Fatal Boiler Accident at the Thames.

Cromwell Argus, Volume V, Issue 222, 10 February 1874, Page 7

Fatal Boiler Accident at the Thames.

Early on the morning of January 22, at a few minutes just past midnight, occurred one of those awful calamities which strike consternation into the community where they occur. The one in question is the most terrrible in effect that has yet visited the Thames, and is chiefly due to that bugbear which for years has engaged our engineers' attention—viz., the encrustation of boilers. In tins instance, three deaths are the result. The scene of the accident is the Kuranui Gold Mining Company's battery, and the unfortunate sufferers are Alfred Cook, amalgamator to the company, who leaves six children, principally adults ; Richard Watson, employed to watch the crushing of the Queen of Beauty stone, leaving a widow' and two children (young); and Matthew Paul, in the same capacity for the Crown Prince Company, and leaving a widow and five children. The whole of the deceased had only a short time previous to the accident come on shift, and Cook and Watson wore sitting on the door sill

of the boiler-house, <a few feet off the furnace of the boiler, eating their food ; while Paul, with a shovel, was passing to socuru a live coal to light his pipe. "The two-men, Cook and Watson, were blown against the shoots of the •' huddle," about thirty-four feet away, and such was the force that they acfcu* ally broke the flaming that feeds the huddle, while the livo coals were thrown over the close fence and beyond the Tararu road, a distance of about ninety feet. Cook was almost insensible when first noticed, and Watson was very little better, both sitting against the water shoots, a greater portion of theirclothing and boots being blow nuff. Their cries were heart-rending, water being asked for, and their shirts to be unloosed, as they were choking ; but, poor fellows, their sufferings were past alleviation in this respect, beyond applying oil to soothe their bodies. They were severely scalded over the whole of their bodies, and on the medical gentleman seeing them all hopes were lost. Paul, after his fall, got up and walked into the battery and asked one of the men for a blanket, and during the search for this he drew hia right over his left hand, when the whole of the skin and nails came away in one mass, when the poor fellow exclaimed, " I afn done for." When he reached the hospital hopes were entertained that he would survive, but he died about eight a.m., Watson at six, and Cook at four; an interval of two hours between each. The escape of Kay, the engine driver and fireman, was miraculous. He had just left the stoke or boiler house and proceeded to the engine-room, and whilst there

heard a low rumbling noise, and attempted to get back to the boilers, but could not; and he made his escape out of a window to the back of the battery, and in so' doing received some slight'scalds.— New Zealand Sercdd.

Josh Billings on the Goslin. The goslin is the.old goose's yung child. They are yeller all over, and az soft az a ball of worsted. Their foot i 3 wove whole, and they can swim az eazy az a drop of kaster oil on the water. They are born annually about the 15th of May, and waz never known tew die nairally. If a man should tell me that he saw a goose die a natral and square deth, I wouldn't believe him under oath after that, not even if he swore he had lied about seeing a goose die. The goose are different in one respect from the human family, who are said tew grow weaker but wiser ; whereaz a goose alwus grows tuffer and more phooiish. I hav seen a goose that they sed was ninety-three years old last June, and he didn't look a day older than one that was seventeen. The goslin waddles when he walks, and paddles when he swims, but never dives, like a duck, out ov sight in the water, but only changes ends. The fond of the goslin iz rye, corn, oats, and barley, sweet apples, hasty pudding, and biled cabbage, cooked potatoze, raw meat, and turnips, stale bred, kold hash, and buckwheat cakes that are left over. They ain't so partikiar az sum other pholks about what they eat, and won't git mad and quit if they kan't have wet toast and lam chops, every morning for breakfast. If I waz a- going tew keep boarders, I would not want I any better feeders than an old she goose and ! twelve goslins. If I couldn't suit them, I I should konklude I had mistaken my kalling. ! Roast goslin is good nourishment, if yu can get enuff ov it, but there ain't much waste meat on a goslin after yu have got rid of their feathers, and dug them out inside. I have alwus notised when when 3:011 pass your plate up for some more baked goslin at a hotel, the colored brother cums bale with empty plate, and tells : " Mister, the roast goslin is no more."