“I was on the Market Square on the night of the inauguration of the Board of Trade with Officer Trehorn. When we got down there, there was quite a large crowd. One or two people were talking in German and trying to hold the crowd until the speakers came. Mr. Schwab came there first, and Parsons and Fielden came, and I believe this man (indicating Lingg). Parsons spoke about the Board of Trade, and showed some figures how the poor man was robbed. Then he denounced the police as bloodhounds, the militia as servants of the capitalists, robbing the laboring classes, and invited them all in a body to go there and partake of some of those twenty-dollar dishes that they had up at the Board of Trade building. They were to get there by force. Mr. Fielden spoke after him. He denounced the police and militia as bloodhounds. At that time there was a company of militia on Market Square for the purpose of drilling. Mr. Schwab was there at the time, and called the attention of the crowd to the militia, and they all started off toward the militia. Schwab spoke in German. Officer Trehorn and I went over there and asked the militia to disperse, and they marched up Water Street. Then I came back and listened to Mr. Fielden, who urged the crowd to force themselves in a body and partake of those dishes. Then they all marched in a body, some carrying red flags. I saw in the procession Schwab, Parsons, Fielden, and I am not positive as to that young fellow (Lingg). There was no United States flag in the procession. There was a platoon of police at every crossing. The procession stopped at 107 Fifth Avenue. Parsons went in and spoke from the window. He denounced the policemen as bloodhounds, and the militia also, and stated how they stopped them from going in there and partaking of the food; that a good many of his audience did not have clothes and could not afford to pay twenty cents for a meal, let alone twenty dollars, and wanted them to go and follow him, and he would make a raid on those different places, mentioning Marshall Field’s and one or two other places. After him Fielden spoke, and wanted them all to go down with him in a body and he would lead them. I met Williamson, the reporter, just as he was coming down-stairs, that evening. We went up-stairs with him. I shook hands with Mr. Fielden and spoke to him. They did not know me as a policeman. Fielden, Parsons and Schwab were there. Spies was at the desk. Parsons asked Spies for this dynamite. He brought it over, and Parsons told how it could be used; that if it was thrown into a line of police or militia it would take the whole platoon. He also exhibited a coil of fuse. I said: ‘You can get that in any quarry. They use that in blasting powder.’ He said: ‘It comes in good to load these with—to touch these off with,’ referring to dynamite shells. I saw some caps there about the size of a 22-caliber cartridge. The substance which he showed was dynamite. It looked like red sand. It was shaped about a foot long, and about an inch and a half in diameter. I asked one of them why they didn’t go into the Board of Trade building. They said that they were not prepared that night; that there were too many of the bloodhounds before them on the street, but the next time they would turn out they would meet them with their own weapons and worse.”
Moritz Neff testified:
INTERIOR PLAN OF NEFF’S HALL.
“I live at 58 Clybourn Avenue, known as Thüringer Hall, also as Neff’s Hall, since seven years. I keep a saloon there. Back of the saloon is a hall. The North Side group used to meet there. I know all the defendants. On the night when the bomb was thrown I was at my saloon. Louis Lingg came in, in company with Seliger and another man whom I had not seen before. This stranger carried the satchel. It was a common bag, probably about a foot and a half long and six inches wide. He put it on the counter, after that on the floor. Lingg and Seliger were standing by, and Lingg asked me if some one had asked for him. That stranger, whose name I afterwards found out to be Muntzenberg, carried the satchel on his shoulder; that was ten or fifteen minutes after eight. I told Lingg that nobody had inquired for him. Then Muntzenberg picked up the bag and went out the side door, in the rear of the room, followed by Lingg and Seliger. I have not seen the bag since. There was a large meeting of painters, probably two hundred, in the hall that evening. For this reason I opened this door in the rear of the saloon, so that people going to that meeting would not be compelled to go through the saloon. I saw Lingg and Seliger again that night about eleven o’clock. Nobody had inquired in the meantime for Lingg. I saw Hubner there before Lingg came. I saw Thielen on the sidewalk in front of the saloon, but not inside. The two Lehmans were there after Lingg had left. They were out on the sidewalk, not inside. The first time Lingg stayed about five or ten minutes. He went out through the saloon. I did not see Seliger and Muntzenberg go out through the saloon. Before Lingg and Seliger came back, at about eleven o’clock, several individuals had come into the saloon, among them the Hermanns, the two Lehmans, the two Hagemans and Hirschberger. Lingg and Seliger dropped in a little later. They were all talking together. I didn’t pay much attention to it. I heard one of them halloa out very loud, ‘That is all your fault.’ I heard them also say that the bomb had been thrown among the police and some of them had been killed. They came from the meeting.
“Engel addressed the North Side group in my hall in February last winter. It was a public agitation meeting of the North Side group, advertised in the Arbeiter-Zeitung.”
“What did Engel say?”
“He wanted money for a new paper, the Anarchist, started by the Northwest Side group and two of the South Side groups. He said the Arbeiter-Zeitung was not outspoken enough in those Anarchistic principles; therefore they started this paper. They distributed some of these papers. Later on he gave a kind of history of revolutions in the old country, stated that the nobility of France were only forced to give up their privileges by brute force; that the slaveholders in the South were compelled by force to liberate their slaves, and the present wage-slavery would be done away with only by force also. And he advised them to arm themselves, and if guns were too dear for them they should use cheaper weapons—dynamite or anything they could get hold of to fight the enemy. To make bombs, anything that was hollow in the shape of gas-pipes would do. That is all I heard him say. I wasn’t present all the time. I bought a copy of the Anarchist that night for five cents. This here (indicating) is one of the copies, dated January 1, 1886. This is one of the copies distributed that night. Engel did not distribute it himself. Two other gentlemen who were there did that.”