The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1868-12-19 00:00:00

THE FALL OF A BALE OF PAPER.

'rho case of "Ford T. Spicer" has been tried in
London, and was an action brought to recover damages
for the injury sustained by the plaintiff by the fall of a
parcel of paper weighing 7 cwt. The defendants,
Messrs. Spicer and SIMS, are paper warehousemen in
Laurence Pout ney-hill, London, and on the 7th of April
of this year in the usual course of their business, one of
their waggons was standing in the street for the purpose
of being loaded with paper. The defendants' servants
were hoisting the paper down from the fourth floor of
the warehouse, and their manlier of doing so was as
follows :—A piece of substantial rope, with is loop at
each end, called a "sling." is put on the floor, the
rope being slipped through one of the loops; on the
sling the site,. employed place about thirty reams of
paper lengthwise, so that the sling shall pass round the
middle of the length of all the reams ; the men tighten
the slip as much so they can, and then the other
part of the sling is attached by what is called a
"half-hitch" to a chain which is worked by a crane.
At this end of the chain is is bar, formed into two iron
hooks, somewhat the shape of a ram's horns, from
which resemblance the name of a " ramhead " is
usually given to the double hook. The sling is not
fastened to the ramhead by the loop at the end of it,
hut at the distance of some feet from the loop the
sling is put over one of the horns of the ratuhead, and
the two parts on each side of the iron are crossed over
the other horn. BO that when the chain is hauled up
and the sling tightened the weight of the paper is
sufficient to make the rope bite ; the friction of the
two parts of the sling against each other and against
the iron is, however, the only cause for the half-hitch
not giving way. Several of the defendants' witnesses,
who had been long in the habit of raising and lowering
heavy weights, said they always adopted this p!an,
and never knew of an accident. They considered it
hail great advantage over any other mode of fastening,
because, if the rope slipped at all, it must be before
the weight was lifted, and as soon as the bite occurred,
they all agreed that if properly made the half -hitch could
not possibly slip. Notwithstanding these opinions, and
the evidence of the servants that the half-hitch
on this occasion was carefully and properly made, soon
after the weight was pushed past the trap-door and
was over the street the sling and paper fell upon and
knocked out the side of the waggon, the paper dis-
persed in all directions, and some of it struck the
plaintiff and a friend, who were walking past at the
time; the plaintiff's friend was killed by the injuries
he received, and a verdict of "accidental death" was
returned by the coroner's jury. The plaintiff himself
was for some time unconscious, and ever since has been
suffering from the consequences of the blows he re-
ceived. The medical men did not agree as to the pre-
sent condition of the plaintiff. Mr. ( 'onlsnn, Mr.
Gay, and Mr. Handslip considered I here was still
some injury to the spine, wl,ili Dr. Sa,ory and Mr.
Holmes, who had examined hini that morning, main-
tained that there wiiis no connexion between his
present complaint awl the accident.
The plaintiff was one lif the tino of Met rick and
Ford, iron-plate merchants, awl his partner being
unable to attend to the business, the illness of the
plaintiff bad been a serious pecuniary loss. The Judge,
however, ruled that this injury to the goodwill of the
firm was too retuote to be included in the present
action, and the jury returned a verdict of 1:56U.