The Sun.
London, England, 1867-11-22 00:00:00

BIRMING HAM.

Some of the members of the Birmingham Re-
form League have been doing their best to get up a
disturbance in that town by an endeavour to excite
sympathy with the Fenian convicts, in which last,
however, they have utterly failed. They called a❑
open-air meeting for Wednesday night at 7 o'clock,
for the purpose of adopting a memorial to Govern-
ment to commute the sentence on these convicts.
In an anonymous advertisement the people were
urged to " come in their thousands." At the hour
named some 400 or 500 persons (chiefly youths) as-
sembled, and Mr. J. A. Partridge. a member of
the Reform League, was called upon to preside. A
man named Nuttall, also a member of the League,
moved the adoption of a memorial, but he was
not listened to, and was interrupted by cries of
1" Hang 'em, " &c. Confusion and disorder

followed, and the meeting broke up at eight
o'clock, not more than a score or two of hands
being held up in favour of the memorial. A
portion of those assembled then marched through
the streets ; in the llorsefair they raised a cry of
" Cheap bread," and smashed the windows of a
baker's shop, as it appeared, with no other design
than mischief. Thence they proceeded to St. Al-
ban's Church (ritualistic), where they smashed the
vestry windows and tore up a portion of the pali-
sades, at the same time shouting, "Down with
Father Pollock." In this case, again, it was chiefly
youths who did the mischief, and they soon fled on
the arrival of the police. That the affair did not
assume dimensions of any importance may be esti-
mated from the announcement in one of the local
papers " that no arrests were made."

THE FERNDALE EXPLOSION,

MKRTHYR TYDFIL, Wedneiday Night.

The bodies which had been cut off from the ex-
ploring parties on Thursday last by a sudden fall
were reached on Tuesday morning by the workmen
under Mr. H. Kirkhouse, and on that day about 20
were recovered and sent to the bank. They were
there seen by their friends, and after identification
by means of the clothing taken to the mountain
churchyard for interment. A few of them were
taken to Merthyr and Aberdare and still more dis-
tant places for burial. Men from the remotest cor-
ners of England have been killed by this explosion,
among the missing being some men from Derby-
shire and two or three from Yorkshire. Parents
walked the distance from Herefordshire and Wor-
cestershire to the pit in search of their children.
One of them was a poor woman who arrived on
Sunday; the sympathetic bystanders made a col-
lection for her on the spot. The incidents which
have come under the notice of the mining engineers
in the pit are very affecting, and, could space be
devoted, would doubtless be read with interest.
One of them can hardly be passed over. A father
and son were found locked in each other's arms.
So firmly were they clinging to each other, and
with such rigidity, that the arms had to be broken
before they could be separated. This was related by
one of the engineers now in charge of a working
party.

On Saturday something like organisation. in con-
ducting operations below the surface was made, and
four gentlemen—Mr. Richd. Bedliugton, of Rhym-
ney ; Mr. llarrison, of Dinas ; Mr. Morgan Joseph,
Treherbert ; and Mr. Herbert Kirkhouse, of Aber-
dare—were placed in charge of the pit to relieve each
other once in 36 hours. Besides them several other
engineers have been at work at the head of work-
men frost their own pits, and it is worthy of remark
that the Ferndale men have demonstrated the most
decided hostility to the strangers who have come to
their assistance, an open fight having been appre-
hended at one time. They seem anxious to do all
the work themselves. After the removal of the
great fall of Thursday, which was accomplished by
Tuesday morning, the recovery of bodies proceeded
rapidly. Twenty were brought up during that day,
and during last night and to-day 23 others have
been brought out dead, and 148 fatal casualties,
three of the injured having died. The bodies when
got at in the pit are so far advanced in decomposi-
tion that they cannot be lifted from the ground, and
arc consequently rolled into canvas and packed up
mummy fashion, in which state they have to: be
dragged over falls—a series of miniature hilly ridges
—to the tramways. Notwithstanding the free use
of powerful disinfectants and an incessant supply of
over 100,000 cubic feet of air per minute to the
workings, yet in the front where the bodies are
found the stench was so intolerable that some of the
workmen were obliged to abandon the work for a
time.

During the clearance of the falls a considerable
number of lamps were found with their tops off,
but in a condition as would be altogether incom-
patible with the supposition that the tops had been
blown off by the explosion, and three or four lamp
keys were also found. The introduction of these
was contrary to the rules of the pit, and, to show
that there was rigid inspection of the miners some-
times before they went down, an instance has been
found of a collier sewing a lamp key inside his cap.
The cap was found among rubbish with a key fas-
tened to the crown inside, and was to be seen as
found at the office to-day.
The exact number of persons missing from the
houses at Ferndale appears to be 170, but there is
some doubt as to whether there may not have been
some men down the pit who have not been inquired
for. Certain it is that sonic bodies have been
buried as unknown. Two were so taken away to-
day, after lying a couple of days exposed to public
view.

As may be expected, the effluvium of the decom-
posing bodies is all pervading, and everything
around the pit throws off the noisome odour. Dis-
infectants were freely distributed among the houses
where the dead bodies lay last week, and now the
whole of the buildings about the pit have been
covered with gas tar, which, from the presence of
carbolic acid, is a powerful disinfectant. It has un-
doubtedly contributed much to the purification of
the atmosphere around the pit. Mr. Wells, the
Government inspector, was at the pit to-day, and
thought there could be not many more than 20
bodies still to be brought up.
The inquest is expected to be further adjourned
from the 25th inst. to a fortnight from that date,
in order to give the inspectors time to complete their
reports.

R XIL WAY INTELLIGENCE.

GREAT EASTERN.

In reply to the circular issued by the committee
of shareholders appointed on the Bth inst., in which
they propose to ask the shareholders to-day to re-
duce the number of the board by removing Mr. J.
Goodson, Major H. J. W. Jervis, Mr. G. Josselyn,
and Colonel Palmer from the office of directors, those
gentlemen state that in case such a resolution
should be put and carried they must decline to re-
cognise its legality until confirmed by a court of
law. They remind the chairman of the committee
that Mr. Denison, Q.C., and Mr. Horatio Lloyd, so
eminent for railway law, were of opinion that the
meeting has not the power to do as the committee pro-
pose. Col. Palmer, one of the directors representing
the interests of the Northern and Eastern Railway
Company at the Great Eastern Board, states in his
circular that the 22 stations on the lines of his com-
pany have been earning for somo years past
£800,300 per annum, out of which the Great East-
ern proprietors have only been required to pay over
£63,000 to the Northam and Eastern proprietors,
retaining the balance of £737,000 per annum, and
the occupation of 27 acres of land at Stratford, the
property of the Northern and Eastorn proprietors.

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Mr. Goodson has also issued a circular, in which
he states that the stake he represents in the com-
pany is a very large one, and that he is naturally
anxious for its protection. If a good chairman be
secured and a more efficient board be formed he
would be ready, in conjunction with the other mem-
bers of the direction, to vacate his scat. He adds
that the stake he refers to consists entirely of loans
which he had been instrumantal in obtaining for the
company, amounting to upwards of a quarter of a
million, not including a large amount of stock. He
objects to the constitution of the present committee,
and states that if the loans he has referred to were
paid off, nothing would induce him to remain a
member of the board.