The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1872-11-23 00:00:00

THE PELSALL MINE INUNDATION.

On Saturday last the scene of the distressing accident at
Pelsall was visited by a vast number of persons. The Bishop
of Lichfield was amongst those who were present, and his
lordship held a short service on the pit bank The scene is
thus described by a correspondent of the Daily News:—

With the first train this morning there arrived •
greet throng, which has continually ins:leased till by
mid-day the pit bank was densely covered, and the
fringes of the crowd extended far out into the adjacent
fields. There is a continuous influx, and before night-
fall many thousands probably will have gathered. A
more decorous crowd it is impossible to imagine. The
people stand silently and patiently gazing at the steady
movement of the pumping machinery, eager for the ripple
of a rumour from the inner ring as to the results of the
pumping. It is second nature for the pitman to hug
in his arms the brindled cross between • bulldog and •
greyhound; but to-day he takes no pleasure in his pet.
It is not because the church bells are chiming—in
strange, unwonted refrain to the measured beating of
the steam engines—that you hear not an oath or a
rough word, the awe of the calamity and sympathy for
the afflicted ones are the causes for this wondrous deco-
rum of word and deed in a Black country crowd. Men
circulate distributing tracts; at every gap the coins
are rattling into the boxes. Down in the church on the
cmimon, Dr. Selwyn, the Bishop 3f Lichfield is pray-
ing the good Lord to deliver His folk "from lightning
and tempest; from plague, pestilence and famine;
from battle and murder, and from sudden death." In
a field hard by the pie bank a Methodist preacher,
raised on an extempore platform, is preaching and
praying to a vast crowd that has gathered round.
From the dense black mass listen to the hymn that
rises heavenward in the still air of the Sabbath fore-
noon.
Out of the depths to Thee we cried,
Our voice, Lord, do Thou hear !
And to our supplication's voice
Give an attentive ear !
The words are sung with a fervour that denotes how
intensely their pregnant meaning is felt.

•
At half-past twelve the Bishop arrived at the pit-
head, and an old truck is wheeled to the summit, upon
which the Rev. Mr. Turner, curate of Pelsall, mounts,
and gives out the Hundredth Psalm. This is sung with
fervour by the nearest bystanders, in the presence of a
vast audience gathered on a natural amphitheatre formed
by the mounds of coal waste. The traction engine puffs
away in front, and the tingle of the cage bell and
the rush of the water from the tank breaks in on the
upraised voices of the multitude. The psalm being
sung, the Bishop appeals to his hearers to offer up
prayer to Almighty God for their brethren shut up in 1
the pit, "preying God, in his mercy, to give them 1
strength to enable them to endure hunger and to aid
our endeavours to rescue them from the pit."
Deep and heartfelt are the responses to this appeal,
and many an eye is wet as Bishop Selwyn offers up
the special prayer for men in danger. A few short
words of exhortation were interrupted by a cry
that the tank had fouled the side of the pit,
I one of the guiding rods having broken near
the bottom. This untoward accident came at the time
when hopes were highest that the hour of deliverance
wad at hand; and so serious was the loss of time that
many, even of the most hopeful, began to despair.
Two men were soon sent down on the tank. The broken
part of the guide rod was cut away, and a new piece
hammered into its place.
The Bishop's informal little sermon had no affect in
preventing the gearing of the tank in the drawing
shaft from getting out of order. This lengthened the
fall inside the circle on the pit bank. Mr. Ness, the
Fifeshire mining engineer, who, with his calm, Scot-
tish common-sense, has been from the first the main
motive power of the work, and who has never quitted
the pit bank day or night since it began, gets shorter
and sharper in his answers, a sure sign that he is any-
thing but gratified at the evil fortune. Still the day
is not yet lost by any means, although a gloom is ques-
tionless cast athwart it. A miner comes out of the
cabin shaking his head, and muttering ominous fore-
bodings. "Whence the despondency?" I asked
him. " The wives of the men down below have began
to eat," he says and names on. There is, it seems,
a strange old superstition among the women in
such cases that it bodes evil things if they break
their fast while as yet there may be life in the men
down below. But on the fourth day of abstinence these
women, it seems, were too soreand hungered to restrain
themselves longer from food, and the superstitious pit-
man had seen them eating and drawn his own con-

elusions. . . . .
Again the weary night closed in, and it no de-
liverance or no relief from the suspense. The dense
crowd all around thronged upon the ropes that kept
clear the little central circle. Under the gearing
stood the Bishop with a sorrowful knot of women
banging around the hovel doorway behind him.
Bravely wrought the tanks in both the pits as
the experts went away to hold a little informal
meeting in the office to decide on a pre-arranged
plan of operations, in view of the now near
future. It was settled that the very moment the
water should permit, an exploring party of pit-
men, headed by a determined mining engineer, should
hasten into the upper workings, providing there should
be no foul air fcund. In the event of there being foul
I air, which was tantamount to a certainty that there
was no life in the pit, then the air shafts should be at
once rigged and set to work. It was determined to
divide the volunteers into gangs to relieve each other,
for the sake of obtaining a measure of rest; and
Ness and Checkley volunteer simultaneously to head
the exploring party. Jnst as the gathering had dis-
persed, Starkey and another went down the drawing
pit, and having groped about in the water for some
time came to bank and reported—quietly, lest the
eroskl should become excited—that the highest bar of
the inset was visible. This meant that there was but four
feet more water to be pumped before a descent was
practicable. Then intervened another sickening delay.

Monday.
The worst is known at Pelssll (writes the same
Correspondent). At half-past seven the month of the
inset having been cleared of "black damp" by the air
troughs, an exploring party went down, consisting of
Messrs. Checkley, J. P. Baker, Lindop, and Evans.
They penetrated about twenty yards up, and then
were arrested by the sudden obliteration of the inset.
The roof had fallen in, and displaced the props
supporting it. A dead block was created through •
little natural culvert in which percolated a stream of
water. The abrupt wall of coal and clay was a stern
fact. 6111 the exploring party returned to bank with
the bad news. Old miners, who know the workings,
believe that the lapse of the roof extends for at least
eight yards, and that behind is a great damlof water. In
this case, and the belief seems feasible, the greatest
caution will have to be exercised to avert another catas-
trophe when the fall is ext.avated by the working
particle of miners. The work must take hours, it may
take days, and there may be founds mournful estisfac.
t,ion in the belief of the most experienced that the Inc.
prisoio ed twenty-two could not possibly have survived
the influx of the water beyond a few hours.
The concluding scene on the pit bank was very
affecting. Standing forward on a truck in the full
Aare of one ef the cressets, Mr. North, the engineer of
the mine, detailed the discovery made by the exploring
parties, referred to the absolute uncertainty as to the
time when the excavation could be completed, and
counselled the persons present to accept the inevitable,
once and for all, and to disperse to their homes. Then
the Rev. Mr. Turner, the curate of Pelsall, took Mr,
North's place, and said a few earnest manly words. He
bore a tribute to the zeal and energy with which all
employSe and volunteers bad worked during the four
=none days and nights that had pollard since the acci-
dent had occurred. There was an alluaionto the widows
and orphans which need not be repeated. for it. nature
will suggest itself to every reader. Then Mx. Turner
supported Mr. North's adv ice, that the on-lookers should
disperse and waste no more time over an anxiety that
must now be, undoubtedly, futile. And so men and
women in sorrowful silence turned their basks on that
weary pit-tank and wont Stasis ways. lasawsliate