The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1876-11-25 00:00:00

KIDDERMINSTER.

IMPORTANT ACTION AGAINST THE GREAT WESTERN
RAILWAY COMPANY.—On Wednesday, at the Kidder-
minstar. County Court, Mr. Rupert Kettle was engaged
for a considerable time hearing a case in which Mr.
Hugh Gibson, a well-known drysalter, claimed £27 5s
6(1., the value of a cask of bark extract, which was spoilt
while in the coustody of the Great Western Railway
Company.—Mr. Miller Corbet appeared for the plaintiff,
and Mr. Bently, of Worcester, for defendants.—After
opening the case, the former called MI. Gibson, who
said he 'received a consignment of bark extract from
America, in June last, and at the latter part of the same
month sent three casks of this per the Great Western
Railway to Leeds. On the day after he found one of
these I) ing at the station at Kidderminster, with the
head out and the contents quite spoilt. It contained 12
cwt, and its value was the amount claimed. No acid or
anything else had been mixed with it to cause it to
ferment, and he examined the casks, saw them properly
bunged and plated over the bung. He was told at the
station on 'the 30th June, the day after the casks were
sent off by him—that the stuff had burst out the head of
the cask.—Richard Barlow said he filled the casks a for t-
night before they were sent away from the works. They
were in good condition, and nothing to cause " fermenta-
tion " had beck put into the extract. On the 29th June
he sent them to Leeds, and next day saw one cask at the
station with the head out and the contents all over the
place.—Cross-examined : He filled the casks a fortnight
before it went off—not the day it burst. Bantock's men
had not to wait till he put the bung in—it was already
bunged up.—H. Charnock said he saw the casks safely
consigned to the Great Western agents, and they should
have gone off the same night, hut next day he saw one
cask burst. —John Chadwick, colour maker at Messrs.
Hughes, and W. Wheeler, colour maker at Messrs.
Dixon's, both deposed that the extract would not fer-
ment nor evolve carbonic acid gas in its natural state,
and the latter said he had used it since its introduction
in 1866, and never heard of such a case as this. It might
" work " if it got "sour."—Mr. Bentley, for the defence
said that the company had taken a portion of the ex-
tract, and had caused it to be analysed by Messrs.
Southall Brothers and Barclay of Birmingham, whose
analyst would state what were the circumstances he had
discovered in the sample, which would convince his
Honour that the leakage and final bursting of the cask
was due to internal defect, which caused fermentation,
and finally the evolution of carbonic acid gas, He called
Henry Cox, who said it was not sent to Leeds because he
discovered at the last moment that it was leaking. The
next morning he sent to the consignor, but in the mean-
time the head burst off with a loud report.—Mr. Henry
Williams Jones said he received at Messrs. Southall's a
bottle containing extracted and astringent matter, in
which was a large quantity of tannic acid, which would
cause fermentation, and the carbonic acid gas well known
to brewers, and an ultimate explosion.—His Honour:
As a bo3tle of soda water or champagne.—This was the
cause of the accident, and although the cask might have
been air tight there was sufficient air in the mass inside
to admit of fermentation. Tha identity of the quantity
analysed with that taken from the cask having been
proved; his Honour said he had no doubt that the cask
burst from the results of fermehtation, and found for the
defendants.