The Sun.
London, England, 1851-08-18 00:00:00

ASSIZE INTELLIGENCE.

NORTHERN ClRCUlT.—Liverpool, Aug. 16.
Thomas Williamson, aged 40, and Thorns Egerton,
aged 41, were charged with the manslaughter of Ti-
mothy O'Neil and eight other persons, at Manchester,
on the 25th of last March.

Mr. Monk and Mr. Pollock conducted the prosecu-
tion ; Mr. Seger defended the prisoner Williamson
and Mr. Wheeler the other prisoner.
The prisoner Williamson was the proprietor of a
circular saw-mill, in Riga-street, Manchester, and
the prisoner Egerton had the management of the
steam-engine and boiler connected with the mill. It
appeared from the evidence of one of the workmen,
named David Read, that on the 25th of March last, at
two o'clock, he saw the prisoner Egerton in the en-
gine-house packing the cylinder-lid to keep it tight,
and the witness,' along with three other workmen, as-
sisted him to get the lid down, whilst Egerton screwed
it down. After this Egerton asked the witness and a
workman named Sunderland to start the engine.
They tried to move the fly-wheel with a lever, but it
would not stir, and Egerton then moved his starting-
rod and said, "I will start her whether I break aught
or naught." There did not, however, appear to be
any steam, and Egerton said, " There is no steam ; by
G---, it's a case." Immediately after the witness
heard a great noise and was knocked down ; the
building was blown down and he was in the midst of
the ruins. A little before the explosion Egerton went
to the throttle valve and tried to blow some steam into
the cylinder. No steam came, but there was a blue
glimmer in the cylinder.
Mr. Fairbairn, an engineer, who had paid much
attention to the causes of boiler explosions, said be
had examined the boiler in question after the explo-
sion ; it was 6 ft. 2 in. in diameter and made of plates
6-16ths of an inch thick. The internal flue was
raised six or seven inches above the bottom. There
were two internal stays riveted to the ends of the
boiler and to the flue. The boiler appeared to have
been well made, with the exception that there ought
to have been two more stays at each end. The opinion
he had formed of the cause of the explosion was that
the plates had been red-hot, and a portion of the in-
ternal flue not covered with water, and that this had
caused the boiler to burst from the high pressure of
the steam engend,red. The cylinder could not have
become red hot had it been covered with water. His
opinion was, from the appearance of the safety valve,
that it must either have been made fast or become so
by accident at the time of the explo,ion. It would
not matt( r how strong the boiler was if the safety
valve were fast. The boiler in question was strong
enough to generate steam for a 25-horse power engine.
The blue Token of by the last witness was
what was called "dry steam." The diameter of the
safety valve wss three inches. It would have been
better had it been of four inches diameter, but even
that would have been inoperative if weighted too
much. He had no fault to find with the weighting of
this valve; assuming that there had been a proper
supply of water, the weight would have been right.
The feed valve was a self-acting one, but no water
could get in when the engine was not at work. It
was dangerous to allow a large fire to remain under
the boiler from one o'clock to a quarter to three with-
out the engine being at work. The engineer bad the
power of
turfing water into the boiler or into A Cis.