The Sun.
London, England, 1870-06-28 00:00:00

STEAM-BOILER EXPLOSIONS.

The Select Committee on Steam-boiler Explosions met
again yesterday morning, Mr. Hick in the chair.—Mr.
Fletcher, the secretary of the Manchester Steam-Users
Association, continued his evidence, and said the
average number of boiler explosions was 50 per
annum, sacrificing 75 lives. He advised periodical inspec-
tion by a competent authority, no boiler being allowed to
be used unless the owner could produce a certificate. What
he wanted was to combine local inspection and central
authority. ''The greatest difficulty was where the boilers
were too small for a man to get inside them, but he would
still have them inspected as far as possible. In reply to
Sir T. Bazley, the witness said he thought a national system
of inspection would be the best as there would be so much
diverse action with local boards, The Central Board
should meet four times a year, its officers being always at
work. He believed there were from 40,000 to 50,000
steam users in the kingdom. He thought the insurance
principle tended rather to promote than to prevent explo-
sions. The company would be better off in paying the loss
occasioned by explosions than by g ring to the cost of in-
spection. The Insurance Company last year left 5,000
boilers wholly unexamined.—Mr. Penn, C.E., practical
engineer, was then called, and said the inalconstruction of
the safety valves was one cause of boiler explosions, one
which inspection would prevent. He was in favour of
periodical compulsory inspection which would certainly
reduce explosions to a minimum. He had often inspected
boilers, and was convinced that regular inspection was
the only way to prevent explosions. This being all
the evidence to-day, the committee remained in delibe-
ratiDn.

SPIRIT. OF THE PRESS.
THE EARL OF CLARENDON.

Lord Clarendon (remarks the Times) was a man such
as the highest type of official life in England produces.
He was one who was trained in public employments, not
one of those who rise irregularly to greatness by success in
Parliament. One of his greatest achievements was the
government of Ireland at the time of the troubles of
1848. At that conjuncture there may not have been
more danger than during the late Fenian conspiracy,
but there was undoubtedly more alarm. This was
caused by the crash of thrones all over the Continent,
the outburts of Socialist passion in the great cities of
Europe, and also by the attitude of our own English
democracy, which was then very bitter, vicious, and
destructive. It was imagined by many who were by no
means alarmists that the State would have at
once two hostile classes on its hands, one in
each island, and that these would be supported by foreign
sympathy, if not by something more. Lord Clarendon
never lost his head for Ireland.. He was never frightened,
and consequently he was never cruel. He brought the
offenders one after another to justice, and amid all the
menaces of the time the juries duly convicted them, and
they were removed from the place where they were dan-
gerous.
Writing of the deceased nobleman, the Telegraph says
that he was credited by those who knew little of him with
great diplomatic finesse; but the true secret of his success
in politics was that he was a thoroughly earnest and
good-hearted man. What superficial observers considered
suavityprepense was really the outcome of a natural kindli-
ness of disposition. Although a man of really powerful
understanding, yet, judged by his intellectual achieve-
ments, he was not great ; but he was, in every sense of
the term, alarge-hearted man. He was never little, never
mean. He had no petty pride, no small punctilios, no
minute affectation. He was an English gentleman in the
simplest and purest significance.
The Standard says the Earl of Clarendon may well be
mourned for himself. There will be many who will even
more keenly regret his death because it removes the one
link which connected the present Government with the
old and great Whig party. The death of the Earl of
Clarendon leaves that party unrepresented in
the Cabinet, anal signifies the complete triumph
in the Liberal party of that new school which
would get rid of a Foreign Minister altogether as a
dangerous person, which declaims against secret diplomacy
and the cost of diplomatic missions. Lord Clarendon
must be deeply regretted by all men as an able and honest
public servant. His loss must be even more keenly felt
when it is remembered that with him will probably die
out in the Liberal party, and in the Government of Eng-
land, so long as that party engrosses it, the rules and the
traditions wnich have hitherto governed the conduct of
our relations with foreign powers.