The Sun.
London, England, 1861-01-30 00:00:00

THE BISCA COLLIERY EXPLOSION.

RIS CA, TUESDAY.
The inquiry was continued yesterday, after the
despatch of our parcel, and was resumed this morn-
ing; Mr. Llewellyn still appearing for the Risca
Coal and Iron Company ; Mr. 0 wen for friends of
some of the deceased ; and Mr. Brough and Mr.
Evans, government inspectors, to watch proceed-
ings and assist the coroner.

Edmund Davis deposed that he formerly worked
in the Black Vein Pit, and was discharged with his
brother because the latter refused to work where
gas (on fire) was accumulated; or, as it was put by
Mr. Thompson, chief viewer of the colliery, because
he refused to conform to the practice of putting up
trellice to drive the gas out. This -witness made
the almost incredible statement that when he com-
plained of the fire, English, the fireman (killed in
the explosion, and to whose care and strict atten-
tion almost every previous witness had testified),
told him that men in that pit often worked in 80
yards of fire.

William Derrick, night fireman, who at the
commencement of the inquiry had sworn that he
regularly visited the stalls in his district up to the
time of the exFlosion, and found no gas there, was
recalled in consequence of statements made by dif-
ferent colliers that there was gas in their stalls, and
that if he had inspected them, as it was his duty to
do, he must have discovered the gas, and ought to
have put up a danger mark to keep the men out.
He, however, repeated his previous declaration as
to the regularity of his visits, and was positive
he found the stalls free from fire. More particu-
larly, he swore that no place in his dis-
trict was left unexamined for a longer interval than
three hours; but upon cross-examination it became
apparent that an interval of six hours occasionally
elapsed between the visits, which Mr. Brough said
was doubly as long as it should be for so fiery a pit.
The witness was informed that a man named
Phillips had sworn that he (Derrick) once fired a
shot (or blast of powder) in a fiery state, the effect
of which was to extinguish his lamp ; and the
witness said positively that if Phillips had sworn
so he had sworn a lie.

Among other witnesses examined was
Ellen Rosser, who deposed that before the explo-
sion Richard Jenkins lodged with her, and that
whenever he went with her little son to his work
in the Black Vein Pit he used to say " Good bye,
perhaps you will never see me again." When he
was asked why he said so, he replied that he worked
in a dangerous place, and that if anybody was killed
it would be sure to be he. On the morning of the
explosion she followed them to the gate of her
garden, saying to herself " Perhaps I shall never
see them any more," and she never did, for both
Jenkins and her own little boy were killed that day.
Jenkins, the man referted to, is asserted to have
been courting the daughter of this witness ; and a
neighbour named Coker asserted that two days after
the explosion Mrs. Rosser told her that the night
before the explosion her lodger sat up writing a
letter, which was subsequently found in his coat
pocket, and which turned out to be addressed to her
daughter. (She denied all knowledge of the court-
ship,) That letter, she said, her daughter opened,
and found in it directions that she was to have his
clothes and sufficient money to buy herself mourn-
ing. Mrs. Rosser also told her neighbour that as
Jenkins was leaving on the morning of the explo-
sion he bade her bood-bye for ever; but the witness
now denied that he did so, and said there was
nothing in the letter at all connected with the in-
quiry. She admitted, however, that Jenkins had
been in the habit of carrying a lamp key (strictly
forbidden by the rules) tied to the string of his
drawers ; but she said she horDolf throw it away
some time befbre the explosion occurred. By a
singular coincidence it had happened that a lamp
was found in the part of the pit where the gas was
first fired, with a hole in the gauze as if made by
the point of a pickaxe or mandril, and it was sup-
posed that the gas got access to the flame of the lamp
through this aperture, and that thus the explosion
occurred. When the lamp was first discovered it
was concluded that the hole had been made acci-
dentally, but coupling the existence of that hole
with the words alleged to have been used by Jen-
kins and the alleged contents of the letter, a suspi-
cion arose that Jenkins had purposely fired the gas
for the purpose of committing suicide, and that
thus he had sacrificed 142 lives in addition to his
own. It was therefore held important to get at the
truth of the matter, and as Mrs. Rosser declined to
give any definite information, her daughter, Tabitha
Rossier, a young woman of 19, was sent for, and pro-
duced the letter, which turned out to be a mere com-
monplace love letter, so the hypothesis of suicide
fell to the ground, but, notwithstanding, the tact
remained that Jenkins had somehow possessed him-
self of a lamp-key, and could therefore have opened
his lamp at pleasure, but from a statement made. by
the younger woman, it was apparent that Jenkins
anticipated danger from a fall rather than from an
explosion of gas.
William Williams, a subsequent witness, men-
tioned the name of a man besides Jenkins in whose
possession he had seen a lamp-key, and the name of
another man who, he had been told, also possessed
one.

Some other but unimportant evidence was given
before the despatch of our parcel.

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