The Sun. — 1861-01-30 (London, England)

THE BISCA COLLIERY EXPLOSION.  RIS CA, TUESDAY. The inquiry was continued yesterday, after the despatch of our parcel, and was resumed this morning; Mr. Llewellyn still appearing for the Risca Coal and Iron Company ; Mr. 0 wen for friends of some of the deceased ; and Mr. Brough and Mr. Evans, government inspectors, to watch proceedings and assist the coroner.  Edmund Davis deposed that he formerly worked in the Black Vein Pit, and was discharged with his brother because the latter refused to work where gas (on fire) was accumulated; or, as it was put by Mr. Thompson, chief viewer of the colliery, because he refused to conform to the practice of putting up trellice to drive the gas out. This -witness made the almost incredible statement that when he complained of the fire, English, the fireman (killed in the explosion, and to whose care and strict attention almost every previous witness had testified), told him that men in that pit often worked in 80 yards of fire.  William Derrick, night fireman, who at the commencement of the inquiry had sworn that he regularly visited the stalls in his district up to the time of the exFlosion, and found no gas there, was recalled in consequence of statements made by different colliers that there was gas in their stalls, and that if he had inspected them, as it was his duty to do, he must have discovered the gas, and ought to have put up a danger mark to keep the men out. He, however, repeated his previous declaration as to the regularity of his visits, and was positive he found the stalls free from fire. More particularly, he swore that no place in his district was left unexamined for a longer interval than three hours; but upon cross-examination it became apparent that an interval of six hours occasionally elapsed between the visits, which Mr. Brough said was doubly as long as it should be for so fiery a pit. The witness was informed that a man named Phillips had sworn that he (Derrick) once fired a shot (or blast of powder) in a fiery state, the effect of which was to extinguish his lamp ; and the witness said positively that if Phillips had sworn so he had sworn a lie.  Among other witnesses examined was Ellen Rosser, who deposed that before the explosion Richard Jenkins lodged with her, and that whenever he went with her little son to his work in the Black Vein Pit he used to say " Good bye, perhaps you will never see me again." When he was asked why he said so, he replied that he worked in a dangerous place, and that if anybody was killed it would be sure to be he. On the morning of the explosion she followed them to the gate of her garden, saying to herself " Perhaps I shall never see them any more," and she never did, for both Jenkins and her own little boy were killed that day. Jenkins, the man referted to, is asserted to have been courting the daughter of this witness ; and a neighbour named Coker asserted that two days after the explosion Mrs. Rosser told her that the night before the explosion her lodger sat up writing a letter, which was subsequently found in his coat pocket, and which turned out to be addressed to her daughter. (She denied all knowledge of the courtship,) That letter, she said, her daughter opened, and found in it directions that she was to have his clothes and sufficient money to buy herself mourning. Mrs. Rosser also told her neighbour that as Jenkins was leaving on the morning of the explosion he bade her bood-bye for ever; but the witness now denied that he did so, and said there was nothing in the letter at all connected with the inquiry. She admitted, however, that Jenkins had been in the habit of carrying a lamp key (strictly forbidden by the rules) tied to the string of his drawers ; but she said she horDolf throw it away some time befbre the explosion occurred. By a singular coincidence it had happened that a lamp was found in the part of the pit where the gas was first fired, with a hole in the gauze as if made by the point of a pickaxe or mandril, and it was supposed that the gas got access to the flame of the lamp through this aperture, and that thus the explosion occurred. When the lamp was first discovered it was concluded that the hole had been made accidentally, but coupling the existence of that hole with the words alleged to have been used by Jenkins and the alleged contents of the letter, a suspicion arose that Jenkins had purposely fired the gas for the purpose of committing suicide, and that thus he had sacrificed 142 lives in addition to his own. It was therefore held important to get at the truth of the matter, and as Mrs. Rosser declined to give any definite information, her daughter, Tabitha Rossier, a young woman of 19, was sent for, and produced the letter, which turned out to be a mere commonplace love letter, so the hypothesis of suicide fell to the ground, but, notwithstanding, the tact remained that Jenkins had somehow possessed himself of a lamp-key, and could therefore have opened his lamp at pleasure, but from a statement made. by the younger woman, it was apparent that Jenkins anticipated danger from a fall rather than from an explosion of gas. William Williams, a subsequent witness, mentioned the name of a man besides Jenkins in whose possession he had seen a lamp-key, and the name of another man who, he had been told, also possessed one.  Some other but unimportant evidence was given before the despatch of our parcel.  [