The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1866-02-08
STEAMBOAT EXPLOSIONS.

STEAMBOAT EXPLOSIONS.
The boating season is opening with an
alarming number of explosions. Last season
Ea,el mnrder Eap ret. There was the ter
rible grumble and rumble and roar " of col
idlpg trains, and wrecked cars, varied with
the explosion of steamboats, aud the shreks
of the scalded and drowning. "Viaticide "
became new term added to the nomencla-
ture of violent deaths, and journals kept
standing display headings at column Of
Railway Murders" which facts showed
sapid be sept well filed,
! ne hoped to see new era nsusurated this
eenhing season. Urgent as is the popular de-
mand for speedy transportation, we were anx,
ious to see this made subsidiary to safety.
SO far tragic occurrences are against us.
Good wishes perish away before such start
ling disasters as the Miami, the Missouri and
the ". r. Carter. Passengers perish, and
tnere are lpyest,gahols, ana tie disasters are
TRACED to unknown canses, or exceptionally,
mayhap, to culpabie negligence somewhere,
and snch report Is made, and there s an end
Of it. Accidents will occur even when the
greatest care is taken. These accidents will
increase as the lines Of travel by boat and rail
are multiplied. But proper care will diminish
their present alarming frequency, and the
public have right to demand that tat care
lie taken. "~f
The cause of the recent steamboat explo-
sions is involved in mystery. ''It is to be
unmarked, however" Gays the Cincinnati
Gazette ''that the disasters, so far as regards
the Missouri and Carter, were attributed to
the use of tubular boilers. These are made
upon the principle of locomotive boilers, and
were introduced upon steamboats, with view
to increase speed. They were coming into
very general use on the river, and a number
of boats are now using them. Steamboat men
seem to have accepted the late disasters as
conclusive evidence against these boilers, and
+ dispatch from louisville stsses thst promi
nent engineers had Withdrawn from boats
which have them in use. We have also a
dispatch from Louisville stating that the
United States, of the Louisville Mail line,
which is supplied with tubular boilers, has
been withdrawn, her owners Regarding them
as unsafe. She will be Immediately supplied
with the ordinary fue boilers This, so far
as regards the travelling public, will be ac-
cepted as a condemnation of the tubular
boilers, and owners of all boats using them
will lie compelled 70 throw them cut.
IRE the explosions, however, raeeable to
this cause alone? Upon this point there
should be searching. scientific investigation.
A gentleman who is largely interested In
steamboat property, informs us that large
amount of defective boiler iron has been
manufactured during the last three years, and
comparatively little of the iron recently pro-
duced comes up to the standard formerly re-
CURED for boilers. If this is tie case, what
ever may be the decision with regard to tabu-
lar boilers, the danger to which the public are
liable from explosions, will still exist. The
Investigations, therefore, that must be inst
tuted, should not stop with the style Of the
boilers, but should go further and deeper,
and ascertain whether the quality OF the ma
terial of which all boilers are made has dete-
riorated.' u
:, Investigating Committees for the most
part, are thorough humbugs. Were it Is easy
to do rs to censure, the late rebellion would
have perished long ere it did. Organized in.
quiry and much consumption of foolscap in
reports will do little good. Accidents will be
diminished, not by such means, but when
under the pressue OF popular sentiment those
in charge Of the lines Of travel are forced to
the utmost constant care, and by law made
responsible for missuess in duty.
10y. Cox AID THE HuGHHs Murder CASE.
-Ihe Cleveland Herald praises the firmness
ot Gov Cox in refusing to commute the
death sentence of DIR. JOIN W. HuaHEs, of
that city. 1t says:
never was question more elaborately ar
gned by able counsel, and more carefully re-
viewed by an upright Court, more natisntlv
weighed by an honest jury than was that oues-
ton. If ever there was a case of brutal. nre.
medtated, unmitgated murder, it was when
Hughes, calling his knowledge Of the an.
atomy of the human form to his aid, fatally
pointed that weapon at thst defenceless girl,
and killed her on the instant
And yet this triple murderer, who, casting
marnage-ihus numbering the happiness Of
both-comple,ing his vilIainy BY Killing his
last victim outright, because she would. not
commit adultery with him, is made the object
OF sympathy that would turn the stream of
justice, and spare criminal whose ofFense has
no mitigation. and hardly its parallel.