The Bolivar bulletin. [volume] (Bolivar, Hardeman County, Tenn.) 1865-1888, 1874-12-25
BLOWN Up.


Can't say, Tn sure, sir. Been used
to bilers all my life; but working ems
different TO making 'em. There's some,
wouldn't always be a-bUstin'. 'Tain't
once, nor twice, nor now and then, fol
it's thing as is always a-happening
and though Use never had more than 6
scald or two myself, I've seen some
strange sights men all blown to pieces,
so that they were picked up afterwards
in baskets men taken to the hospital
with their flesh hanging to them in rags,
and there they'd lie writhing and tear
ing at the wrapping in such agony, that
there, I amt above owning tive
cried like a child to see my poor mates
suffsrings. And there they'd be, day
after day, till a sort of calm came over
them, and the pain went, when they'd
smile if you spoke to 'em, they seemed
so easy and it would be because q
gentle hand was laid upon 'em, and
they were going into the long sleep.
Some gets better, but not when
they're sealded badly; for its strange
stuff, is steam. Well, no I'm not
afraid, and never do feel afraid. What's
the good Ones got it to do, and
there's the mouths at home to feed, so
one can't afford it and then the odds
are precious long ones against it being
ones own Dustin. But now so many
more steam engines are coming into
use, day by day, it seems as if some
thing ought to be done in the way of
making bilers stronger. Cheapness is
eheapness but then, a things dear at
any price that makes such ruin as I've
seen sometimes; so why don't they try
some tougher metal than iron thouph,
certainly, steam's strong enough to tear
up any hing. But there seems to be
some fresh plan wanted for making
bilers. didn't work there, but I went
and had look d'reckly after that horri-
BILE accident at the Big Works last
autumn. Well, there was about an acre
of buildings-sheds and setrer-swept
away as If you'd battered 'em all down !;
great fre-bricks, weighing a hundred
and half, pitched here and there like
chaff sheets OF lead sent flying a hun
dred yards tall chimneys powdered
down and the big busted biler itself
jumped right out of its place while, as
to the middle of it, that was torn off
and eIumpled up, and blown, like a
sheet of paper, to a distance. Plenty
of life lost there, and plenty of escapes;
plates torn off the biler-torn of, as I
said before, like so much paper while
these sheets, or plates, of iron had given
way at the rivets, aud looked for all the
world like torn-of postage stamps-tOrn
off, course, along the perfOTating.
"Now, them" I says to myself,
Z" that's thing as wants altering. You
perforate the edges eff your plates to ad-
NIT rivets, and so takes half their
strength of-p'r'aps more; then you
put, p'r'aps, hot rivets in, and they,
p'r'aps, crystalizes the iron-only,
p'r'aps, mind, don't say so, only the
raw edges of the biler looked cCystally
and brittle. Well, then, some day
comes a hextrY pressure o. steam, and
up goes yeur biler-busted, and spread
ing ruin, and death and misery around. :"
"Then how are we to fasten our
biler plates" says you, "If we don't
rivet 'em ?" How should know? I
amt a scientific man. I only stokes.
That's for you to find out. But you
amt a-going to tell me, are you, that
you scientific men and biler-makers
can't find no other way to make bilers
only by riveting them? Say you bends
the plates edges over, and hooks one
into the other, like tin sarspan-makers
does their tin. They'd stand some
strain that way, and you wouldn't
weaken your plates. I amt q biler-
maker, or I should try that dodge, I
think but there, that's only one way
out of the many as could be found by
experiment.
Seems to me, sir, as if we English
people hates anything new, and always
wants to keep 70 what cur fathers and
grandfathers had before us. They went
along and made their footmarks, and
we go along after 'em, putting our fOots
in Just the same spots, thinking it must
be right, come what will of it.
Had to do with engines many years.
Stocked locomotives and stationaries,
agrieulturals and manufactures, and
printing offices, and been down In the
engine-rooms of steamers and the lasts
about the hottest and worst of all.
Killing work, you know, for anybody,
specially In a hot country, where
every breath of air that comes down to
you is already roasted, as it were, and
don't do you no good.
Bustins? Well, no, only one, and
that was quite enough for though 1t
didn't hurt my body, it did not hurt my
heart, and if You happen to be father
you'll understand what I mean.
1t was dinner time at our works-a
great place, where the engine used to be
going to pump water night and day, so
that there were two Of us and one
week I'd be on daywork, next week on
night work, and SO on. Now it so hap
pened that your water in that part was
terribly haEd-Eater that would cover