The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1880-01-13 00:00:00

MORI DOD! ZS POCND.

As the days pass by the bodies of the victims of the
Tay Bridge disaster begin to rise. There were four
Tuesday. The first brought in was that of a young
man named Leslie, who was a clerk for Mr. Fleming
Wood, merchant, of Dundee, and who had been home
visiting his parents. The next was that of William
Jack, a 's assistant, of Dundee, who had also been
on a visit to friends at Dairele. Both seemed from the
appearance of the bodies to have died before entering
the water, symptoms of drowning not being apparent.
Later in the day two of the whaling boats which were
out in search of bodies came In with two more. The
first was that of Robert Watson, moulder, of Dundee,
40 years of age, who had been coming home with his
two children, neither of whom have been recovered.
He leaves a widow. The other was the body of a young
ploughman, named James Crichton, who worked with •
farmer named Bell, residing near Dundee. This young
man had obtained leave to proceed to the Fife side of
the Tay In order to attend his father's funeral. He
would in all ordinary circumstances have returned on
the Saturday, but his master told him to stay over
Sunday, so as to be company for his widowed mother.
He was returning to his place of employment when
the train went down. The general impression Is that
weeks will elapse before the majority of the bodice are
DOM

The official inquiry into the cruse of the Tay Bridge
catastrophe was resumed at Dundee, Monday, before
the Wreck Commissioner and his assessors. Several
of the witnesses examined spoke of the violence of the
wind that blew down the Tay on the evening of the
disaster; and the guard of the train that passed over
the bridge an hour before the ill-fated train, said he
noticed fire come from the wheels of one of the carriages
of his train while crossing the river. Another railway
official stated that he had been on the bridge in rough
weather when trains were paining over, but never
noticed the slightest oscillation or vibration. The Rev.
G. Grub, a Presbyterian clergyman, who crossed in the
train that immediately preceded the one which was
wrecked, said that when somebody in the ca
opened the window on the west side the effect of
wind was like an electric shock. Captain Robertson,
the harbour.m.sster at Dundee, said the gale was one
of the most violent he had experienced on the Tay.
The court adjourned. The body of David Johnston
a railway guard, was found Monday. He was proceed.
lug to Dundee to take charge of the next train for the
south.

Waddy, M.P. last evening commented an the
curious fact that, seeing the large number of Orton!tee
there are in Sheffield, the Attorney-General should
have chosen the time he did to issue his fiat for & writ
of error in reference to the Tichborne trial. The result
of the contest, however, had proved that the people of
Sheffield believed in the viewv of Mr. Gladstone, and
were opposed to those held by the present Govern-
ment.

A vigorous eampaign is about to be entered upon
for the enfranchisement of women by the time the
general election comes round.
The body et John Marshall, fireman of the lost train,
was recovered on Wednesday morning by one of the
whaling boats, and brought ashore. The body was
found 400 yards east of the bridge. The face was cut
and singed by the engine fire. A funeral service was
read the same day over the remains of David John-
stone, guard, whir to burial.
Another body has been found about a quarter of a
mile east of the third broken pier, and was immediately
identified by letters in his pockets as David Watson,
of Dundee. Deceased resided at Newport with his
mother, a widow who is heartbroken of the loss of
her only sen. The entrance to the mortuary is
besieged by bereaved friends of lost passengers. Five
more bodies have been discovered, and are landed,
making 13 in all.
That the bridge went with the train is new indubit-
able. That the first fracture took place at the fifth
pier, almost at the moment that the engine went upon
it, is as much shown by the mode in which the pairs
on that pier are described as having,7allen to east and
west. On the sixth pier the ironwork was cut off as if
with a knife. The cause was taken to be, that
breaking at the fifth pier, and weighted with a part,
at least, of the train, the girder had an impetus of
,
movement which at once swept away the connection
'at the west front. Cleanness of fracture betokens
great superiority of breaking to resisting force. There
can be no doubt that the force was greater at the
I moment of its action on the more splintered and ragged
piece,—that is supposing the strength of the piers to
be the same. We come thus very close to what a
witness must have seen, had there been one on the
spot. The practical lesson, then, is so far already
clear , that scientific inquiry most assume this form.
For how great a pressure on the upper part of the
bridge, when transferred by the leverage of the piers
to the top of the impost, was provision made? had
an iron plate been built in at the bottom of
concrete of the piers, and bolts of adequate n
made fast to this been carried up to the superstructure,
the girders could not have been blown over. From
the tenacity powered by this part of the structure it
may be possible to calculate the force of the disturbing
power. —Bai'der.
The search for the bodies of the passengers by the
train which fell over the Tay Bridge was continued on
Thursday. About fifty boats left Dundee at daybreak
and continued to drag the river until darkness set in,
the result of the day's operations being the recovery of
four bodies, making a total of eighteen. A number of
bodies were removed from the mortuary in the course
of the day for interment. At a meeting of the Dundee
, Police Commission a resolution of sympathy with the
North British Railway Company was passed, and a
hope was expressed that steps would be taken to
rebuild the bridge, which had proved of so much
advantage to the public.