THE COLLIERY EXPLOSION AT KAITANGATA.

Oamaru Mail, Volume IV, Issue 892, 24 February 1879, Page 2

THE COLLIERY EXPLOSION AT KAITANGATA.

© t (per press association.) t Kaitakgata, February 22. I A jury of sixteen were empanelled at a the Bridge Hotel here, before E. H. s Carew, Esq. Thirty-one bodies were I identified. One of the Halls is supposed e to be that not identified. There are two r> more bodies not yet recovered from the t mine. The jury then adjourned till a Monday, 24th inst,, at 11 a.m., the pre- tl sent proceedings being simply for identifi- J cation. Each juror was bound over in e: his own recognisance' for LIOO to be pre- a sent at the adjourned inquest. The bodies g are to be interred tormorrow. h The following are the names of the re- E maining miners in the company's employ, h and who were off work at' the time of the w accident:—T. Barclay, W. Love, Edward B

i Beardsmore, M. Hennesy, T. Sowiferby, John Irving, C. Hunter, Wm. Coulter, i Wm. Wilson, George Henton, John Tiffin, Dan Taylor, Elisha Beardsmore. The directors held a meeting and appointed a committee to consider relief. The following telegram was received from the Springfield Coal Company, Canterbury : —" The directors of the Springfield Coal Company offer their sympathy in the sad accident which has occurred in the Kaitangata mine, and if a fund is being ' raised for the relief of the families of those who have perished, beg that they" may be allowed to contribute LIOO to that object.—Signed, J. Ceacroft Wilson, Managing Director." The bodies of Hodge and Jarvie have not yet been recovered. Dunedix, February 23. The Mayor has called a public meeting for to-morrow night to consider means for relieving the widows and orphans by the Kaitangata explosion. Dunemx, February 24. The bodies of Andrew Jarvie and Archie Hodge, the last of the men in the mine, were recovered yesterday afternoon. With reference to the latter, the Daily Times report says : —His body and face were severely scorched, and his clothes, from the waist upwards, had been burnt oft' him. On being turned over, the skin of his left hand fell off as if it had been a loose glove. The unfortunate man, evidently having some occasion to enter the old working, must have done so with a naked light, little dreaming of the fearful risk he ran. What took him there can, so far, only bo left to mere conjecture. Some old miners assert that under no circumstances had he a right to enter with a light a working in which a tremendous quantity of foul air must have accumulated, whilst others explain his conduot by the surmise that he went for the purpose of obtaining rails. There can be no doubt that Hodge's action has been the means of causing the stupendous, calamity that without the slightest warning cut short the lives of so many of his fellow-laborers. The fate of all who were working in the mine at the time, therefore, has now been ascertained beyond all question ; and after recovering the body of poor Hodge, the labors of those who so nobly and with so great an amount of self-sacrifice banded themselves together to search for the mutilated remains of their fellow-creatures were discontinued. Two of the Kaitangata miners (Thomas Frew and William Hay) will be buried in Dunedin this afternoon, A large funeral is expected.