“Why,” I interposed, “don’t you stop that nonsense?”
MISS MARY ENGEL.
From a Photograph.
“I know,” replied Engel, “I have promised my wife so many times that I would stop it. But I cannot do it. I cannot help it that I am possessed of some eloquence and enthusiasm. It is a curse to some people to be possessed of this knowledge. I cannot help it that I am gifted in that way. I am not the first man that has been locked up for this cause, but I will bear it like a man. Louise Michel is a great woman. She has been locked up and suffered for principle. I am willing to do the same.”
When Engel was asked where he had been on Tuesday evening, May 4, he responded: “At home all night, lying on a lounge.”
Two days after Engel’s arrest I secured a statement—in addition to that of Hubner—from Gottfried Waller, implicating the nervy Anarchist in the conspiracy in connection with “the plan.”
I therefore thought it best to have Engel face his accuser, Waller, and, on the evening of May 24, at 9:30 o’clock, the two men were brought together in my office. Mr. Furthmann, who was present, with the officers, asked Engel, the moment he was brought in, if he knew the party before him. Engel, without the slightest hesitancy or tremor, answered in the negative. He was next asked if he had not attended the meeting at No. 54 West Lake Street, and Engel stated that he had come in late during the proceedings.
Waller then reiterated his charge, that Engel was not only a speaker on that occasion, but the man who had submitted a plan for murder and destruction.
“In fact,” said Waller, “you were the only man who urged a revolution and spoke about your plan.”