The Sun.
London, England, 1862-12-09 00:00:00

Another frightful Colliery Explosion has but
just now startled the isle from its propriety. The
lamentable tidings come to us in the midst of the
profound national solicitude felt by every English-
man for the impoverished artizans of Lancashire.
The intelligence—afflicting enough under any cir-
cumstances—cannot but be regarded as especially
deplorable, coming to our knowledge as it does
when the popular heart is softened by the realisa-
tion, to the very fullest extent, of an earnest sym-
pathy for the immense afflictions now befalling the
manufacturing population in the north-west of
England. More particularly, also, does the inti-
mation of this miserable Colliery Catastrophe strike
home to the hearts of all from the vividness of the
general recollection left behind it by that tragic
event which took place only a very few months back
down at Hartley New Colliery Pit. There—who
can readily forget it ?—the casualty that doomed
so many of our innocent fellow-creatures to a
dreadful death, arose, not as in the present
instance, from an explosion of fire-damp, but
from an accidental stoppage of an all-
important part of the machinery. The con-
sequence being simply that the single shaft
previously giving access to and egress from the
mine in question, became instantly blocked up
by the shattered ruins of the wood and iron of
which that machinery was composed—fragments
jumbled together, and firmly compacted together,
with masses of crumbling earth. So firmly com-
pacted together that the poor colliers at work far
down below in that ill-fated mine where the acci-
dent happened, were literally trapped there and
battened down beyond the reach, as the result
proved, of any timely assistance. Insomuch that
by the time—and, Oh, the hideous prdongation of
that time ! can it ever be obliterated from the popu-
lar recollection, more particularly in that most
afflicted countryside ?—by the time the obstructing
debris could be at length sufficiently broken
through to admit of one generous and brave-
hearted workman squeezing his way down the
aperture and penetrating to the subterranean scene
of destruction, not one human being amongst the
two hundred men and boys there entombed to-
gether, but had long before then breathed his last.
The lesson drawn from that dire catastrophe was
immediately appreciable. The Hartley Colliery
accident realised to every one upon the instant the
folly of working any of these " Black Holes"—in
which the labourers were otherwise liable at any
moment to be similarly entrapped—the folly of
working any of these subterranean scenes of toil
with a single shaft only, and not, as they ought in-
variably to be worked (without any one tolerated
exception to the contrary) with a pair of shafts.
The warning was fearful of its kind. Our one
consolation, in the remembrance of it, is that it has
told.

From the terrible explosion which yesterday
occurred in the St. Edmund's Main Colliery near
Barnsley, a lesson of caution of another kind has
been taught with some severity to those engaged
in the conduct or supervision of these underground
arenas of toil. How taught, and to what precise
exercise of caution—a reference to the catastrophe
of yesterday will the most readily indicate.

At seven o'clock yesterday morning an explosion.tated
took place in the Edmund's Main Colliery, situated
about midway between Barnsley and Sheffield. A
the
shot having been fired at that hour in working
in
coal ignited an issue of gas, which issue of g
its turn ignited the coal. It was what subsequently
occurred that led to the woful catastrophe upon
which we have now occasion to lament so unavail-
ingly. Notwithstanding the circumstance that the
ventilation was materially, almost, we had said,
inevitably injured by the little casualty just par-
ticularised, the colliers engaged down in the pit
to the number of 250 still remained at work—an
act of insensate folly under the circumstances.
Another explosion, it is not surprising to learn,
and this time an explosion of some violence, occur-
red at eleven o'clock in the forenoon. Then—
many of the miners left the pit r" not all et them,
observe, even then, after that startling (and violent)
explosion ! Another explosion occurring at one

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THE SUN.
LONDON, TUESDAY, DEC. 9, 1862.