The Sun.
London, England, 1861-03-26 00:00:00

FE-ARFUL SCENE,

NEWCASTLE-ON-TYNE, March 24.—A most fear-
ful scene occurred in the very heart of the business
part of our town last night, by which two persons
have lost their lives and two or three more are some-
what badly hurt. Between 6 and 10 o'clock on a
Saturday evening all the main thoroughfares ha
Newcastle are very much crowded ; more especially
in the neighbourhood of the large butchers and
vegetable markets. Those markets are under one
roof. They are surrounded by business streets, and
on the south side is Nun-street. Upon the premises
No. 6 of that street Mr. Joseph Grierson carries on
business as a guttapercha and boot and shoe ware-
houseman and manufacturer, employing above 20
hands. About half-past 6 his place of business with
other shops in the street, was crowded with cus-
tomers when an alarm of fire was given. A quantity
of guttapercha was being reduced with naphtha on a
fire in a back room in Mr. Grierson's premises, dnd
a young man named Young, a shopman, having had
occasion to go into this room, discovered that the
composition was in a blaze. He informed another
shopman named Brown, who ran upstairs and
brought down Mr. Grierson ; and Grierson, though
cautioned not to do so, attempted to take the
flaming pan off the fire. In doing se, he unfortu-
nately ignited his clothes, and in his excitement
the pan was tilted over on to the floor, just at the
cellar door, and the solution was immediately con-
verted into a sheet of flame. Three young men,
workmen, had gone into the cellar to procure some
wet clothes to damp the fire out, and in returning
were met by the flames. Two of them, Robert
Wallis and John Petrie, rushed through the
fire, and Wallis on emerging was in a
sheet of flame. He was hurried through the sale-
room into Nun-street, was thrown down, a bucket
of water was tilted over him, but it produced little
effect, and the whole of his clothes had to be torn
off him. He was dreadfully burnt, and was imme-
diately removed to the infirmary, where he has died
this evening. Immediately following the upsetting
of the pan some one in running for water had
opened a back door, and the result was that a
column of flame darted up the staircase into the
premises above, and passing the rooms on the first
two landings, set fire to the roof of the attic, and
burst from the highest windows into Nun-street.
The larger body of Mr. Grierson's workpeople had
left at 4 o'clock, and all those who remained made
to the second story windows, and leapt into Nun-
street. All escaped except one man, James Scott,
who appears to have attempted to get down to the
street by the stairs, but was met by the flames and
burnt to death, his charred remains having been
picked up after the fire was extinguished. Fortu-
nately, on Saturday night the sth, 6th, 7th, Bth
10th, and 11th companies of the Ist Newcastle-on-
Tyne Rifle Volunteers were on drill, and also the
Ist Newcastle-on-Tyne Artillery, and they imme-
diately marched at double quick time to the scene
of the conflagration, and kept the immense crowd
back. This enabled the firemen to bring their
engines close to the blazing premises, and by nine
o'clock the fire was quite extinguished. A very
small amount indeed of Mr. Grierson's stock is
saved, and, besides being burnt, his loss will amount
to X6OO over his insurance. Three or four oth( r
workpeople were burnt while attempting to extin-
guish the burning compound in the pan, or escape
from the premises, but none of them were seriously

injured, except poor Wallis and Scott. It seems
that the naphtha and guttapercha were ordinarily
in the charge of a workman, who melted the gutta-
percha as joiners do glue. He had left at 4 o'clock.
Before doing so, he had removed the pan from off
the fire, but a boy had replaced it.

NEW METHOD OF PREPARING FLAX•

The Mechanics' Magazine gives the following
account of the new process by an American corre-
spondent :—The flax is cut by machine, and bound
in small bundles, which are dried by standing on
end in the field. A machine then separates the seed,
and cleans it for market. The small bundles are
then steep-rooted in large vats of water, which are
heated by steam to the temperature of about ninety-
five degrees for two or three days, which dissolves
the resinous and colouring matter. On being
taken from the rotting vat, the flax is spread by
hand upon an endless sheet, which carries it first
through a washing process, which removes the
soluble gum, then between rollers which press out
the water, then through a drying apparatus, then
through a breaking and cleaning machine, which
pulverises the woody stem and removes it all,
without breaking or tangling the fibre, and then
through a combing and gill drawirtg machine, from
which it is delivered in a continuous band of clean
flax, running into cans, from which it can be wound
in balls, ready for the spinning factory. The only
handling after it comes from the rotting vat is in
spreading the straw upon the endless sheet.
He says that by this process a ton of flax
straw will yield 400 pounds of pure fibre.
A flax mill on this plan will cost 20,000 dollars,
and will yield a ton of flax per day, at a cost for
running of 25 dollars. The flax straw at 10 dole.
per ton is more profitable than corn or wheat for
the farmer, which will make the cost of the fibre
four cents a pound, and it is in such a state that it
can be spun and woven for less than three cents e
pound. The prominent peculiarity of this process
I is the washing out of the softened gum when it
first comes from the steep-vat, which removes the
colouring matter, facilities the dressing, and leaves
the fibre very soft. In addition to this is the ink'
proved machinery, which completes the process
without manual labour, and which admits of un-
limited increase. The production of cotton is limited
by the unalterable necessity of picking the balls by
hand, so that the planter cannot possibly extend
the production beyond the capacity of his hands to
gather the crop by hand labour. This process
differs from that of flax cotton, which employs an
alkaline solution, and reduces the filaments of flax
to their ultimate fibres, short, fine as a spider-web,
and too brittle to make serviceable fabrics. By the
new process, the filaments are preserved in their
length and strength, so as to make fabrics at least
twice as serviceable as can be made of cotton.

COUNTRY MAREETS.