The Sun.
London, England, 1861-08-19 00:00:00

A- klas -leg; and successful att
made at Chatham on Thursday'
Macallum, who was under
eight years'-penal servitude at
v.ict establishment. From what ass :anspired
steep the plan of escape was so successfully carried
it ' . would seem that Macallum, who, although
7 1.8 years of age. is described as being an adept
crime, was employed at the extreme end of
.thaw dockyard near the river with a few other
,soners, their work being that of removing mud
.ad earth on the bank of the river. Only a short
time ago Macallum attempted to make his escape
while employed in Chatham dockyard, and
actually succeeded in baffling the officers for some
time, until afterwards discovered not far from the
spot where he had ;disappeared. Since that time
he had been, until a week or two since, working in
chains beneath his dress, but this period of punish.
ment having expired they were removed, and he
was allowed to work the same as the other convicts.
On , Thursday Macallum determined on again at-
tempting his escape, and there is little doubt had
admitted some of his fellow-prisoners into the secret
of his intentions. During the instant that the vigi-
lance of the convict guard in charge was relaxed,
by his _ attention being diverted to some of the
other convicts, Macallum slipped a...svay. from his
gong, passing round by a barge, near which he was
at work, and beneath a small landing jetty. Here
ho contrived to change his convict dress, but how
he succeeded in obtaining a fresh supply of clothes
is one of those mysteries which would appear to.be
insoluble except to convicts themselves. That he
had procured some fresh clothes, however, is cer-
tain, as some portion of his convict dress were left
behind. The prisoner then crawled near some
'imber, of which there is an immense quantity at
'at part of the .dockyard, and /Pfore.the *Otyr:nf.-
Irder would appear trAtave necome aware or .ms
being missing he had traversed a considerable
space in the dockyard, and is believed to have
paised through a door in the inasthousc, scarcely
ever used, as this was afterwards found-open. He
then
,ascended a pile of timbers, one, of which he
raised against the boandary wall, by which means
he reached -the top. Although the part of the
wall on which he now NN'as almost faced the con-
vict prison, he does not appear to have been per-
ceived by any of the officials of that establishment,
and, unmolested, he dropped from the wall to the
ground. As he was running away, near the sol-
diers' rifle-ground, in the direction of Brompton, he
was seen by a girl, who had observed him let him-
self down by
.the wall. The convict, however,
immediately disarmed her suspicions by asking
her who was tie nearest doctor, as a policeman
had met with a dreadful accident in the dock-
yard and was nearly killed, and he had been
directed to get over the wall and run the nearest
way for a surgeon. ;Macallum then run off towards
al
tlhehol Gillingham, Gillingham, but was immediately afterwards missed.
A search was then made for him, and Sergeant
Langstone, of the detective force, and several of the
warders turned out to scour the neighbourhood to
effect.. his capture. After tracking him as far as
eoaotl.
officers
he
eetrrcsaocnre,
convict's
caoat
ndeehi
dsricemaci
escape,
and,leyN:Vsheivtereietlheglar.dtphscerdi
oto.
neighbour-
hood all day, searching the orchards, brickfields,
ce
s
and hedges,. no tidings of him could be obtained.
ton of his aypearance
every principal town in the kingdom, and a reward
of £5 offered for his capture. Late on Friday
night the escaped convict was seen entering the town
of Dartford by Sergeant Claddish, of the Kent
county police, who immediately arrested him, feel-
ing satisfied he was the man for whom search was
being made. When captured Macallum had on the
trousers in which he escaped, being made out of the
blankets supplied to the prisoners for their bedding.
l le was in his shirtsleeves, the latter garment being
worn as a frock. He stated that since his escape
he had swam across the Medway three times to
avoid been seen. On Saturday he was again safely
lodged in St. I\l ary's prison, and placed in irons to
await his punishment for being at large. He has
spent almost the whole of his life in prison, and
before his present sentence had undergone four
years' penal servitude. His present term of penal
servitude was awarded him for two burglaries com-
mitted by him in Scotland.

DREADFUL BOILER EXPLOSION AND
LOSS OF LIFE IN 111_EIVINGTO.Y.

An explosion of a terrible nature happened on
Saturday afternoon, which was attended with fatal
consequences to two persons, a father and his son,
serious injuries to several other persons, and great
loss of property.
'rho premises where this happened belonged to
Messrs. Groves, and were termed the Newington
Saw Mills. They were about SO feet long and 40
feet wide. They stood in Dcverell-strect, Dover-
road, and were surrounded by several public
thoroughfares mid byc streets. Amongst the latter
Was Charles-street,- Geurg-entruet, Theobald-street,
and the stabling belonging to Mr. Holliman nearly
adjoined the mills.
The interior of the mill contained a vast quantity
of timber, some of which had been cut into boards
and joistings, and a great quantity was piled in the
place to undergo the same operation, while three
loads of wood were also standing outside the gates

ready to be taken to be sawn up.
The machinery on the premises was always con-
sidered by the proprietor to be of first-rate manu-
facture, and consisted of a pair of engines in the
mill, and a boiler in the boiler shed. The boiler,
it was understood, would safely stand a pressure of
from 121bs. to 201bs. on the square inch, and on
Saturday afternoon the men declare that there was
only between 151bs. and 161bs. pressure on, as in-
dicated by the gunge.
Whilst all hands were busily engaged, and some
had gone out to assist in unloading the timber from
the carriages, the boiler exploded with a noise re-
sembling a clap of thunder. Flagstones of great
weight, pieces of iron, and steam pipes were pro-
jected through the roofs of the mill and boiler-
house, and after being hurled a long distance and
severing the branches from trees, demolishing
chimney-pots many yards away, either crushed in
the roofs or greatly damaged them.
The instant the explos;on was heard some hun-
dreds of pantiles rose into the air, and the whole
neighbourhood became obscured with dust. For
tt
few moments no one outside the building could tell
what had occurred, but when out,he the
ade known other workme n
.e
y mth
cfeoamrfnaueinneaotdurre fuoshit
At that time Mr. Superintendent Branford an,d
Mr. Inspector Reid, of the M division, were
Anrdm
spite.s , awa it ing arrival
ofUpon
proceeding
a n the stand,-
rushing
catastrophe.
i
lon the road th were
Kthiengßroifeks
lwayraednen' a
taken place, and on ey
enterin informed of what had
g the ill-fated premises
g theat
they found that a man named Thomas Knowles,
aged 46, who acted as stoker, and his son, a lad of
12 years, were in the ruins amidst the timber, which
was then burning with great vigour.
One of the fire brigade and •
a bricklayer went to
work, and after some short ' time
they
managed to
dig out of the smoking
debris the poor lad, who was
completely scalped as if by some surgical instru-
ment. His unfortunate
father had evidently, from
the marks of blood
on the rafters and beams, been
ArAlrced at least a dozen feet towards the roof. One
side of his head and face was cut off, and was miss-
ing at the time.
The firemen soon got the flames extinguished.
l'he damage done, however, is very considerable ;
bait fortunately the contents and machinery were
i rtsured in the Phoenix Fire-office, and the build-
ings were insured in the Law-office.
Several other persons were more or less injured,
a-ad one man named Laws so seriously that his re-
covery is extremely doubtful. Three females pass-
ing along Charles-street were also badly hurt.
The disaster is stated to have arisen from the
boiler not being properly charged with water, or
from some part of the ironwork giving way.