The Sun.
London, England, 1844-11-13 00:00:00

Venin li :Ant

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 1844.

It is our melancholy task to record, this day, one
of those domestic calamities which come upon us with
the more appalling horror, as they occur in the course
of our daily avocations (as it were), without warning
or previous intimation of any kind, and amidst the
crowded resorts of our commercial and shipping acti-
vity. A still more distressing feature in this disas-
trous casualty is presented in the fact that
the principal victim has been an engineer of
reputation, who prematurely perished just after the
satisfactory termination of the first and only experi-
ment on some important alterations which his 'inven-
tive genius had introduced in the construction of the
beam of his steam-engines, the connecting ma-
chinery to work it, and the location of the engines
themselves. For the particulars, however, of this
fatal explosion off Blackwell last night, on board the
fine new steam-boat of 600 tens, called the Gypsy
Queen, of the instantaneous annihilation of Mr.
JACOB SAMUDA (the builder of the craft, and the
constructor of her engines), and of six other persons,
who were with him in the engine-room at the time
of the accident,—as well as of the desperate injuries
sustained by other five persons who are now patients,
in a most precarious state, in the London Hospital ;
we must refer to the detailed statement we have
printed in another column. But the facts of the case
suggest some observations to which we think it to
be our duty strongly to direct public attention, the
more especially as, in so doing, we cannot in any
way prejudice the case of any parties who may be
brought before the Coroner or any other authority,
for examination touching this distressing affair.
It appears that the Gypsy Queen was built by the
Messrs. SAMUDA and Co., for the Waterford Navi-
gation Company, and was, therefore, we are to pre-
sume, intended for a regular steam-packet or passage
vessel. Of the brothers, SAMUDA, the deceased,
JACOB, appears to have been the senior; and we
presume the firm is identical or connected with the
spirited patentees of the Atmospheric Railway. In
this case, the reputation they have acquired by their
perseverance in carrying out into practical application
one of the boldest principles it has yet been attempted
to adopt in the modern science of locomotion, must
offer every guarantee for the assumption that the new
invention of Mr. JACOB SAMUDA was one of great
lingenuity and promise. But, however this may be, it
is certain that the engines of his construe-
tinn nn hoard th.

d:v:ded beams and socketed joints, and their
connecting rods acting at angles instead of ver-
tically, did perform, on the first trip from Bow-
creek down to Woolwich, and thence back to the
buoy at Black wall, satisfactorily and safely. In this
same incipient experiment, the pressure on the
boilers—which had been constructed to bear 401bs.
the square inch—had been kept down to about half
that ratio, or 201bs. only. But it was afterwards de-
termined to increase this pressure to 251b5., and
whilst the steam was being got up accordingly, for
that purpose,—the Gipsy Queen being still at her
moorings —so little danger was anticipated, so
little apprehension experienced, that Mr. SAMUDA,
with the engineer of the vessel, a Mr. DODDS, Mr.
ScnoLxrzExD (another engineer), SLANDERS, a
fitter, NUGENT, an apprentice, NEWMAN, a stoker,
and another man ( name unknown ), were
all of them standing in the engine-room, to
watch the operations, together with the foreman of
the Messrs. SAMUDA'S factory, the four other men who
are so severely hurt and scalded, and two or three
other persons who appear to have escaped—when the
steam exploded, probably through the rupture of one
of the joints in the main-pipe, and swept into eternity
in an instant, the unfortunate individuals we have
named. Whether the safety-valve had been really
set or properly watched, and other questions of that
nature will probably be ascertained in the course of
the inquiries to be instituted by the Coroner's in-
quest. Whether the engines, which were equal to a
300 horse-power, were high-pressure ones or not,
does not at present appear. But the whole of the cir-
cumstances which have yet transpired warrant us in
concluding that this is a case which strongly confirms
the long-since admitted necessity for some organized
and well-considered and responsible system of
administrative superintendence, to the especial
cognisance and report of which should be referred
all primary experiments on new applications of steam or
other explosive powers, and new mechanical inven-
tions for directing them. We cannot imagine what
possible objection there could be to the establishment
of a Board or a Commission, constituted of scientific
as well as practical authorities in such departments
of experimental mechanics. The rights and interests
of priority of discovery or invention could be secured
to at least as great an extent as they now are in the
absence of any such body. Many valuable lives, in
the higher as well as the more mechanical or techni-
cal branches of practical science, would be annually
spared, instead of being sacrificed by wholesale to
pure accident, or accidental carelessness ; to new
evolutions of forces hitherto untried or unmeasured ;
or influences, all the power of which has never before
been tested. It is matter, surely, of high public
interest that original experiments upon expansive
forces, like those of steam, should not be made, ex-
cept under—first, arrangements embodying every
possible precaution for the protection of human life
and member, in the event of unforeseen disaster, or
failure; and, secondly, arrangements carefully limit-
ing the persons to be present at their trial, to the
smallest number compatible with the work to be done,
the assistance to be rendered, or the general success
of the operations.
Session after session we have Committees appointed
for purposes of this truly conservative policy. Accidents
in coal mines ; accidents from machinery, employed
in mills and factories ; shipwrecks, their causes, and
the means to be adopted for their prevention ; these,
and twenty other subjects of not less signal import-
ance to humanity at large, or less connected with
the duties of good government, are referred by the
Legislature to Select Committees. But the num-
ber of practical plans adopted for remedy or prevention
of such casualties is really in the inverse proportion
of, the number of the Committees and the amplitude
of their reports. It is high time that steam machinery,
especially in its application to maritime purposes,
should be brought (to the limited extent we have sug-
gested) within the reach and precautionary control of
the Legislature, as occasion may demand. We should
be sorry to see the same reckless indifference dis-
played to the consideration of human life and its
liabilities, in connexion with steam navigation, on
this side of the Atlantic, with which our American
brethren are so often and so justly reproached.

1 If we have formed an opinion very unfavourable
to the political tendencies of Sir JAMES GRAHAM'S
public character and career, we have not allowed that
prepossession to bias our judgment on the Right
Hon. Baronet's administrative merits. In the busi-
ness of his own bureau, we conscientiously believe
that no Minister can be named who displays more
business-like talent, more untiring energy, or greater
zeal for the interests of the public service, than Sir
JAMES. But there is really a leaven of insincerity
_ - want of fairness—a disposition to assume and
exercislq
to its utmost extent whatever powers of arbi-
trary auth.'ritY he can appropriate, either in virtue
of the
re
or m6l
thee Vicious
of Parliament in passing new
statutes,
organisation of his office
UK"'
under former ones ; l
re is something of the sort,
we say, always incorporatkr itself in the acts of Sir
JAMES GRAHAM, whether we look at the legislative
enactments he origin:4es, or the acts done by him in
his executive capacity. !'he proofs of this proposi-
tion are at hand. His labox2's on the New Poor-
law, Factory Employment, Educat::ln, Model Pri-
sons, and other such questions, are its .
Qxponents.
Their force and effect, again, may be eonsidere as
not a little confirmed by the language assumed by
Sir JAMES on matters of privilege, on his acknow-
ledged violations of Post-office responsibilities in M.
MAZZINI'S case, and other such affairs. At the close
of the last session, we pointed, from time to time,
and as they were suffered to ooze out so as to attract
public notice, to Sir JAMES'S scheme for the reform
of the medical profession, as offering another salient
point for animadversion. The truth we take it is,
that Sir JAMES'S career as a public man is beset by
the bad influences of two very evil genii—the love of
demiration and the love of jobbing. Mr. KEELEY'.
considerate management has lately provided, we ob-
serve, Seven Castles of the Passions. He must fabri-
cate two more, and each of them as strong and as
impassable as the Pentonville Bastille, if he would ac-
commodate the other two very powerful members of
the same family who are at present—as they have
long been—" in waiting" upon Sir JAMES.
The perusal we have recently given to a very able
pamphlet, entitled "An Address of the Society of
Apothecaries to the General Practitioners of England
and Wales on the Provisions of the Bill " for the
better regulation of medical practice throughout
" the United Kingdom," has revived these painful
impressions in us with great intensity. This " Ad-
dress" establishes a case against the Bill in question
—and therefore against Sir JAMES GRAHAM, as its
Parliamentary sponsor—of so much injustice and
oppression as to the present general practitioners of
the profession (who will, hereafter, be the Licentiates
in Medicine and Surgery, we presume, of the new
measure)—of such gross and exclusive favouritism and
power, as regards the physicians and the surgeons
who are to be members of the " Council of Health
and Medical Education" under the enactments of the
Bill ;—of such a palpable creation of patronage to
the Government both in the original constitution of
such council, and of such a monopoly of the direc-
tion of professional education, honours, and advan-
tages, under the new registration to be organised, in
favour
Physicians, of
and
thefuture
‘‘ Fellows"lAs "Associates" ieaft etsb"e of the
College e Collegee of
of
Sur-
geons, against all other members of such colleges,
and still more invidiously
and especially against the
of
most extensive branch all, the general practi-
tioners,e practice of surgery with
who combine th
the prescription and preparation of m
whose qualifications and character haveedicine, and
been so bene-
ficially raised and established through the invaluable
exertions of the Society of Apothecaries and their
admirable Court of Examiners, in their administra-
tion of the powers and duties vested in them by the
Act of 1815—that we shall feel it our duty to give
an early analysis of the paper and to remark upon
the conclusions it establishes, seriatim. It would be
difficult to find a body of men who have more emi-
nently served the public, or in whose welfare the
public ought to feel more profoundly interested, than
the " General Practitioners." But in all our experi-
ence we have never met with, or heard, of any class
of a profession upon whom it has been proposed to
deal out so large a measure of virtual discredit and
disqualification—not only without a pretence of rea-
son alleged, but against the express admissions of the
framers of the Bill themselves. The epigram of the
Bill seems to be this. " Protect Associate Physicians
and Fellows of the College of Surgeons for the sake