The Sun.
London, England, 1861-06-26 00:00:00

PRICE 4D. STAMPED, SD.

rintended the erection of the warehouses in ques-
tion, and who could explaiu the principle of their
construction, and the probable cause of their fall.
The Coroner said he could only give an opinion
after all.
In reply to questions from the jury,
Mr. Williams said that the books of the firm
having been all saved they were quite prepared 10
prove, if a little delay were granted, an exact ac-
count of everything contained in each warehouse.
Such a course would quite set at rest the question
of whether or not there were any explosive mate-
rials in the building the well of which fell. In com-
pliance with a request from the jury, the witness
Doyle was recalled, and he denied having cautioned
Mr. Henderson about the saltpetre. He told Mr.
Braidwood of it, and pointed out the warehouses
where it was. He did so in reply to deceased's
questions, who when he came to the fire at once
said, " I suppose you have saltpetre somewhere
here ; whereabout does it lie ?" Witness told him
there were some 500 or 600 bags of it in the ground
floor of block P. That building did not burn till
half-past 10 o'clock, and then there was a loud ex-
plosion, but that was in an opposite direction to
where the wall fell. There was no explosion of
any kind whatever in the G warehouse. In the
cellars of that building were stored butter, lard,
and bacon. On the ground floor were bags f rice,
casks of tallow, casks of hams, boxes of American
bacon, and loose hams. On the floor above that
again were casks of tallow and a few bags of rice.
On the floor over that were chests of gums, mother-
safspearl shells, rioe, and tallow. --The floor above
was entirely filled with chests of tea, and above that
there were only bales of cotton. There was no tar
in the building at all.
There being no further evidence,
The Coroner proceeded to sum up, and after
pointing out that the fire had originated in a
different building from that where the wall
fell, went on to say that what he had been
most anxious to discover was the cause of
the wall falling out. If the destruction of the wall
was caused by the explosion of any substance un-
lawfully stored within it, it would lead to a most
serious charge against the owners or occupiers of
the wharfs. All the judges had ruled that if any
man kept a store of any explosive substance, the
ignition of which from any cause would be danger-
ous to life and property in his neighbourhood, the
mere keeping of such substance was an indictable
offence, even if no accident or death occurred. If
the gentlemen who were the proprietors of Scovell's
Wharf kept upon their premises such explosive
substances as were dangerous to the life and pro-
perty of those in their neighbourhood, they would
be as much liable to an indictment as any one else.
The cause of the fire in this instance was not clearly
ascertained, and would probably never would be.
The question, therefore, for their consideration was
—What was the cause of the wall falling by which
the deceased met his death ? If, as he said before,
it was due to explosive substances in the warehouse,
it would at once become a most serious charge
against the occupiers. The evidence, however, cer-
tainly appeared to him quite to rebut that view of
the case. The learned coi over here referred to his
notes of the various witnesses' evidence. If the jury
wished a further investigation, he would of course
adjourn the inquiry to any time they pleased. If,
on the contrary, they thought they were not likely
to gain anything by adjournment, and did not be-
lieve that the deceased was killed by the explosion
of any dangerous substance, then he thought they
should return a verdict of " Accidental death."
After some discussion in the corner of the Board-
room, the jury expressed a wish to retire, and after
a half-an-hour's absence returned into court and
informed the coroner that they would prefer an
adjournment in order that Messrs. Scovell's books
might be produced, and that they might have the
testimony of some independent architect, conversant
with the mode in which the wharfs were constructed,
to give an unbiassed opinion as to the causes which
led to the wall falling.
Mr. Williams said, of course Messrs. Scovell would
be most happy to produce their books and give
every assistance in their power, but as the jury
wished for further investigation he must ask for a
week's adjournment—for certainly not less than a
week. He had been taken by surprise by the
learned coroner ruling that storing saltpetre in
regularly-built fireproof warehouses was, in fact,
keeping explosive substances in improper places,
and that the owners or occupiers of such buildings
were liable to a criminal indictment. On their next
meeting he would be prepared with an overwhelm-
ing amount of testimony to show that these ware-
houses were not improper places, and that, in fact,
they were the only proper places for keeping such
merchandise. To hold that wharf-owners could not
have saltpetre in their vaults without being liable
to indictment would simply be to exclude that ar-
ticle altogether from commerce. It was very dif-
ferent from explosives being stored in private houses.
The Coroner said that in the case he had alluded
to of the ruling of the judges the house where the
explosives were kept was not a private house.
Mr. Williams said it was not a private house, but
it was a house in the Old Bailey in which gun-
powder was stored. That was a widely different
case from these great wharfingers storing mer-
chandise in their vaults.

After some further discussion, Mr. Snooke, the
district surveyor, who built the warehouses and saw
the wall fall, was requested by the jury to give his
evidence.

Mr. Snooke was accordingly sworn, and stated
that he was the district surveyor for Rotherhithe,
and in 1856 he superintended the construction of
the warehouse the wall of which had fallen. He
was therefore intimately acquainted with its method
of construction. Like the other wharfs around it, it
was built in the most solid and enduring manner,
fitted with all the requisites demanded by the Act of
Parliament, and even with additional precautions
and securities against fire, Witness was present
when the wall fell, and he had been previously
watching all the upper portions of the same ware-
house on fire. The roof and the upper floor had
fallen in before the wall fell. He was of opinion that
the fall of the wall was occasioned by the expansion
of the material on the floors produced by their
combustion, and the tie of the roof and the tie of
the wall by the upper floor being gone allowed the
wall to succumb to the pre: sure, bulge outwards,
and fall. He saw the whole thing, and could
actually see how it had happened. No explosion
had anything to do with it. It was simply the casethat the wall, being left without the inward tie,
which the beams of the roof and upper floor, of
course, gave them, yielded to the internal pressure
and fell. Afterwards walls were falling in all
directions. There was a loud explosion of the salt-
petre at 10.30, but that threw down no walls, bad
as they were. The witness, in reply to questions,
proceeded to explain the position in which the wall
had fallen, and that three party walls in the same
warehouse were left standing, though between the
wall that fell and the source of the supposed ex-
plosion. It was therefore a physical impossibility
that the accident could have been caused by the '
ignition of explosive materials, else the party walls
(as we understood it) must have been thrown down
too.

After further explanations the witness Cutler
was examined again, and said in reply to the fore-
man and others of the jury that from his knowledge
of insurance matters, Scovell's, Beale's, Hay's, and
Humphery's wharves were considered the finest
and the safest wharves on the river. The insurance
companies, of course, never liked saltpetre (laugh-
ter); though they were quite aware it was stored
in those wharfs. Saltpetre was, in fact, stored in
nearly all the warehouses along the river side. It
was necessary to keep it somewhere. All the great
dock companies stored it in their warehouses.
After this evidence, the foreman of the jury with-
, drew the application for adjournment, and again
retired with the rest of the panel.
After a short deliberation, they returned into
court and gave in their verdict of "Accidental
Death." In giving in this verdict, the foreman
said the jury thought it right to express through
him, their deep regret at the loss the public had
sustained in the death of such an officer as
Mr. Braidwood. Their neighbourhood had ac-
quired an almost dangerous notoriety from the
alarming magnitude of the fires which have from
time to time taken place there. Many of the Jury,
under these unfortunate circumstances, had had
d
opportunity of becoming personally acquainted
with the deceased, and could therefore speak from
sad experience of the coolness, courage, Judgment
and wonderful energy with which his most dange-
rous duties were always discharged. His death
was the greatest of all the calamities caused by the
late great fire.
Mr. Scovell said he could not allow such an oe.
casion to pass without bearing his humble but most
sincere and ardent testimony to the eminent quali-
ties of the late Superintendent Braidwood. His
firm had, of course, been losers by the great fire to
the amount of very many thousands, but he was
sure those that knew him would give him credit for
sincerity when he said that he regretted nothing
so much as the awful death of the deceased,
The Coroner said he entirely concurred in every
word of praise that had been said. Mr. Braidwood