The Sun.
London, England, 1866-12-21 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, FRIDAY EVENING, DECEMBER 21, 1866.

thickness between the draft and air course, but they
were to take notice if there was any gas.
William Maddison, of Woolley Colliery, general
viewer, said he got to the Oaks Colliery on the day
of the explosion at 2.20 p.m. After a new rope had
been put on he went down with Mr. Brown and
Barker, a deputy, who had been killed. Before he
went down he heard that a shot had been fired in
the stone drift, and he and Barker examined very
particularly. It was not through, and there had
been no explosion there. The shot hole was from the
top side, in the main aircourse, to meet the drift.

There was no rubbish in the drift. Mr. Phillip
Cooper, of Masborough, was with him. The cavity
in which the shot had been was left undisturbed to
all appearance.

,At this stage of the proceedings the inquest was
adjourned until the 17th of January.

MANSION-HOUSE RELIEF COMMITTEE.

During yesterday the sum of £1,300 was received
by the Lord Mayor towards the fund which is being
raised at the Mansion House under his auspices, at
the head of a committee of gentlemen of considera-
tion in the city, for the relief of the widows and
orphans of the men who perished in the recent col-
liery explosions, making in all, with the previous
days' subscriptions, £5,800. Among other donors
Lady Elizabeth Dashwood (through Messrs. Coutts
and Co.), sent £100; Messrs. Glyn Mills, and Co.,
£lOO ; Mr. E. Mackenzie, 1100 ; the Fishmongers'
Company, £52 10s ; Messrs. Spartelli and Co., £52
10s. ; Messrs. Stern, Brothers, £5O ; Messrs Ralli
Brothers, £25 ; Messrs. Sloans, Wells, and Co.,
£25 ; Miss Marston, £25 ; Messrs. Huntley and
Palmer, £2O ; Mr. R. B. Byass, £2O ; and the
Marquis of Bristol £25. A collection in Harwich
had resulted in £22 odd. There was also a consider-
able number of subscriptions of smaller amount, all
which will be advertised by the committee in due
course.

In the course of the day a meeting of the Relief
Committee was held at the Mansion-house, there
being present the Lord Mayor, Mr. George Moore,
Mr. J. P. Gassiot, Colonel Stuart Wortley, Mr. Al-
derman Cotton, Mr. W. J. Maxwell, Mr. Frederick
Thompson, Mr. James Hill, and Mr. It. N.
Fowler. The Lord Mayor took occasion to
call the attention of the meeting to cer-
tain information which had been kindly
furnished him by Mr. Clayton, the town-clerk, of
Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and Mr. Atkinson, the secre-
tary to the Hartley Colliery Relief Fund. A rumour,he
said, had prevailed for some days that there was a
considerable surplus of that fund left unapplied,
after satisfying the necessities of all the persons who
' had legitimate claims upon it, and that rumour was
believed to have had a somewhat adverse influence
upon the funds now being raised in various quarters
lot...the relief of the distress caused by the recent
calamities near Barnsley and in North Staffordshire.
He was now in a position to state exactly how that
matter stood. The total amount of subscriptions
raised iu reference to the calamity at Hartley
Colliery in 1862 was £81,838 odd, which was fur-
ther augmented by interest on investments and cur-
rent account to £83,234. Of that sum upwards of
£20,000 was raised at the Mansion-house. A local
committee, of which the then Mayor of Newcastle
was at the head, and in whom that sum was vested,
propounded and adopted a scheme, with the assis-
tance of a skilful actuary, for the relief, under cer-
tain conditions and fur a time limited, of the widows
and orphans, and aged parents of the 204 men and
boys who perished on that occasion. They
first of all applied £7,790 in the relief of the
destitute chiefly, and in incidental expenses arising
out of the calamity, leaving a balance in hand of
£75,442, and to provide for the profuse allowances
under their scheme, and which were spread over a
number of years as to certain classes of the recipients,
and for the remainder of life as to the aged, £55,000
in all was set apart; leaving an unappropriated
balance of £20,440, being one-fourth of the amount
subscribed, and that surplus in March, 1863, they.
divided among the coal-mining districts of the whole
country, 12 in number, making the number of coal-
miners in each district the basis of the division.
They also agreed that in the event of any further
surplus remaining after all claims on the Hartley
Fund were fully satisfied it was to be divided in the
same way as the £20,440 had been. Of that sum
£2,034 was set apart for the Yorkshire mining dis-
trict, and £1,106 for that of North Stafford, Shrop-
shire, and Cheshire, in which two districts the recent
colliery explosions had occurred ; but it had so hap-
pened that the sum apportioned to the .Yorkshire
district remained unclaimed, no local committee
having been organised in the district to receive the
money.

The Mansion-house Committee, yesterday, were
unanimously of opinion that the explanation given
by the Lord Mayor was most important, and de-
serving the utmost publicity at this particular time,
as being calculated, not only to dispel a popular
error as to the £20,000 left over from the Hartley
Fund, but to show that if £55,000 was required on
that occasion for the suitable provision of the de-
pendent relations of the 204 men and boys who then
perished, double the sum would be now wanted
where the persons who lost their lives in the Barns-
ley and North Staffordshire calamities were said to
number about 400.