FEARFUL COLLIERY EXPLOSION

Otago Witness, Issue 585, 14 February 1863, Page 7

FEARFUL COLLIERY EXPLOSION

(From, the Evening Mail Jan. 24.) Newcastle- on-tvne, Saturday Night. ' All the horrors of <he Hartly catastrophe have been brought to our remembrance today through a fearful explosion of gas which occurred in Walker Colliery, three mjiles #om this town, about 6 o'clock tUljs morning, by which 16 men o,n,d, l^da have lost their lives. Walker Co^lery is among one of the oldest 'in the coal trade, having been at work nearly a century, and is about the last of the old famous Wallsend collieries working-, all the others having been drowned out. It has two, pits, the "Ann and the " Jane^" %hv shafts being about a quarter of ?, mile apart, and their depth being 16ft fathom The shaft of the Jane pit has only been re-opened about nine months after being widened and enlarged, and the coals are brought to bank by that shaft, which is down-cast. The seam which the colliery is working is not the old household coal seam, which has made Wnllaund famous all over the world, bu,t the \o\v seam ; the coal taken, irom it being used principally {or manufacturinsr and steam purposes. To-day was ""pay" Saturday at' the, pit, and the pitmen were not employed in the mine \ it; wa^ laid off, and preparations had, been made for a large Sun-'day-schoo.l tea party, to be held to-night. It is usual, however, when the pit is laid off, for the shifters, stonemen, and others, to " red it" up, as it is termed, doing any odd jobs in the air-ways, and other paits of the workings ; in fact, to put it in good order for the men resuming work on the Monday ruorn'wg. Between 20 and 30 men and, fods employed about the pit in th^s way had gone down about two o'clock ; and, so far m, can be at present ascertained, the explosion occurred between half-past 5 and G this morning. Two banksmen, named Charles Kob'on and Jofftjh llichardson, heard the sound pf, a tremendous rush of air up the working shaft of the colliery where, they were stationed, and on looking iv that'direction they observed steam and a cloud of fragments iiying from the pit's mouth. They informed Charles Cooper, the enginewright, of the fact, and the alarm that an explosion had occurred spread to the village Before 7 o'clock three men we^e, brought up at the up- cast shaft. They were named Chambers, Knox, and Collins.' 'They were all ali^e, bv\t each was suffering from the effects of ga's and fright, as well as from the shock they had received by being thrown down when the explosion occurred. From their statements it seems that there would be 25 men in tb,e pit, gome of whom were working " in-bye,"

at a considerable distance from the mmurn of the shafts. It is supposed that some of these men had been" at work in a " trouble," and had fired shots, from which the explosion may have occurred. The injured men wer« taken home, and were attended by Dr ilichardson, who renorts that all who had eomu up ali \e arc likely to recover. They describe the fi^t warning they had of the explosion as like the sound of a hurricane, and its effect on themselves was to throw them violently down. The stoppings, brattice*, &c, in the colliery workings are all destroj ed ami tiie mine is thrown into confusion. 'Mr O!e, the re-ident viewer, was among the first to descend tli3 pit. Mr Jobling, the princi|)<i! engineer, aud one of the owners of the ■olliery (which is the property of Messrs La-nbert, Xicholson, and Co ), Mr Matthias Dunn, Inspector of Ooal mines, and Mr Potter, of Cramlington, mining engineer, have been down the pit. Those who have walked as far In the workings as they possibly could had seen three dead bodias, and it k feared that several others havi.' shared the fate of their unfortunate comrades.

Down to six o'clock to-night six bodies had heen found. They were ail badly burnt, and had died from the effects of the explosion, and not of the alter damp. They will be brought up to bank some time to-night. The follow inn are lost in the mine, and there is every reason to fear— iv fact, it is certain— they are dead :— John Holt, married • and leaves a family; James Haswell, married, widow and four children ; William Burrell ; Martin Faction, wife and two children; George Watson, widower ; John Moore, married man, but his family are grown up; John Mitcheson, wife and four children; George &arnes, unknown whether married or single; four ■ boys, whose names we have not°yet ascertained.

The miners who descended to explore the mine came up much exhausted, and state the air to be very bad. All the horses, nine in number, and twenty-one ponies, are killed. From the nature of their employment, the men and lads who are killed would^ be scattered about the pit when the explosion occurred, and that it was violent and sharp may he inferred by the fact that the bodies which have been found were lying not far from the shaft, and that a portion of the seam of coal was set on fire. An exploring party who went down the pit this afternoon reported that they found a collyman deal, very much charred, and lying to the north of the shaft at the branch way ends ; also the body of a boy, shockingly burnt, at the entrance of the waste. Mr Telford, Mr Hurst, and other colliery viewers, were at the pit this evening as.-isting, and every exertion is being made to thoroughly restore the ventilation, so that the pitmen may bo enabled to pass through the pit in safety, and send up the bodies. But there was a good deal of stythe in the pit tonight, and it may be a day or two before the bodies are ail discovered.

As is usual at colliery explosions, there have been many providential escapes. George Mitford, one of the shifters, was working in another part of the pit at the time of the°explosion. As soon as he felt the concussion of the air which is unmistakeable in cases of explosion he ran for his life, but was overtaken by the fire damp, and was struck down like a shot. lie gave himself up for dead, but was fortunately rescued by some men who descended the pit at the first alarm of the explosion to save as many as they could. There lias not been so largo a crowd about the pit as has been no.tioed at former colliery explosions in the distriot, and the people have been very well behaved and orderly-

The poor man Holt is supposed to have occisioaed the explosion by firing a "shot" while making a drift through a lt trouble" close to the air-way. Tliq pit must have been extremely foul ,• hut it is said that if it had been at wovk; the explosion would not have occurred, as extra precautions would have bee-n adopted if it had been found necessary to " fire a shot." (BY EM3CTSIC AXD INTERNATIONAL TELE-

GRAPH.)

Sunday night. The bodies of 16 men and lads have been brought to bank in coffins and de-patched in carts to their homes, The pit is still the worse for ths accident, and will be made fit for working in a shift or two. The cause of the accident has not yet been discovered.

A Haunted House in Leghorn.— The London correspondent of the Morning P :st says :— "The political regeneration of Italy, and the ma/eh ofintelItct have not as yet extirpated vulgar prejulices amongst the people, and supeasfitkm continues to be the inseparable companion ot ignorance under the reign of Victor; Kmnianuel, as it was under that of the late despotic sovereigns. Lrghorn is less likely to offer a proof of this statement than other inland towns where communication and couimercejare more limited, and yet, for the last four or five days one of the principal streets of this town has been blocked up w4»u gaping blockheads and awe-stricken old women, at-t-acted by the wonderful feats performed by the devil op his underlings in a particular house in the vii d'etroles ciiotejust at the. back of the cathedral. The inhabitants of the second floor in this said house were first alarmed by. uncouth noises, and a dangerous propensity i,n#ie furniture aud moveables to fly about, &H if ysopeUed by invisible hands ; a phenomenon which, increased at last to such a degree as to oblige them to abandon the premises, which they did, protesting against the forza maggiore of theso supernatural assailants, and consigning the key of the door to the magis'ratd. The devil h&a i*ad it all his own way since the ni»ht of the legitimate occupants of the residence, aud a sergeant of the gendarmes, who, with a po«se of, !&is men, ventured to examine the s ale ofaQaiya, bad a tumbler very viciously shied at his k?jyl us soon as he entered the premises, whioh iaade him retreat, carrying off the broken fragments 3n hi* pocket as elementary evidence. I have since then frequently passed by tWs haunted locality, aud have always found the same ferment around — iieads innumerable being thrust out of every neighboring window, and eyes innumerable being directed upwards from the crowd below, as if in immediate expectation that OKI Ni«*k would make his appearance at the open windows of the mysterious apartment."

The Bishop of Natal's Forthcoming, £ook. —The English Churchman gives an extras from the introductiju to Bishop Colenro's b00k.,, from the nature of which it " greatly fear 3 th,as there can be very little foundation for any hope \lias the rumours about the volume were exaggerated, and that it seems evident that the publication of this work- will necessitate eccle^iaiticnl proceedings against Bishop Colenso, unless it be preceded or accompanied by his formal res,ignaiiiou of, his office. The following is the extract referred to from, the Bishop of Natal's introduction; Is appears that a native a Zulu — who had been reading the divine record ot the Dgluge, looked up and asked, "Js all that true 1 Bo you really believe tha*" all this happened thuA ; that all the bei&ts, and birds, and creeping things upon the earth, large and small, from hot countries aud cold, came thus by paiw, and onterei into the ark with Noah 1 And did Noah gather food for them all, for the beasfo and birds of prey as well ns the rest X" (Toon this Bishop Colenso observes : " I felt tnat I dared not, as a servant of the Wod ot truth, urge my brother man to believe that which I dq nol) myself believe, which I know to be uutn\e aa a matter of fact historical narr.itive." And he aisives at the following conclusion, wliiph contains the essence of his offence, and seems quite sufficient of it=e!f to justify and demand proceedings a<*iinst him: — "Our examinations have fuiced on us the conviction, by reason of the utter impossibilities and absurdities contained in it, that tlio whole story of th.9 ' Exodus ' is a fiction ; and that consequently no such ' groups ot laws ' were evev hid j ftW n i n the wilderness as the story described. And if the last four books of the Pentateuch must be pronounced to be fictitious, it will hardly be contended that the ' Book of Genesis ' can be any other than in the main fiatitious also."

'A Gentleman,' says the Scientific Amqripan, who hns spent some days in the region of the coal oil wells, in Pennsylvania, says that in his opinion the government of the Raited States ought to interfere at once, opd put a, stop to. further pumping and boring fyr q\i on thjs continent. He is quite certain \be oil is being drawn through these walls ■ from, the bearing* of the earth's axisi and that the eaith will cease to turn when the lucubration ceases ! Such a suspension would beat anything that ever ■ nptuted Wflll-sti'eet, and the consequence:* bo too ■ great for ordinary minds to conceive or comprehend. I It should be attended to at once.'

Tbe editor of the French journal Le Pays hasbeen dismissed for refusing to inssrt, at the bidding of th'a' Home Minister, articles against Italian unity. The editor, on his appointment, was obliged to leave his resignation in blank with the Minister, and it has now been filled up and. wed, against him,