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

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THE SUN.

LONDON, TUESDAY, DEC. 9, 1862.

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 P—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 proongation of
that time! can it ever be obliterated from the popu-
lar recollection, more particularly in that most
afflicted countryside P—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
took place in the Edmund's Main Colliery, situated
A
about midway between Barnsley and Sheffield.
shot having been fired at that hour in working the
coal ignited an issue of gas, which issue of gas in
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—
a many of the miners left the pit :" not all of them,
coainnaiole
one
explosion ! Another explosion observe, even then, startlingafteerxthpataionur
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......... mmmm ~...mg . .. .M.m...... ~...---
o'clock in the afternoon of yesterday—from
fifty to sixty :.colliers were then in the pit!
" All efforts to reach them have failed,"
says the telegram from Worsborough Dale,
under date eleven o'clock last night—" and
all have no doubt perished!" It is added, "The
pit is on fire, and preparations are being made to
flood it with water." Preparations indicative that
those in authority down there regard as utterly be-
yond all hope of redemption from death the fifty
or sixty poor fellows thus doomed to fearful destruc-
tion. A few of the unhappy creatures who had
been drawn to the surface within the interval of

time which elapsed between the two serious
explosions particularised, are described as having
been so frightfully mutilated that they expired soon
afterwards in great agonies. If but the timely
warning given by the first casualty at 7 a.m., and
by the first violent explosion at 11 a.m. had been
obeyed, nothing of these miserable scenes of death
and bodily suffering need have occurred—anguish
of this bitter kind need not have been brought
home, in this way, to the humble and aMicted
homes of these poor miners near Barnsley. Due
discretion was manifestly not exercised.
Once the ventilation of a coal-pit has
become injured, the colliers engaged at
work within it at the time ought, in
obedience to the dictates of common sense, to be
drawn from their perilous plight until the damage
has been repaired. The doing this would almost
seem to be the following of a simple instinct. Yet,
for all that, the double warning yesterday—visible
in the ignited coal at seven o'clock in the evening,
audible in the violent explosion which took place
at eleven o'clock in the forenoon—passed by un-
heeded. Two hundred and fifty miners were left
below in the first instance. Fifty or sixty in the
second. Another and final explosion at one in the
afternoon sounded at length, for the latter, the
signal of their destruction. The whole pit was soon
in conflagration, and the flooding of the mine the
last resource left as a means to be employed for
terminating this terrific catastrophe.
Now, precisely as the Hartley Colliery catas-
trophe taught those entrusted with the manage-
ment of coal mines, the absolute and im-
perative necessity of no longer continuing
the single shaft system but substituting for
that system the rational sy stem of working
every mine with a pair of shafts—so distinctly
also ought the destructive explosion which took
place yesterday between Barnsley and Sheffield in
the Edmund's Main Colliery, to teach them for once
and for all the equally imperative necessity of clear-
ing the mine of colliers so soon as the ventilation of
it has at any time become visibly and audibly im-
paired. It requires no scientific knowledge, not
even a smattering of it, to arrive at this conclusion.
We are led to it directly and irresistibly by consi-
derations of the homeliest common sense description.

Greece we look at with quiet wonder, only
shrugging our shoulders a little to think how com-
pletely patronising Russia and enlightened France
must wonder—the one at the ingratitude, the other
at the want of taste, in the Hellenes. America we
look at with Pharasaic complacency, and thank
HEAVEN that we are not, as the Americans are,
slaveholders, negro haters, Republicans, Democrats,
or perhaps, even as ABE LINCOLN or the horrid
Abolitionists. But we can look with no such
quiet surprise or complacency at our " garotters,"
of whcse feats we expect to see some story in
every newspaper we open. Garotters we call them
for brevity, though strangulation of their victim is
but one of their modes of disabling him, and
Robbery with Violence is the only distinction
Baron BRAMWELL could make between the deeds
of the now prominent class of villains, and the
rogues who plunder you by all kinds of stratagems.

The distinction is one indeed of the highest
significance. We had long and patiently endured
all kinds of pocket-picking, seizure of parcels and
reticules and running off with them, losses in a
crowd, if we choose to hazard our property in such
a position, and petty pilfering in shops and else-
where. Even housebreaking was borne with com-
parative magnanimity, the cases being rare indeed
in which any attempt was made on life,
unless you ventured your life in defence
of your property. But now we are all
aroused by the fear of violent personal attacks in
places and from persons whom we should the least
suspect. No doubt many stories find their way
even into print, which are gross exaggerations or,
in some instances, mere fictions ; but the recent trials
and sentences are proofs sufficient that they are but
that fringing of rumour which is always sure to
accompany alarming facts. Only a few nights ago
a gentleman, whom we personally know, had
nearly reached his own door early in the evening,
in Highbury New Park, when he saw a man com-
paring the address on a letter with the numbers on
the doors. Not at all suspecting such an appear-
ance he passed the man to his own door, and was
immediately knocked down by a violent blow on
the back of his head with some weapon which cut
it deeply, causing considerable effusion of blood.
Happily he was not rendered unconscious, and when
the man saw him spring up and run to the bell of
his own door, he, as our American friends say,
" skedaddled," and no more was seen of him. The
case of course never appeared in the papers, though
the violence was such that our friend kept his bed
for days; and we mention it as an illustration of
what we believe to be the truth, that the un-
recorded cases, even bad ones, considerably out-
number the fictitious ones, and that the alarm
therefore is not properly a panic, but too reasonable
a feta., that when we least expect it we may suffer
the most brutal violence, for the chance of getting
possession of our watch or a few shillings. The
loss is bad enough; we are indignant when we
suffer it from a rogue's dexterity, half blam-
ing ourselves all the time for not being as
shrewd-as the thief was ingenious; but to be
attacked in a way against which we have no chance
of protecting curselves, to be not merely outwitted,
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All sorts of exhortations are freely proffered, one
in a well-known weekly, that we should all place
ourselves under the training of prizefighters. But
of what earthly use would it be to have the strength
and muscles of a HEENAN or SAYERS, if attacked
from behind with a loaded weapon, as in the case
mentioned above, when you least expected it. We
are told to keep the middle of the road, and also to
keep a good look-out; but all this would not avail
us in some localities, and these too of most respectable
character. Indeed, a man would need eyes in the
back of his head to be on his guard against the
cowards whom you would perhaps be but too happy
to meet fairly and openly. Pending the suppression
of this intolerable nuisance, nothing of course can
be done but for every one to take care of himself
as best he can; indeed the community seems to
think so, for the sale of deadly weapons has been
enormous within a very short time. Yet nothing
can be more undesirable than that persons pre-
viously unskilled in the use of pistols, bowie knives,
sword sticks, and. even life-preservers, should be
using theta freely in the public streets. One shud-
ders to think f
0, the accidents which might happen