The Sun.
London, England, 1862-04-23 00:00:00

YORK RACES, THIS DAY.

Catspaw
Helwith
Glautius

Seven ran.

THE GAS EXPLOSION IN HOLBORN.

The investigation, by the coroner, Mr. St. Clair Bedford,
into the circumstances attending the deaths of Edward

Rowley and John Morrissey commenced this afternoon at
Kinz's College Hospital.
Michael Neal, labourer, who said-1 was working with
deceased when the accident occurred. I met a plumber,
who appeared very much confused. I said to him, " You've
done this," and he said "Yes, I know I've done rt." I don't
know the man's name. I went up to the spot when the
ganger (Bashford) asked if any one could give him an ac-
count of hcw it was done, and I told him the plumber had
done it. The plumber was at work at the water pipes. We
had broken the water pipes in opening the ground, arid he
was making them good. There was one broken near the
spot when the gas main burst. The plumber had a red
hot iron in his hand when I saw him. He was about 40
or 50 yards from where the explosion occurred. I have
known plumbers' work done while gas repairs have been
going on. I don't think there's danger in it, but in this
instance I suppose the bladder that was in the main got
tapped.
Edward Lee—l am a plumber, and was engaged by Mr.
Smith, who had a contract with the London Gas Company.
I was engaged to repair the broken water pipes. I did
not notice any escape of gas prior to the accident. I was
working directly behind where the first explosion took
place. I was using a hot irsn soldering a joint. I might
have caused the explosion. There was first a flash as if
from a gun, and the next instant there was a report. I
smelt nothing before the explosion. I looked up at my end
of the pipe to see what damage was done, when I heard the
report at the other end of the pipe. If the hot iron would
cause the explosion then I might have occasioned the acci-
dent, but I can't say decidedly that I did. I know Neal.
I met him after the accident. He said, pcinting to the hot
iron I had in toy hand, "That's done it. Down on your
knees and thank God you're safe."
After the examination of the house surgeon of the hos-
pital and the consulting engineer of the Commercial Gas
Company,

The jury, after a short consultation, returned a verdict
of accidental death.

711 E I? AIN B 0 Tir OF THE COVEN iNT.

I begin to wonder who was the first man to ana-
yse the rainbow and arrive at a clear idea of the
causes which combine in its production. The falling
shower and the direct light of the sun or moon
must, from the first unfolding of this wondrous
revelation, have been seen to be its primary ele-
ments. The allegory of the winds, in the twenty-
third book of the Iliad, indicates more than a super-
ficial knowledge of this grand phenomenon, and
Virgil, in the 2Eneid, almost antedates the philoso-
phy of Descartes and Newton, and Martial was not
far from a scientific definition. Aristotle believed
himself to be the first who had seen a lunar rain-
bow, the loveliest of all aerial spectacles, except on
those rare occasions, when the aurora borealis dis-
plays its darting flashes, ruby and emerald, and
amethyst, in this climate. But Pliny knew almost
as much as we do about it—certainly as to its
primal causes—as he expresses it " Quod ergo iris
sit refractio aspectus eat ad solem manifestum est,"
and Plutarch cites it as an index of the knowledge
•of his time. Whatever may have been the thoughts
of Adam, when the sunshine first resolved into
prismatic colours, in an arch expanding over the
region of the happy garden, those of Noah might
well be more profound, for the rainbow became a
part of his life, and through him a pledge of divine
mercy to the end of the world. "I do set my bow
in the clouds"—marvellous utterance of a Father
considerate of His children's feathers. Those words
possess me, as I look out over the grey sky where
the rainbow glowed a few minutes since, and they
seem to me to have all the force of an authority for
research into the mind of God, the mind of man,
and the ways of nature. The cause of the awful
devastation of the globe is for ever rendered beau-
tiful ; the descending shower, which for forty days
continued to submerge the offenders against divine
justice, seems to be woven into a robe of divers
colours, and made pre-eminently beautiful, that they
may henceforth cease to inspire dread. The fleecy
clouds that held me in listless reverie half-an-hour
since, and that are now dimming into ashy hues,
seem to be impressed with similar evanescence and
unsubstantiality, that man may look upon them
henceforth as his friends, that once were the de..
stroyers of his race. And how deep a hold has that
post-diluvian rainbow taken of the mind of man. It
must be records of that fact we find cropping out in
the old mythologies, as in the carrying of the rain-
bow-coloured fans in the procession of Alpis ; and
the combination of the rainbow and the dove in
hieroglyphics and mythological rites. Briant cites
the names of the two attendants on Cleopatra,
Eiras, and Charmion, as the Rainbow and the
Dove, as indicating the priestly office, and bring-
ing down to a later epoch in Egyptian his-
tory a remembrance of the circumstances
under which the earth was again peopled. The
rainbow was certainly the most renowned of Arkite
emblems, and. I know not why Hesiod should
designate it " The Great Oath," except through the
prevailing power of a tradition, divine in its origin.
As such, Homer knows it well, and, in accordancel
with established usage in the ancient world, he calls
it, in a hymn to Selene, the sign and intimation attamint b(o f
divine promise) to mortals. The
appeal
the deity as something superior toth
con
gods is characteristic of Hesiod, who describes Iris
sedarTy
as the servant Jove, who fetches
na frome makingafar, in
her a
golden cup, the waters of many names,
the representative of covenant purification.andofthe
Osiris entering the ark, Deucalion reproving
surrounded,lawlessness ofNcu
then a men s
s f c
violenceibn the temple, are
ywhom he
was
but versions of a history, of which the heavens bear
the best secular memorial, after the special and
ano a
divine record given for "our edification." But did
Noah understand the purport of the rainbow, as a
key to the mysteries of man's relations to the divine
essence P We know not, but it is a key for all that :
and herein we see how the discoveries of science
lend a help to theology,
and indicate truths that lie
at the foundation of
ail harmonies, both of matter
and spirit.—Ribberd's "Brambles and BayLeares: