New-York tribune., 1873-05-16
THE GREAT COLLIERY DISASTER.


We cannot but remember in considering the
holocaust at New-GlasgOw, n s., how often
we have been moved to say in these columns
that human life seems to be the cheapest
thing in the world. These wholesale slaugh-
ters, by land and by sea, which might with
sufficient precaution be prevented, seem to us
the opprobrium of human nature, unless, in
deed, they demonstrate that all Of US live and
move under the ban of an ever-lmpending
fatality from which escape is impossible. But
reason lifts its voice against the despair of su-
perstition. There is hardly wreck, railway
collision, there is hardly any form of what
we weakly call Fatal Accidents, which
foresight and prudence might not have
averted. 1t is little better than atheistic
idiocy to talk of the dispensatiOn of Divine
Providence. The Creator is as much governed
by law as the creature, and that which
omniscience has enacted even OmnipOtence
cannot repeal, save by the exercise of
special interpositiOn which we have no reason
to believe is ever exerted to save the children
of men from the consequences OF everyday
folly and culpable recklessness. Certainly, in
the ordering of this worlds affairs, we have
no right to expect perpetual succession OF
miracles; if it were otherwise, human response
bility would cease, and nothing would remain
to US but a continuous pupilage quite incon-
sistent with what we know of the Deity's
purpose in calling us into existence.
There are some considerations which the
New-Glasgow explosion naturally suggests and
which, in certain way, mitigate the calamity.
Forty-eight men were killed; but it is now
well enough known that. taking all the coal
mines together, more people are annually
destroyed by what may be called minor
casualties than by any of the great accidents.
Of course as risks become numerous and
various, human ingenuity is the more severely
taxed, and human vigilance to guard against
them must be more persistently exercised.
But when there has been great mortality
from a distinct and definite cause, it is safe
to say that ordinary prudence should be
sufficient to guard against its repeti-
ton. 1t has been said that no pre-
caution can be sufficient to render such
a calamity as that at New-Glasgow impossi-
BILE, and that blasting must always be at
tended by degree of danger from the inde-
tarminable proximity of the explosive gas to
the place of blasting. On the occasion which
we are considering it would seem that care
lessness of some kind Is admitted, although
the particular kind has not yet been and,
indeed, may never be determined. AT the
Coroner's inquest, there was evidence of mis-
management in permitting the miners to use
powder for blasting in the upper level, thus
endangering the lives of those who were at
work in the levels below. But the Inspector
&c 10 of nrin 10
of care in firing shots in the bench.
"The first two,p4 it is said, "were merely
"blown out, causing assures in the body
"of coal, when gas accumulated. When the
" third shot was fired the coal ignited, and
" all attempts then to quench the flames were
unavailable" Here, upon the spot, immedi-
ately after the event, it is attributed to one of
two causes, either of which might have been
avoided, and which, nevertheless, may or may
not be avoided in the future.
Such dire disasters almost always spring from
an apprecable human agency-from recklessness
stupidity or ignorance and they will continue
not only until all possible precautions have been
adopted, but until all who are exposed have
become cOnscienti0usly wise enough to avail
themselves of well settled knowledge. UnfOr-
tunately, when men labor thus in dr0ves, the
dereletOn of one may be the destruction of
ALL OF course, the wise and true plan is to
trust as little as possible to personal fidelity,
and to seek by mechanical arrangements To
render accidents (as they are calledl almost
impossible. We must be shocked and fright
such events may lead to indifference; and the
worst evil which can befall society is stohd
notion that they are inevitable.
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