The Barrow Herald and Furness Advertiser. — 1876-10-11 (Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, England)

TORPEDO EXPLOSION.  The Calcutta correspondent of the ?lines sends the following details concerning the terrible accident which took place in the river Hooghly :—Last ye ir the ship British Viceroy sank at her moorings off the Strand-road, within 200 yards of the crowded streets in the business quarter of the to se. The wreck impeded the navigation, and the torpedo commission undertook to blow it up. Two fruitless. attempts were made on Monday. On Wednesday a torpedo boat, containing I,ooolb. of gunpowder, was anchored on the spot, preparing for a third attempt Sergt. Harrison Royal Engineers, and 13 natives were on board. About two o'clock Harrison was seen hammering a wooden plug with a fuse through it into an iron cylioder 4001bs. of powder. He called for s )me melted wax to make the plug watertight. A native melted some wax in an iron ladle over a tire in the j dly boat alongside, and handed the ladle to Sergt. Harrison, who twice again called for more. As the ladle w.s being handed to him for the third time, an explosion occurred No traces have been found of Harrison and eight of the crew. Four others and some persons in neighbouring boats and on shore were injured, and one is since dead. Together with 2001 b. of powder blown uninjured into the Strand-road, half a human trunk was was found and a head in Hare-street Fragments of flesh, and limbs and pieces of iron were scattered along the Strand. All the windows in the vicinity were broken, and some walls were cracked, but no very serious damage was done to _property. The torpedo boat sunk at once. Until it is raised it is impossible to say whether the whole cargo of powder in the hold exploded, but probably not, or the damage would have been much more serious. The total killed consists ot Sergt. Harrison and eight natives. There were twelve natives injured, one of whom has died in the hospital. The explosion was heard all over Calcutta, and a thick volume of smoke was seen frain a long distance.  Mr. Andrew Kiddie, master joiner and builder, Southport, was fined 2,0 s on Monday for refusing to have his child, 12 mmths old, vaccinated.  _ Andrew brGiven was charged at the police court, Liverpool, with stabbing an elderly man named Thomas O'Keefe, who lived in a court off Chadwick-street. The prisoner was remanded.  An inquest was held on Monday at Wigginton, near Banbury, on the body of a travelling tinker, named William Booth. The jury found that he died from apoplexy, accelerated by exposure. Mary Jane Williams, .a servant, was brough up at Huddersfield police-court, charged with concealing the birth of a child, which had been found buried in her employer's garden at Clare-hill. She was remanded for a week: At the inquest a verdict of wilful murder was returned. _ _  The Town Council at Leamington, and the newly-created borough magistrates cannov agree whether the salary of their clerk should. be £lOO or £l5O a year. The Home Secretary will, consequently, have to be appealed to, as the Council decline to increase their offer. Alderman Gascoyne desired to resign on the score of pressure of business, and the Council decided he must pay the prescribed penalty of £25. The train leaving Hunstan on for Lynn at 7.30 on Monday evening, when between Meacham and Snattisham ran into a herd of some 15 bullocks, three of which were dashed to pieces. No other damage was sustained, although the pvssenzers were unpleisantly reminded of the sad catrastrophe that occurred by bullocks straying on the line in Aug., 1863.