AUSTRALIAN NOTES.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XXIV, Issue 1889, 20 April 1892, Page 6

AUSTRALIAN NOTES.

Tuesday, April 5. SHOCKING OCCURRENCE AT AN EXPLOSIVE FACTORY. '

A terrible accident ocourred yesterday at the works of the Australian Explosives and Chemical Company, two men meeting with instantaneous deaths, and two others sustaining injuries so severe that both are now lying in a precarious condition in the Melbourne Hospital. The works of the company are situated about ten miles outside of Melbourne, at Deer Park, and in them is carried on the business of manufacturing blasting gelatine, gelatine dynamite, dynamite, lithofracteur, blasting powder, detonators, safety and electric fuses, acids, sulphates, and other dangerous compounds. The company, of their own motion, and under the superintendence of the inspector of explosives, have made all possible arrangements for prevent ing accidents ; but their experience of yesterday proves that, given all the safeguards which knowledge and use have suggested, there yet are possibilities of accidents happening. The victims of the calamity were Alexander Stewart, John Hurst, Gavin Warnockj and Richard Williams. They were employed making blasting cartridges with Abble powder, and were working by themselves in an isolated wooden building 16ffc by 16ft. The day had passed without incident up to a quarter-past four o'clock, when they started upon the last few cartridges which were to finish their day's work. Warnock was at the handle of the rolling machine, Stewart and Hurst were feeding, and Williams was wrapping the cartridges as they issued from the machine. Suddenly there was a fierce explosion. The four men were thrown violently to the ground, the four walls of the buildiDg were forced out, and the roof shifted bodily a distance of five yards or more out of its proper The woodwork and the clothes of the men took fire, bo that when other employes of the company rushed up to the scene to render any assistance that lay in their power a dreadful sight was presented to them, Stewart and Hurßt were both dead. Their bodies were disembowelled, their limbs smashed, their arms completely severed and scattered round, and their faces were scarred and burned. Warnock and Williams were seriously injured ; and another employe named M'Grath, who was walking past the building at the time of the explosion, was rendered prostrate by the shook and an injury to a leg, caused by a piece of flying timber. A waggonette was procured, and the three injured men were without delay, and with all possible speed, conveyed in it to the Melbourne Hospital.

As in all similar accidents at explosives works, the cause of this can only be speculated upon. Mr T. Tolley Jones, the general manager, has been extremely careful, for the sake of the company as well as for the benefit of the men in his employ, in observing the directions of the inspector of explosives and the dictates of common sense and the lessons of experience. The works are carried on under the isolated building principle; that is to say, each particular department of the manufacture of the various compounds has a building to itself, distant from the others and separated by a high mound of earth. This principle localises an explosion, as was evidenced yesterday, and prevents the occurrence of srch tragedies as occurred at Job's Gully, Bendigo, some years ago, when, principally because of the -want of such perfect precautions, a whole factory was blown to pieces, and half a dozen lives were sacrificed. The department of the work which these men were engaged in was not regarded as more than ordinarily dangerous, and only about 201 b weight of powder was kept in at one time, and in the absence of an explanation as to the cause, which cannot yet be furnished, the accident has painfully aurprieed the management. The machine has been smashed into thousands of pieces ; indeed, it was this smashing which caused the fearful injuries to Stewart and Hurst, who were engaged on either eide of it doing the "feeding" work, and it will therefore be impossible to learn from an examination of it whether or not there was any defect in it to which the explosion was due. If Warnock and Williams recover they may be able to throw some light on the mystery.

THE TUMBARUMB4. TRAGEDY.

William Cecil, a farm laborer, has been condemned to death for the murder of Sarah Ann Bloomfield, a married woman, twenty years of age, at Rosewood, near Tumbarumba on the 9th February. The evidence disclosed that the police were informed of the affair in the evening, went to the house, and saw the deceased lying in a room near the back door, with her legs doubled up. She was lying on her back, and there was a quantity of blood from a wound in her right shoulder-blade. There were about seventy shot marks extending towards the backbone and the back of the right knee, and a quantity of flesh had been blown away apparently by the shot. It appeared as if a gun had been fired close to the deceased. The police went to the prisoner's hut, and the prisoner, in reply to a question, said that he had been to Bloomfield's house, adding " Why, is she shot ? I fired at her, but did not think I shot her." When told that she had been shot, he said "Oh, my God, I did not think I shot her," adding "I went to have a row with Bloomfield." He said that he got a gun from a neighbor's wife. When arrested he said that he did not intend to shoot her. He told the police that three men, one of whom was the deceased's husband, had stripped and ill-treated him. He also complained of other instances of illtreatment. He said that he was lowering the gun as the woman was walking away, and that the gun went off. Some time afterwards he said that a dog rushed out at him, and that he tried to shoot the dog. He further said that he had tried to shoot ducks, and again that he had tried to shoot a hare. A girl six years old, a daughter of the deceased, could not give evidence, as she was unable to make the necessary declaration to the Court. Witnesses were called who stated that the prisoner had repeated to them certain delusions under which he suffered, one being that he had been assaulted by three men, one of whom waa the husband of the Medical evidence was given to ihe effect that the prisoner was suffering from monomania, and he did not seem to realise his position. The prisoner made a rambling statement to the effect that he knew some of the male witnesses for many years. He went to the house of the deceased, when a dog came out at him. He intended to shoot the dog, when the woman tried to take the gun from him. The gun struck his leg and went off. He denied being insane, and said he had no intention to shoot the woman. The Chief Justice said that the prisoner had been convicted of what he believed was a very deliberate murder. The prisoner had got a gun with the deliberate intention to shoot the woman or her husband. He could not hold out any hope of a remission of the sentence of death, which he then proceeded to pass on the prisoner.

The professional golf match at Machrihanish between Willie Fernie and Hugh Kirkcaldy resulted in the victory of the latter by five up and four to play. " I have always wished," soliloq-^cd the coroner, pensively, " that I couk 1 •» held this office immediately after the fUu..." The world is slow to believe that a v. f« black as long as it pays well.