon which it was put to dry. I am informed that any person who had opened the letter in the way in which letters are usually opened would almost certainly have had his hands taken off, probably had his eyes put out, and might have been killed. The hon. Member says that the report of this affair was a semi-official announcement. I should like to state that I certainly did not prevent the publication of it to which the hon. Member has referred. I did not wish to have any fuss made about anything with regard to myself; but I thought it desirable for two reasons that the information should be known. One was that other persons who might be in danger of receiving such letters should know that care ought to be taken, and also because I thought it desirable that some information ought to be conveyed to the sender of the letter. I suppose it was meant as a personal attention to myself; and I think that oven the sender, who cannot have any strong sense of right and wrong, might not wish to destroy the postman who carried the letter, or the unfortunate Private Secretary who, as is known, generally opens letters addressed to me. I wish to add that what prevented it doing much injury to the persons who had to deal with it was that it was wetted. No doubt, the man who sent it had sufficient knowledge of the nature of the compound within it to he aware that so long as it was wet it was safe. I give him credit for not wishing to destroy the poor man who stamped it which would also have frustrated his object—because, certainly, if it had not been wet, stamping the letter would have exploded the compound. His calculation was, no doubt, that it would be dry enough to fulfil his purpose by the time it reached the hand of the person for whom it was intended.