The Potteries Examiner : — 1877-05-19 (Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England)

SHIP. if the employers were made liable for the acts of the managers the latter would be more efficient and atten. A tragedy is reported to have occurred on boded a tive. Even where the mines were not fiery he would Melbourne schooner at the piano idand of Chilcot, have the same stringent provision SA to those who were about two hundred miles off the north.ea-t const of employed in getting coal. He would make the master Queensland. The crew consisted of ten men, and there responsible for the act of the workman who accident- were also on board three blacks, who came off in a onnoe .• ly injured another while getting coal, such as striking from a neighbouring island. One night in January two him instead of striking the drill.—By Mr. Macdonald :of the crew, aerompanied by two blacke, went ashere to Witness, in saying he would make a master responsible a hut which had been erected in the island. In the , course of the night the whites were treacherously when a man opened his lamp, and caused an accident, meant that it was the state of the mine that caused the j killed, and the blacks, having done their murderous explosion rather than the taking off of the top of the . work, returned to the vessel. All on board appear to lamp. Wherever a mine was filled with gas, and an i have been asleep except the third black, who, with his explosion happened, he held that the owner should be companions, armed hunself with an axe, and attacked liable. This would tend to make owners more careful; the unsuspecting whites. A horrible scene ensued. and he believed it it were to be made law, where there Man after man received what was believed to be big had been ten explosions in the post there would not be death-stroke, and almost all were fearfully "chopped one in the future. He did not believe that, if the law . on the face, head, and body. Some of them managed were so altered, the tendency wonlil be to make the to crawl to the cabin, where they remained secure from men more reckless. This was a libel on the men, who further attack, and others took to the rigging. At last would hardly be likely to risk the chances of obtaining , when daylight came, the only unwounded man on board compensation for the results of accidents which might made a successful resistance against the savages, two kill them outright. He had never in his long experi. I af whoni wee shot dead. The other Minima into the ence in Yorkshire and Staffordshire known a case in I water, and was not seen again. Only one of the men ;on board was killed outright. The bodies of the two which men had caused accidents for the sake of cam. on who were murdered in the hut were liken on pensation. Witness would hold the owner responsible ; for any injury caused by the orders of a deputy, tire. . board, and there were among the survivors those whose to trier, engineer, or pit-headman, injuries were not so severe as to disable them from because the orders ; the workmen came more directly through these per. , navigating the vessel, which immediately weighed sons, who stood between them and the manager and ; anchor for Cairns, in Queensland. employer. The workmen hod nothing to do with the I conduct of the bankemen, pit-headman, engineer, or I