DANGEROUSLY SHORT FUSE.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1355, 5 February 1912, Page 4

DANGEROUSLY SHORT FUSE.

e _ PREMATURE BLAST. Ct Teleet»»h.-i'rej,> Association.l Timarli," February 3. An inquest on the recent fatal premature blast at the harbour quarry concluded to-day with the evidence of F. W. Clarke, harbour engineer, who is still laid up by an injury to his leg, having been hit by a Hying stone. Witness said that Calvert, the quarry foreman, and deceased (O'Neill), who laid and fired the blast, considered that the men could be relied on to follow instructions. Calvert told witness that everything was right, and witness had no doubt that two feet of fuse was projecting. Ho did not see what deceased was doing while the tools were being cleared away. The coroner (Mr. V. G. Day, S.M.) returned a formal verdict of accidental death. Commenting on the evidence of Hayes, deceased's assistant, that deceased had cut the fuse to six inches, and that the gunpowder was laid to the end of the wooden trunk, instead of stopping six feet off, the coroner said that these arrangements wore absolutely contrary to instructions and dangerous to life. ' Itwas Hayes's moral duty to report the fact to his employers, and Calvert, as foreman, should have watched the final acts. Counsel for the Harbour Board .said that the engineer had stated that O'Neill was a man who did not need watching. The coroner replied that common sense should have required his oversight of a critical act. It was a case of "familiarity breeds contempt." Hayes, in his evidence, said that he had warned O'Neill of the danger, but did not think it his duty to report whnt his superior had done.