“Lingg, I think, is twenty-one or twenty-two years old. He is not a man of family. He has boarded with me since Christmas last. My house where I lived on May 4th is about three-quarters of a mile distant from the Haymarket. When Lingg and I, on Tuesday night at eleven o’clock, after we had seen the word ‘Ruhe’ in the paper, spoke about going over to the West Side, we meant Zepf’s Hall, or Greif’s Hall, or Florus’ Hall. One of those halls was certainly meant, for there is no other place. It was not understood or agreed between me and any other men who had the bombs that night at Clybourn Avenue, that any one of us was to go to the Haymarket meeting. I know that Capt. Schaack paid my wife money at different times since my arrest. I don’t know how much. I think $20 or $25. Lingg had made the same remark about bombs being the best food for capitalists and police before that Tuesday afternoon. When he brought the first bomb into the house he said they were to be applied on occasions of strikes, and where there were meetings of workingmen and were disturbed by the police. On that Tuesday afternoon we agreed to go to Clybourn Avenue that night, before the bombs were done. It was said that the bombs were to be taken to Clybourn Avenue that evening. I don’t believe it was agreed that the bombs were to be taken anywhere else than Clybourn Avenue. When they were taken to Clybourn Avenue, I don’t know whether they were to remain there, or were to be taken to further places. There was no agreement as to where the bombs should be taken after they got to Clybourn Avenue. I did not hear anything about an agreement that any of the bombs manufactured on the afternoon of May 4th were to be taken by anybody to the Haymarket; we were not making bombs to take to the Haymarket and destroy the police. They were to be taken to Clybourn Avenue for use on that evening. I can not say that one single bomb was made for use at the Haymarket meeting. They were made everywhere to be used against capitalists and the police. I cannot say who had the bomb at the Haymarket on the night of May 4th. I don’t know anybody who was expected to be at the Haymarket. I became acquainted with Lingg in August of last year. I saw Engel once last year in the office of the Arbeiter-Zeitung, and again at the meeting of the North Side group. I did not see whether the bombs which I saw last summer at the Arbeiter-Zeitung building were loaded. The room where I saw them was the library-room that belonged to the International Workingmen’s Association. The bombs were below the counter. I never saw any bombs in the office of the Arbeiter-Zeitung, neither in the editorial room nor the printing-room, nor in the office of the Arbeiter-Zeitung. The office is the front room. This library-room is in the rear. I saw those bombs in the rear room. I don’t know precisely whether that library-room is a part of the office, or whether it is rented as a library-room. I believe that it belonged to the Arbeiter-Zeitung. Those drills on Sunday, of which I spoke, were in the daytime. We kept our guns at home, in broad daylight, and in the presence of our neighbors, or any one who might be on the streets, walked to the hall on Sunday and drilled. We had a shooting society. We went to the Sharpshooters’ Park or to the prairie to exercise. We used to meet and march publicly on the streets with our guns exposed. We didn’t try to keep it away from the police force that we had arms and drilled and marched. I knew that I was indicted for conspiracy and for murder. I did not employ the services of any lawyer. The only lawyers that I talked with were Mr. Grinnell and Mr. Furthmann.”
On re-direct examination witness stated:
“During the time I was at liberty I went to the West Side to the house of Mr. Gloom, on Twenty-second Street. I stayed with him two weeks and one day. He is not a Socialist. I went there from fear of revenge by the Socialists.”
Mrs. Bertha Seliger testified as follows:
“I have lived in this country two years. Am the wife of William Seliger. We lived at 442 Sedgwick Street from the 12th of October to the 19th of May. I have known Louis Lingg since two weeks before Christmas. He came to us to board with us. He boarded with us until May. He took his meals with us and slept in the house. We occupied the middle floor of that house. His room was next to the front room, and there was a door opening into a clothes closet. Shortly before May 1st I saw some bombs as Lingg was about to hide them—about half a dozen lying on the bed. They were round bombs and long ones. After Lingg had left the house I did not see any more of them; they were all gone. On the Tuesday on which the bomb was thrown at the Haymarket there were several men at our house. About six or eight. Perhaps more. Those I knew were Hubner, Heuman, Thielen, Lingg and my husband. I think they were there until past seven o’clock. They were going and coming during most of the afternoon. They were in the front room and in Lingg’s room, working at bombs. I saw Heuman working and filling at them. What the others were doing I don’t know. I was in the kitchen, and when supper was ready I went into the bed-room. I was so mad I could have thrown them all out. I frequently saw Lingg make bombs. I always saw him cast. I did not pay any particular attention. I simply saw him melt lead on the cooking-stove in my house—twice with Heuman, once with my husband and Thielen, and frequently he worked by himself. He said to us: ‘Don’t act so foolishly. You might do something too.’ On Monday, the day before the bomb was thrown, Lingg was away. In the morning some young fellows had come and had their names entered on the list of the union, and then he was writing pretty much all day.
“On Wednesday, the day after the bomb was thrown, Lingg was at home in the forenoon. That was the day on which he wanted to hide those bombs in the clothes closet, and Lehman was with him. I heard some knocking, and I went in, and I said to him: ‘Mr. Lingg, what are you doing there? I will not suffer that,’—and he was tearing everything loose below, and he sent that man Lehman after wall-paper, and he wanted to cover up everything afterwards—nail up everything afterwards. He had the wall-paper already there, and he said to me: ‘I suppose you are crazy. You ought to have said before you wouldn’t suffer that, that I would have looked for a place where I am allowed to do that.’ He was tearing up things all around about in the closet, and he had loosened the baseboards and taken out the mortar. He said if he needed something he couldn’t first go to the West Side to get it. On the Friday following, on the 7th of May, he left my house. Lingg had a trunk which he kept in his bed-room. This instrument (referring to ladle identified by William Seliger) Lingg was always casting with.”
On cross-examination Mrs. Seliger stated:
“I have been locked up on account of this bomb business—on account of Lingg—by Capt. Schaack. The first time I was there from Saturday to Tuesday. Of course it was Lingg’s fault that I got locked up. I talked with Capt. Schaack about this matter several times. I was locked up twice. Capt. Schaack paid my rent. I made no memoranda of the money I received from Capt. Schaack. He gave me money at different times, from the time I made my statement down to the present time. He paid my rent and gave me so much money with which to live. When I said to Lingg that I wouldn’t allow that wall-paper to be put into the closet, and ‘what would the landlord say when he comes,’ Lingg said, ‘Well, then, I will say to him that I will not dirty my clothes.’ Those boards were about a foot high from the floor. The closet did not reach up as far as the ceiling. He intended to put those things in the wall. There was nothing in at that time. I stopped him at that juncture. I don’t like Mr. Lingg very well, because he always had wrong things in his head. I blame him for me and my husband having been locked up. My husband and myself talked this thing over together. I said to my husband, ‘I will tell the truth, and you tell it also.’ Capt. Schaack told us we had better tell it. I am forty years old.
“I was locked up in the Larrabee Street Station, and my husband was in the Chicago Avenue Station. I never occupied the same cell with my husband while under arrest. I only heard after I came out again that my husband was arrested in another station. While I was arrested I didn’t see my husband. No one came to see me. I told that story, and then they turned me out. When arrested the second time they kept me from Monday until Friday. I made the same statement as at first and signed it, and then they turned me out again. The second time I was arrested they brought a statement, which they said my husband had made, and asked me to sign it, and I put my name below that of my husband’s, and then they turned me out. My husband was a Socialist before he got acquainted with Lingg.”
Marshall H. Williamson, reporter for the Daily News, witnessed the procession of the Socialists in 1885 at the time of the opening of the Board of Trade building, and was also present at No. 107 Fifth Avenue, from which place they started, and where they finally separated. He heard Parsons and Fielden speak from the windows of the Arbeiter-Zeitung office. Said the witness: