British Commonwealth of Nations: Bombs

Skirl. At the new Prince’s Hotel, London, members of the select Irish Club stood round about some banquet tables, looked at a door. From without came a wild skirl of Irish bagpipes. In strode the piper. Behind him followed Edward of Wales amid deafening Gaelic cheers. Soon he had been presented with a shillalah. Soon it was forgotten that just before he reached the hotel an Irish maniac had thrown an absurd “acetylene bomb” in at the door. It consisted of a cardboard box containing a bit of moistened calcium carbide and a piece of tarred rope—a combination of elements quite incapable of producing more damage than a slightly annoying smell, as the water and calcium carbide react to set free acetylene.

Scurrilous. On the same evening Premier Stanley Baldwin rose to address another Irish banquet, at the Hotel Cecil. While he spoke, a fellow who had come to the banquet on a stolen invitation arose and hurled a curiously concocted “smoke bomb” at the Premier. While it sputtered, blazed and emitted clouds of smoke, several women fainted. Imperturbable, as always, Mr. Baldwin stood his ground while the “bomb” rolled off the table before him and set fire to the carpet. Swiftly a waiter extinguished it with a soda water siphon. Examined, it proved to be a completely nonexplosive firework in a black cardboard shell. Its igniter was quietly ejected. Mr. Baldwin continued his purely felicitative speech.