The Sun.
London, England, 1863-09-04 00:00:00

SHELL PRACTICE AT WHITLEY.

A large party of excursionists accepted the invitation of
Sir W. Armstrong, to witness some gunnery practice with
his field guns at Whitley. The train conveying the
party consisted of 29 carriages, and owing to a consider-
able portion of the journey having to be made on the
steep ascent of the Blythe and Tyne Railway, as many
as three engines were required to take it to its destina•
tion. This was by no means an easy matter to accom-
plish, but after passing through an immense number of
points and junctions, the small village of Whitley was
finally reached. On the way the visitors passed through
a district the very roads of which seemed to be formed and
ballasted with coal, tram-roads for letting the trucks run
down to the Tyne side for loading the colliers, crossed and
recrossed the line in every direction, and at every angle ;
black collieries darkened the air with the smoke of their
furnaces, and their tall chimneys and the gaunt framework
over the pit's mouth, dotting the wide plain of country
which lies north of the Tyne, told of the extent, and almost
mapped out the boundaries of this section of the northern
coal fields. There were many of these mines to which no
small amount of interest attached. Such, for instance, as
the old Walls End Mine, once the scene of a fearful cala-
mity, the pit now worked out and full of water, and the
works above ground a desolate ruin. There was the Segbill,
and in the distance the fiery Burradon, at the latter of which
the rope broke but a few hours before, and the tubs of coal
as they were being drawn to the surface went crashing down
the deep shaft, compelling some 300 pitmen at work at the
mine to grope their way through the mine without a light
to guide them, for the gas was stored up in many an old and
abandoned working, to the shaft of the fiery Seghill mine.
But the one most desolate of all, and that to which the
saddest interest attaches, is Healey mine, the calamity con-
nected with which so recently called forth one universal
mark of sorrow at the fats of the many poor men who were
buried alive in its depths. The mine stands close by the side
of the railway, and is one of the most sombre and desolate
mines that can well be conceived. There is still to be seen
the one half of the massive beam which was left in its place
when the other portion fell into the deep pit below. I was
able to ascend to the top of the engine-house, and there is
still visible two immense cavities or flaws in the mettle
casting, to which no doubt the accident was traceable.
Below there is still the hideous shaft or pit's mouth, almost
as terrible in its operations as the well of Cawnpore. Water
has risen in the shaft till it has reached to about 70 feet
of the surface, filling of course the lower main in which
the men were at work; the yard seam to which they as-
cended in the vain hope of finding a means of escape ; and
the upper seam by which, if an access had existed, they
might all have fouad their way in safety to the pit's mouth.
Large pieces of timber, broken planks, float upon the sur-
face of the water, and far down in its depths there lie
buried the wrecks of thousands of pounds worth of pro-
perty, the half of the broken beam that caused the calamity,
and not improbably all that remains of the undestroyed
corpses of not a few brave and gallant pitmen who
I did not even succeed in reaching that upper chamber where
their comrades lay strewn in death. The sound of a stone
thrown into the shaft Plashes on tho turbid waters and
floating timbers, and gives back a dismal moan; as though
resenting the attempt to plumb its hideous depths, or dis-
turb the silent waters that cover the scene of so much deso-
lation. Here, points out an old man bowed down with grief
for his two bairns that were among the victims, was the
banks ; here the tubs were raised ; here were the screens,
and there the waggon stood that received the coal ; there
was the siding of the railway that took away the laden
trucks ; there was a long platform—not a vestige of all this
former prosperity remains. But sadder scenes than these
have passed away, and left not a trace behind. Here, said
the old man, the coffins were placed, and there stood one
who knew the pitmen well, and as each pair of corpses was
brought up in the slings called out their names, and they
were put as they were into the coffin that were made for
them, and borne away till the long line of coffins stretched
right across the platform which stood yonder—and there
stood the wives, and mothers, and children, anxious and
hoping against hope for those that would return; and
there, the wives and mothers came forward to recognise in
death those they had known and loved in life. All these,
too, have passed away, and the low square towers of the
church in the distance point to the spot where the victims
of the Hartley catastrophe lie " cairned." Some portions
of the buildings still remain standing, though most of it
has been sold and pulled down. Six out of the eight
boilers for the engine are still in their place ; they have been
sold but not yet removed ; heaps of rusty iron, broken
wheels, and heaps of brick and stone lie all around, and
complete the picture of desolation. A few young children
play about the mine which made them orphans, and widows
live in the row of pitmen's houses which look out on the
first gaunt grave of their husbands. They are all provided
for out of the funds which the generosity of a nation pro-
vided for them. The widows receive 7s 6d a week, the chil-
dren about the same sum, according to the number in a
family, and old men, who were dependent on their sons'
labour, also receive a small pittance. After providing to this
extent for the wants and necessities of the sufferers by the
Hartley calamity, there still remains a large balance in
hand, variously estimated at from £20,000 to £40,000, and
it would be very satisfactory to the public who subscribed
the funds to loam something with respect to the appropria-
tion of this sum. The universal reply to all inquiries on the
subject is that nobody knows anything about it, and a very
general wish is expressed that those who are entrusted with
ttbhoanreededounchwhdiffltoshsad,wtthheorueeslrbaaannmlangdaekeesaeosfinskthoomhretaensdt.atement as to the manner in
which they have been distributed, and what they propose
•
T Thene small village of Whitley lies upon the coast near
y m?uth, and the gunnery practice took place on the
stagurgue. ts
Tbheeintgarrwgeesptseccotinsveilsyteld,6ooof
iantaiergulofl
planking strongly supported by
and 3,000 yards. The field guns used etrieralb2e-rp 12-pounder
props.
They were arranged in
two-inch
ythirleehe,ittrdisiangsmoaniel
saabnodvektilille,
other, the lowest being
the second a little higher to the rear, and the third still
higher. The target exposed in the view of the gunners
consisted only of the upper one of the series, and the height
equal to that of the front of a column of infantry. The great
object of the practice, which was confined to shell, was to
show the destructive effects of its explo,ion upon bodies of
men even partially or wholly concealed from view, and that
the shell could be dropped upon them with almost faultless
precision and with telling effect. About 20 rounds were fired,
the first three or four merely for the purpose of getting the
of the shell could not be seen at
but as the effect .
rapidity;
range. This once obtained, the firing was continued with
disappointment was felt, and
a mile at which most of the specta-
torsll set it down as a miss; and
at every discharge one and a
the distancetoo oconsiderabledisaPPel
d see for them-
the trouble to walk up to the target an
selves, and went away believing that the whole had been
at the conclusion of the practice many who did not take
closeinspection of
the execu-
the planking showed, however, that the most seve
front
of
a moat egregious failure, and that the target was as
intact as when the firing commenced. A
tion had been made. The ground immediately in
the portions of segment filling which the shells contame
the targets was torn up by the shells as they struck, while
of the brass fazees fitted to them, and the lead and iron
casing of the shells were scattered thickly over the surface
of the tat gets. In some cases large pieces of the shell had
been forced through the first target, and then, rebound-
-1 lag, had struck the second one in the rear, and burled thP)32-