dashed off the lid of the box
by throwing it against the wall in the carriage way under the Senate
steps. About a dozen copper cartridges were disclosed--those used in a
Smith & Wesson pocket pistol, it appeared afterward--six of them lying
on each side of a bunch of friction matches in the centre. The sides
of the cartridges had been filed through, so that the burning of the
matches might explode the cartridges. The whole was kept in place in
a bed of common glue, and a strip of sand-paper lying upon the heads
of the matches was bent into a loop to receive the bit of thread,
whose other end, secured to the clasp of the box, produced that
tension and consequent pressure requisite to ignite the matches upon
the forcible opening of the lid. To make assurance doubly sure, a
paste of fulminating powder and alcohol had been spread around the
matches and cartridges.

There was a newspaper slip also glued to the inside of the lid, with
words as follows: "Monday, Oct. 31, 1864. The City of San Francisco
vs. United States. Judge Field yesterday delivered the following
opinion in the above case. It will be read with great interest by the
people of this city." Then followed several lines of the opinion. Even
that gave no clue to the source of the infernal machine, but from the
fact that it was evidently made by a scientific man, and that from its
size it must have been passed through the window at the post office,
instead of into the letter-box, it was thought [that there was] a
sufficiently conspicuous mode of action to expose the sender of the
torpedo to detection. Whoever it may have been took a late vengeance
for the decision of the Pueblo case--if such was the veritable motive
of the frustrated assassination--as the decision referred to was
rendered in 1864. On that account it was conjectured that the
contriver of the machine might be some guilty person, who had received
sentence from you, and who used the reference to the Pueblo case to
divert suspicion from himself.

So far as I know, all efforts to discover the author of the intended
mischief have been fruitless.

The box with its contents, was sent to the Secretary of War, who
directed an examination by the Ordnance Department. General Dyer, then
Chief of Ordnance, pronounced it a most cleverly combined torpedo,
and exploded one of the cartridges in a closed box, producing a deep
indentation upon its sides.

General Dyer added, among other analytical details, that t