George N. McLean

Miscellaneous matter. Arbeiter Zeitung. Mrs. Lucy Parsons. Her arrest in Ohio. Her arrest in Chicago. Herr Most endorsing the bomb-throwing. The panic he could create in a big city in thirty minutes with 3000 bombs in the hands of 500 revolutionists.

As the trial progressed many new and sensational developments were made. Dr. Ernst Schmidt was constituted chairman of the committee of an organization, taking charge of matters pertaining to raising money for the defense. F. Bielefeld became business manager of the Arbeiter Zeitung. In all the important cities meetings were held in the interests of the condemned men. Mrs. Lucy Parsons, wife of the condemned anarchist, went on a lecturing tour to replenish the exchequer of the defendants, but public opinion in many places was against her, and she found it difficult in many places to obtain halls in which to speak. At Akron, Ohio, she was arrested for holding a meeting in defiance of the order of the mayor of that city. She has for years been an active anarchistic agitator, and her proclivities for public speech-making has brought her often before the public. She was arrested September 23 for a violation of the ordinance prohibiting the distribution of circulars on the street of Chicago. In New York, Herr Most, through his paper, the Freiheit, indorsed the bomb-throwing, saying: “Its work was thorough. Such bombs can be made by anybody, without much trouble, of an evening. Think of 500 revolutionists provided, say, each with six of these things, working in concert, so that, for example, in the wide range of a great cosmopolitan city within half an hour the fragments were to go flying in various suitable places, who will gainsay that by this means such a panic could be created that a comparatively small number of determined men might get possession of all commanding points in the place in a giffy? Nobody. The bomb in Chicago was legally justified, and, in a military sense, excellent. All honor to him who produced and made use of it.”

For this, and similar incendiary utterances, Most was arrested and sentenced to serve a year in Sing Sing prison. He was living with Lena Fischer, alias Mary Georges, at 198 Allen street, under the name of West, and when captured was found in hiding under the woman’s bed. The woman was thought to be a sister of AdolfAdolph Fischer, one of the condemned Chicago anarchists, but this was denied.

MISS NINANIÑA VAN ZANDT,

who has constituted herself the heroine of Anarchistic notoriety by developing a tender passion for the notorious Spies, is a young lady of eighteen years of age, with a fine form and a fair share of personal attractions; neither a pronounced blonde, nor yet a brunette, but seemingly occupying the middle ground, between. NinaNiÑa is the daughter of the superintendantsuperintendent of the great Kirk soap factory of Chicago, and the heiress apparent to quite a fortune.

She is of a dashing romantic disposition; fond of flowers, birds and dogs. She fell a victim to the ardent glances of the humorous editor as the sequence of having made his acquaintance while inserting an advertisement in the Zeitung to recover her lost pug, to whom she was much attached. Through the efforts of Spies she recovered her pet canine, and while performing the duty of expressing her gratitude to the editor she was smitten, and yielded passively to her fate. She became so infatuated in her attachment and attentions to Spies that in February, 1887, a marriage license was procured for the purpose of becoming his wife in the jail, but the sheriff forbade the ceremony as illegal and unprecedented. It was then determined that the ceremony should take place by proxy. Spies’ brother became the proxy, and the ceremony took place before Justice Englehardt in the town of Jefferson. Justice Englehardt made returns of the marriage to the county clerk, who refused to recognize the return, pronouncing the ceremony illegal. This wife, in name only, was placed on exhibition in wax in one of the dime museums, when the cheeky manager was served with an injunction; but this young would-be wife compromised the matter, it is thought, on condition that part of the emmolumentsemoluments went into a fund for the benefit of her condemned lord.

MRS. OSCAR NEEBE

died quite suddenly in March, 1887. Neebe, under guard of Jailor Folz, visited the bedside of his dying wife and by official clemency remained some time with his children, and everything was done for the condemned men that could be done in the name of humanity under the circumstances.