The Express.
London, England, 1862-12-12 00:00:00

HIGH WATER AT WNDON lIBIDGL

61s:154:T.aithoh000.5h. 46m.
1.,-Nowtow—Mcening. 60. las.....Aliorcooo. 61%. 2.566.

LONDON, FRIDAY, DECEMBER 12.

THE silence of our gloomy winter of distress has
already been more than once broken by the cry of
sudden and mortal agony, as the night that settles
upon a battle-field is lit by the fitful flash of the
guns that still belch forth their random death. We
may not, indeed, hope that the order of nature
will change even in presence of our dire affliction,
nor look for immunity from other perils because
of the huge calamity that broods over our northern
hearths. Yet while such is the lesson that expe-
rience teaches, and while reason tells us that, beside
the (sufferings which thousands are, despite our
outstretched hands of aid, hourly undergoing, the
sudden misery which has fallen upon half a hun-
dred families is but a small addition to the mass of
wretchedness, it is not in human nature to help
being struck with almost rebellious horror when
we read of such incidents as that which bas just
desolated a mining village h Yorkshire. Out of
two hundred and thirty strong men who
went out to their work in the morning, fifty-
five perished ere noon, and the list of wounded
is still each day yielding additional numbers to
the list of dead. Some were struck down at
once by the explosion, or by its fiery after-blast ;
some sank stupefied beneath the influence of the creep-
ing poison in the air ; some, as at the Hartley Pit,
just a year ago, though mercifully with • shorter
interval of suspense, cut off from safety by the
deadly wall of vapour, were heard by their com-
rades through the transparent but impassable veil
praying fervently, as men who knew that within
an hour they should stand before the Judgment-
seat. Of theme who escaped, and of those who
strove to rescue, tales that move the blood with
scarce feebler emotion are told. Some who es-
caped speak of a presentiment of impending peril, I
and of anxious prayers for Divine protection; of •,
pillar of smoke before which they fled while yet'
unaware of danger, and of safety just secured where
an instant's delay would have been fatal. Fathers
were heard in the impenetrable darkness, from
which they never emerged, shouting cautions
to their sons who were nearer to the
place of rescue. Oa the bank there
was such a scene as never fails to be witnessed
where Englishmen are called on for succour.
Women were wringing their hands as load after
load ascended without bringing the loved ones ;
the time was short, for a new and more terrible
explosion from which there could be no escape was
known to be at hand, when a cry arose for volun-
teers to go down and help the wounded. Calmly,
in their order as they stood, overseers and men,
grisly veterans and beardless striplings, took off
their jackets and went down into the jaws of
death. It was death indeed, for the explosion
came and their bodies sleep with their comrades in
the earth. Who shall pity them T They died as
men should long to die, doing their duty, helping
their fellows, thinking nothing of themselves. No
nobler death, in man's sight, is chronicled than
that of these colliers of Edmond's Main—surely
not many more worthy, we may humbly hope, in
their Maker's eye.

Such is the outline of the tragedy. We are
still so far uninformed of reliable details as to be
scarce in a position to judge accurately of its
causes. It is said that, iu carrying on the works
destined to connect the pit with a new shaft, a
body of coal was encountered unusually charged
with inflammable gas, and that imprudently the
blasting of it by gunpowder was allowed. It ap-
pears undoubted that such was, in fact, the origin
of the first explosion, the effects of which led to
the subsequent explosions ; but it is as yet impo..-
aible to say whether there was culpable impru-
dence in using or permitting the use of gunpowder
in such a situation. These questions will no doubt
be elucidated by the practical and scientific evidence
before the coroner's jury; and as it is obvious that
in a case of this nature the due precautions are
matter of opinion, and the danger or
safety a question always of degree, it is
needful to suspend our judgment till the
facto aro completely before us. It is said also
that there was negligence in not warning the men
in the remoter parts 3f the pit of the consequences
which resulted from the first explosion, so that
they might at once have left off work. The result
no doubt has shown that here also there was
imprudence, but we must consider the question as
it appeared before the consequences were known.
It would seem that there was no expectation enter-
tained of there being any difficulty in confining the
fire to the place of its origin and speedily extinguish-
ing it. There were materials at hand for building it
up, and the ventilation of the pit was so good that
there was no apprehension of a dangerous accumu-
lation of firedamp. There was certainly in this
an error of fact, and it may be proved that there
was also an error of judgment, but as those who
directed the work to be thus done were some of
the principal authorities in the mine, and them-
selves perished from the subsequent explosion,
there appears ground for believing thatpoasibly it may
be estabt;:ued that the errr was unnatural
isionsable. It is at present at least (elite i
in the limits of reasonable expectation that it
turn out that the first explosion had so far