The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1868-09-05 00:00:00

THE CATASTROPHE AT ABERGELE.

In the excitement attendant upon the awful catas-
trophe (remarks the Laneet) sonic expressions have
found place in the descriptions published by the daily
journals which do not appear to be exactly warranted
by the circumstances when these are examined
critically. The idea that the terrible loss of life which
occurred was due to "explosion" is not well founded.
The paraffin oil with which the run-away trucks were
loaded is not, at least in the liquid form an explosive
material. It is highly combustible, and whoa ignited,
as it doubtless was by the fire of the engine with which
it came in iintact, it woeld burn is ith terrible
, rapidity. But had the material been really ex-
-1 plii,ice, instetil id a few carriages with their inmates
being consumed, the whole train must have been
shattered to pieces. Various explanations have been
hazs riled in regard to the absent'e ef cries f 4' help from
the carriages, and the fact that no effort seems to
have been made by any one passenger to escape from
the burning vehicles. It has been suggested by some
that the inmates were stunned by the concussion ;
by others that they were instantaneously rendered
insensible by the anaesthetic properties of the vapour
from the oiL We do not think that the circumstances
can be altogether explained in either of these ways.
In even very violent collisions it has never been the
case that all the inmates of the first few carriages have
been no stunned by the concussion as to be incapable
of an effort at self-preservation, and it has often hap-
pened that, the whole force having been spent in
breaking up carriages, as occurred in this instance,
the passengers have escaped with very little injury.
There must, then, have been other causes in operation.
The passengers here were grouped into two portions,
those who were consumed to ashes and those who
escaped comparatively unhurt. We must, therefore,
necessarily look upon the presence of the paraffin oil
WI the essential cause of the exceptional horrors
which marked this railway arc dent. It has been
suggested that the unhappy victims were thrown
at the outset into a state of anmstheaia. Of the
anmsthetic properties of the vapour of paraffin oil there
can be no doubt. The oil is a highly complex and
somewhat variable mixture of volatile hydrocarbons,
and though this mixture has probapy never been
, directly tested, some ot its constituents undoubtedly
belong. to the class of anmsthetics. Amylene, for
ex mple, is a well-recognised minimr of the class, and
autylene is a very common, if not a constant, con-
stituent of the oil. So far, then, probabilities appear
in favour of the hypothesis ; but without venturing to
dogmatise upon so oifficult a subject, we are ci impelled
to think that these probabilities diminish on a closer
examination. A etioeful consideration of the circum-
stances appears to us to indicate that the ignition of
the highly inflammable fluid must have - followed
almost instantly upon the collision, and, consequt n-ly
that the unfortunate creatures must, has e been stir' 1
rounded by a sheet of thine long before anaesthesia
could posaibly have been produced. West they then
breathed was not the mere vapour of the vo'atile
hyilioicarbons, but a torrent 14 black smoke, charged
perhaps to sons' extent with hydrocarbi in vapour, but
deadly from its temperature, and from the pro meta of
combustion of which it mainly consisted. Carbonic
acid, and the still more poisonous carbonic oxide, are
mine likely to have been the noxious agents than the
vapours ot the oil. They must have been present in 1
far lar.er quantity, and are much more intense and .
rapid in their effects. It was probably asphyxia, in
tine, not ameethesia, which cut short the sufferings of
the victims. But this is not all. The cause of
death, and the explanaiion of the horrible silli-
ness which characterized the inmates of the lead-
, ~ , • carriages, may be reasonably a.scribed, we
, olUilt, in some cases, to the shawls which the
militia expeaure of the entire Indy to gnaw would in.