Widnes Examiner. — 1883-11-10 (Widnes, Cheshire, England)

COLLIERY. tendtd, singularly enough, that the Chester court had per- lAt half-past seven o'clock on Thursday morning an feet jurisdiction, and ought ' accident of an alarming character occurred at the Houghall to have tried the case out, but as the jury had been discharged, he regarded that as equiva- II Colliery, Durham, which jeopardised the lives of 120 lent to a dismissal of the prisoner. Scott was committed for ' miners who were down the pit at the time. Houghall Coltrial at the Liverpool Assizes. liery is situated about two miles from Durham, and is owned A MELANCHOLY Sums:me—On Tuesday an inquest was by Messrs. Love, giving employment to about 240 persons held at Carlisle Castle on the body of Quartermaster-Ser- i What is known as the Hutton seam Is worked by three geant Webster, of the 4th battalion of Border Regiment 1 shafts—upcaet, downcast, and No. 3 upcast, the latter be(Westmorland Militia), who had shot himself through the i ing generally used for pumping purposes. The head in the forenoon. The deceased, who was 50 years of two principal shafts are the east and west, and age, had been in a despondent state for some time in conse- 'in the latter shaft the accident occurred. The foreshift quence of an internal complaint from which he suffered. , men, 120 in number, were down the pit at the On Tuesday forenoon, when he was last seen alive by a , time. The cage in the west shaft was being brought up, comrade, he seemed in low spirits. He went into his office, , when it caught the "guides" of the shaft. The sudden and two minutes afterwards a report of firearms was heard. jerk broke the drum of the winding engine, which fell with The quartermaster ran to see what had happened, and found ' a heavy crash into the engine-room, within a foot of George Webster dying from a rifle shot, the bullet having entered Goundry, engineman in charge, who had a miraculous his forehead and come out at the top of his skull. He expired in about half an hour. He had left on the table a escape. The cage in the west shaft was precipitated to the bottom, and blocked the shaft. On hearing of the accident slip of paper with the following words written on it : ' the men underground rushed to the pit eye, and became "Can't do my work; memory gone; eyesight failing."— I greatly excited at the prospect of being entombed. ForThe jury returned a verdict that the deceased committed ; tunatelv, Mr. Gustard, manager of the colliery, .was down suicide when of unsound mind. 1 at the time, and allayed the fears of the men as much as THE TUNNEL EXPLOSlONS.—Experiments were made on Wednesday at Woolwich in connection with the recent Ipossible. He proceeded at once to examine the shafts, and ex- ' found that he could communicate with those at plosions on the Underground Railway, in the presence of I , the bank, and that in a few hours it would Sir Frederick Abel, Dr. Dupre, Colonel Majendie, Captain be possible to work the cage in the east shaft. Cundill, and other Government officials. A position was ißy this time great excitement prevailed at the pit mouth, found for the experiments fairly representing the interior of land wives and friends of those imprisoned gathered with a railway tunnel. Part of a disused and dismantled em- lanxious faces round the pit head to ascertain the extent of placement, erected for the trial of the 100-ton guns, suffi- the accident. First appearances were serious. „end to ciently answered the purpose. Charges of dynamite were relieve the anxiety of there waiting Mr. Gustard deterfired by means of fuses under circumstances such as are mined to send up some of the men to bank supposed to have attended the explosions at Praed-street by number three npcast shaft, by means of the hawse rope. and Charing-cross. Portions of the gaspipes damaged on which is simply a noose through which the men those occasions, and other remains suitable for experiment, put one leg and are hauled up. In this way some 50 of the were operated upon, in order to ascertain the quantity of 1 I imprisoned miners were sent to bank. As considerable dynamite used by the perpetrators of the outrages, and it danger attached to this weer of getting out, the may be inferred from the comparatively email charges em- , remainder of the men determined to wait until the cage in ployed by the investigators that they do not entertain very : the east shaft could be worked. In the course extravagant ideas as to the formidable character of the two of about two hours this was effected, and the remainder of outrages. • the men were brought to bank about four o'clock in the