The Sun.
London, England, 1864-10-19 00:00:00

,t Purfleet,

Just now public attention is keenly directed to a
thorough examination of the conditions under which
powder is stored in Government and private maga-
zine s, and the precautions which are or ought to be
take a to mitigate the risk with which the mere prea
Bence. of these tremendous mines threatens whole
districts. That great good will ultimately arise
from this investigation cannot be doubted for a
motaent, and if the evidence given at the Belvedere
inquiry as to the neglect of proper care in Mr
Hall's magazines is to be relied on, the public can.
not be too earnest in their efforts for complete and
searching inquiry. At any rate, the question has
not been of their raising, but has, on the contrary,
been forced on their attention in the most terrible
manner possible. The appalling proofs of the ex-
plosion spread far and wide round Erith show the
danger in which the inhabitants have lived, and the
evidence given at the inquiry shows them also the
hourly peril in which they must be content to dwell
for the future, unless these terrible storehouses are
better built and better regulated than they seem to
have been in the case of the magazines on Erith
marshes. We do not for a moment entertain the
belief that it will ever be possible to do away with
powder magazines, and magazines, too, containing
vast stores of powder collected on one spot. Bread
is not more necessary to our individual life than
gunpowder is to our national. Good powder is only
to be got from England. Oar export trade of this
explosive material is larger than that of all the rest
of the world, while, peaceful people as we are, our
annual consumption in fleets, forts, and colonies is
almost as great as that of all the rest of Europe
put together. But we apprehend that those who
have been ruined round Erith would not for a
second deny the necessity for large powder maga.
zines ; and as a rule powder when in the magazines
is in the safest place which experience or human
ingenuity can devise to store it. It is from powder
in transit that all the danger really arises• it is the
lax state of the law as to powder barges, or what
are used as much—the lax state of the law as to what
number of barrels they shall carry, and se hat re-
gulations shall be enforced as to lights and fires on
board, which not only endangers the magazines to
which they are bound, but actually perils the very
existence of the metropolis itself in their passage up
the Thames. The inquiry into the general manage-
ment of those powder barges of private firms cannot
be too searching, nor the regulations under which
in future the perilous traffic should be carried on
too strict or too rigidly enforced.
Since the disaster at Erith a great deal has been
said as to the general management of the Govern-
ment magazines at Purfleet, and all sorts of states
ments have appeared as to the quantity of powder
which is kept there, and the risks to which it is
exposed. We propose, therefore, to give the public
a plain account of how Purfleet is managed and
what it contains. If, on the one hand, we state that
the powder stored there is enormous—enough in
quantity to appal the boldest when they think of
the chances of accident—on the other hand, we shall
be bound to admit that everything which the ex-
perience of a century, the progress of science, and
even imaginative and over-scrupulous fears can sug-
gest in the way of precaution should be adopted. If
over Purfleet blows up—and if it does London will
be the first to know it—the accident will not be
caused by Purfleet proper, but will be due to some
one or other of the barges always landing or receive
ing powder there. The quantity of powder that
blew up at Erith the other day was less than 1,000
barrels, or short of 50 tons. The quantity that
Parllset stores is 52,000 barrels, or two thousand
three hundred tons. It is not the largest magazine
in the kingdom. There is another, within four
miles of one of our most important seaport towns,
which stores nearly four thousand tons. This latter,
however, is a mere surplus storehouse, which is
rarely opened—a vault where the powder is en-
tombed and carefully guarded. Another, which we
have no scruple in mentioning, for its situation is a
disgrace to the Admiralty—Upnor Castle—contains
some 1,500 or 1,600 tone of powder. Sheerness and
Chatham, with their foes and dockyards, would
cease to be even geographical expressions if any-
thing went wrong with the constantly opened ma-
gazine which is in their midst under Upnor Castle.
There are other magazines, too, in different parts of
the kingdom, which are as large as Purfleet; but
these are mere magazines—I. e., storehouses, which
are seldom opened or required but in time of war.
The importance of Par flset consists in its being the
great receiving house where every atom of powder
used by the Government—whether made at their
own works at Waltham Abbey, or privately at
Dartford, Faversham, and Hounslow—is landed,
examined, tested, and if approved, passed into store,
and if rejected returned at once to the bargee. Thus
in the ordinary fulfilment of its duties not a day
passes without the magazine being open—scarcely
a day in which it has not been either to test, receive,
or send away loads of powder. When first esta-
blished, a century ago, the magazine was isolated
from everything. Now there is a village close to it,
and beautiful villas are scattered over the country
around it far and near. The ground occupied by the
Government is about 25 acres, and this is mostly
moated round and walled and rewalled in almost
a series of concentric circles about the magazines.
There is a permanent guard of two officers and
80 men, with a large staff of watchmen, coopers,
storekeepers, overseers, clerks, eze. , all of whom
with their wives and families live within the walls
in the "garrison," as it is termed. Every one, no
matter how remotely connected with the works in
this part of the garrison, even the tailor who makes
the flannel dress, and the shoemaker who stitches
the soft leather shoes to be worn in the magazine, is
on the staff, and has to conform to the rules of being
within the walls before 9, and having all lights and
fires out in the quarters by 10 30. Yet, large as is this
staff, the "powder men," the actual workers in the
magazines, are only 19 in number, and all these are
the sons, and, in some cases, the grandsons of those
who first worked here. They have lived among
powder all their lives, and are familiar with every
thing but its explosive character, for at Purfleet, as
at all Government magazines, there has never been
an accident. The first accident here would be the
last, and would lay half Kent, Middlesex, and
Surrey in ruins. The visitor who is fortunate enough
to obtain the rarely accorded permission to inspect
these magazines is taken charge of by no less a per•
son than the chief of the establishment, Mr Cleeve,
whose vigilance regards even a visitor as a possible
source of danger, and therefore to be intrusted to no
hands save his own. Passing through the sentries
and a series of doors you come to one at which the
watchman is on duty, which admits to a small turfed '
enclosure between high walls, where asentry is pace
ing on a little strip of asphalte laid in the grass.
This is the last of the sentries, for near at hand
is themagazine ground, where, to the cautious
eyes of the powder-men, a sentry with his steel
equipments would be regarded with as much
favour as a bonfire. Beyond the sentry is a
small cooperage which leads to a long, low,
narrow room with a wooden partition, about 2
feet high, running across the floor, separating one
end from the other. At the end you enter hang
workmen's clothes and shoes; at the other be-
yond the partition, which is magazine ground,
nothing but flannel dresses and soft leather shoes
aro kept. At the farther end of the room you leave
your walking-stick or umbrella, or knife, or any-
thing that is of iron or steel. Here, too, for the
s nee reason you pull off your boots, and in case of
mud or grit being on your dress have furthermore to
clothe yourself in a loose flannel blouse and trousers.
Then only do you step over the partition to put on
a
pair of the soft stitched leather boots. Having
thus fulfile a
Lall the strict conditions which the
duty of the " clothesman" imposes on you, he opens
the last door all, which admits you to a spacious
grass-grown enclosure, crossed in all directions with
little wooden pathways,
and in the centre of which
ntand five large, low bitn d-looking buildings. They
have its windows but many lightning conductors ;
all their doors are open, and you can just see
through the half gloom the
great tiers of powder
barrels stacked in blocks like gi •
gentle wine bins.
Nothing strikes the visitor more than the silence of
this place. The 19 powder-men empleyett here are
all busy, for at the wharf in front of the megazines
unloaded,
one vessel has to be loaded, and another