THE BREMERHAVEN ATROCITY.

Globe, Volume V, Issue 526, 24 February 1876, Page 3

THE BREMERHAVEN ATROCITY.

The San Francisco Bulletin publishes the following particulars relative to Thomasseu, the confessed perpetrator of this crime, and also gives an account of a similar atrocityattempted some twenty years ago. THE DYNAMITE PLOT. William K, Thomassen, who attempted to commit suicide after the Mosel disaster, has made a full confession of the dynamite affair. Thomassen was born in New York. He married a New Orleans lady, by whom he has four children, the youngest being quite a baby. During the war, from 1862 to 1865, he lived in Virginia. He was engaged in running the blockade, by which he became wealthy. Since the year 1866 he has resided in Bremen and in Leipsic, and lately at Strehlen, near Dresden. He appears to have lost his money in speculations lately, and being embarrassed went twice to America during last summer. The last time he went without telling his family where he was going, somewhat to their consternation and surprise. When he returned here he wrote to his bankers stating that he had made arrangements enabling h'm to pay certain claims in December, the present month. He was held in high esteem by the American colony here. His house has been searched again, but nothing was discovered having reference to the terrible schemes to which he has confessed.

The origin of the story that the case of dynamite which lately exploded with such fearful effects at Breraerhaven was intended to explode on board the steamship Mosel at sea, for some purpose not explained, can no doubt be traced to an attempt to burn when at sea two cases of soi disant silks on board the Vanderbilt steamship Ariel, sailing, in 1856, from the same port of Bremerhaven. Captain Ludlow, who then commanded the Ariel, received, as he passed the lighthouse on his way to sea, a telegram from the agents, Messrs Ruppel and Son, saying simply, ‘Stop the ship.’ He intended paying no attention to this quasi absurd demand, but on the representation of the European agent of the line, who happened to be on board, he did stop the ship, and the two went to the lighthouse, where they soon received the news from the Bremen agents that two cases declared as silks, of which the marks were given, were stored in the afterhold, and which, instead of silks, were filled with combustibles, and a clock-work arrangement to set them on fire when the ship was at sea.

On searching the cases were found, and were as described above. They were sent to Bremen, where they served to convict the guilty parties, who soon afterwards were found and arrested.

It seemed the mechanic employed to make the boxes and clockwork became con-science-stricked, and at the last moment ‘ peached’ on his employers, who proved to be a father and son, whose motive was, after insuring these cases heavily in Vienna and elsewhere, to recover the amount of insurance. The father committed suicide soon after arrest, and the son is now in prison in Bremen for life. The mechanic lives now on Staten Island,