Fatal Lamp Post

A bright eyed, tousled girl-child was seen to clamber up an iron lamp post in the Square of Julius Caesar at Milan last week. The King, her king was coming, and she wanted to see. Round about and beneath her surged merry, excited Milanese. They filled the whole square except for a lane guarded by picked, stalwart troops of the Alpine mountaineering service. In a moment His Majesty, beloved King Vittorio Emanuele III, would ride down the human lane and on to open Milan's great, annual Sample Fair. Why didn't the King come? He was already overdue. The child on the lamp post tossed her head impatiently and made a face at some other children who were lamp posting nearby. . . .

Suddenly came a boom, a roar, and the Square of Julius Caesar trembled as if a giant had stamped. Clouds of dust surged up over the crowd and cloaked for an instant the awful tragedy which had occurred. A bomb, planted in the base of the lamp post had exploded. Merciless because inanimate it had blown the laughing girl-child so utterly to atoms that afterwards only her left hand could be found, and identified by a thin, cheap ring.

Of those who had stood near the lamp post 18 were killed. One was a woman who had stepped to her window nearby a bare instant before the explosion. At her a flying bit of iron lamp post hurtled, inflicting a mortal wound.

Seemingly the bomb was fitted with a clock work mechanism timed to explode at the instant when His Majesty was scheduled to pass. Kings, however, are too experienced to risk their lives by keeping to a time table known to every assassin. Therefore His Majesty was a good ten minutes motor ride distant when the bomb exploded. Though prudent, he is no coward. "Drive on," he said with compressed lips when told of the explosion, "Keep to the original route, through the Piazza Giulio Cesare."

A few moments later the royal motor passed slowly over cobble stones still wet with blood drawn by the bomb. A pandemonium of cheering rose about His Majesty: "Viva il Re! . . . Glory to Savoy! [the Royal House] . . . Live! Long live the King!"

Resolutely His Majesty rode on and performed his royal duty: the opening of the Sample Fair. That done--and done quickly--he motored in haste to the hospital where victims of the explosion were receiving treatment. There, as a kindly King and Father, he spoke quietly and as consolingly as might be the suffering.

Meanwhile thousands of Milanese, touched by His Majesty's bravery and tenderness, had gathered in a packed and wildly cheering throng before the Royal Palace. When King Vittorio Emanuele finally slipped out upon a balcony and saluted, the ovation rose like the roar of sea surf, wave on wave. Again and again His Majesty saluted, but more than half an hour passed before the cheers died down sufficiently for him to retire within.

Though Il Duce and Il Re are known to be not always upon the best of terms, the Prime Minister's office carefully informed the press that when news of the explosion reached Signor Mussolini "he bounded from his chair with a mixture of sadness and indignation upon his face." Later the Prime Minister & Head of the State telegraphed His Majesty as follows:

"The startled soul of the entire nation entwines itself at this moment with ever and ever more intense affection about Your Majesty. The nation's perfect discipline will continue for the glory of the dynasty and the power of the fatherland. I beg Your Majesty to accept an expression of my profound devotion."

More urbane was the reaction of Achille Ambrogio Damiano Ratti, Pope Pius XI, who was declared by Vatican officials to have "showed intense emotion" upon receiving the news, and to have then offered up prayers of thanks in his private chapel.

The final postlude of the tragedy came, last week, when the mangled remains of the victims were assembled for a stately mass funeral in the great Cathedral of Milan. Prayers were offered and blessings invoked by Eugenio Cardinal Tosi, revered Archbishop of Milan.

While Heaven thus offered Consolation the earthy newshawks of Milan were busy assembling the final grisly details of the bomb-butchery. A small boy had been beheaded by a flying segment of the fatal lamp post. A young woman's leg had been cut off. An old woman had died, although unhurt, simply of fright. Saddest of all was the tragedy of a father who had learned that his wife and five children were so gravely injured that Death might be expected to lay a cold hand upon all of them within a few hours. Maddened with grief, the poor man butted his head against a stone wall, suffered concussion of the brain.