THE FATAL ACCIDENT AT MELBOURNE ON QUEEN’S BIRTHDAY.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 17, Issue 1045, 17 June 1871, Page 2

THE FATAL ACCIDENT AT MELBOURNE ON QUEEN’S BIRTHDAY.

[akgus, may 25.] Thk almost perfect success achieved in ! the Review was dashed just.at the close ■ by a lamentable accident,'in which Mr { John Alexander/ a corporal in the Engineers, of which corps? he was one of the oldest and smartest members, was bio* n up and to pieces by the explosion of a mine. So far as is known the unhappy event occurred in this wise. The engineers had constructed 21 mines, each containing 19lb. of powder, and when the troops had returned from crossing the bridge, the order was given that the mines should be ex ploded. This was done by means of wires connected with a galvanic battery, for it has long since been a strict order of Colonel Andeison that on no account were mines to be fired by fuse. The supply of wire not being plentiful, it was arranged to fire off the mines in batches of three, and when one batch was exploded the wires were to be transferred to the other mines, and so on. Matters went thus, and with success, till the last batch of three miues came to be tired off. At this time Sergeant Draper was at the firing point, and Corporal Alexander with Sergeant Phelan (late of the Royal Engineers), did the work of connecting the mines with wire, and signalling with a red flag when it was safe to lire Corporal j Alexander having, apparently, connected one of the mines, was seen by three men, including Sergeant Draper, to make the signal; the connection was made at the battery, and up went the mine. A dark body in the shape of a man in engineer's uniform was on this occasion seen to go up with the cloud of dirt and smoke, but that excited no alarm, as it was known that a stuffed ei'ilgy of an engineer had been laid on top of the mine to increase the illusion. As no further signal was made, however, Alexander was looked for, and his fate was at once discerned by the discovery of a piece of a man's upper jaw with fle«h adhering, which being shown immediately afterwards to E. M. James, the surgeon of the corps, who was on the ground, was declared to be human remains recently exposed to fire. Portions of the busby, including its hoisehair tuft, and the trousers of the deceased were subsequently found near the spot, and it wa s< seen by hundreds that a portion of what appeared to be the body of an engineei—but what was generally taken to be the effigy of one merely—fell into the river just after the explosion. Its evident weight was remarked as something unexpected, but that circumstance excited little attention at the moment. Mr Fosse, ot W. Ford and Co., druggists, Swanston street, a bystander, actually saw the man close to the mine, and remarked his danger, when the explosion took place. He also saw the body apparently of a man in a red const thrown some 50 feet high in the air, which is remarkable as showing that the deceased —if the body was his— must have been right over the mine when it went off. '1 he deceased was a young man, and much respected in the corps. He was by trade a machinist, and was recently employed as such in Langland's Foundry. He lias, we understand, been in business on his own account since, He was married quite lately, and leaves behind an infant child as well as widow. He was the son ot a schoolmaster now at the Werribee, and the brother of another schoolmaster at Emerald-hill, and a member of the Emerald-hill Corps. It is a curious fact that he was avowedly familiar with electrical machines and apparatus, having constructed the latter for Mr Cosmo iNewbery, the analyst, and long since for Anderson, the Wizard of the North, in order to enable the trick of lighting a series of candles simultaneously by tiring a pistol to be performed. His death is deeply felt by the corps, and their annual ball, which was to have taken place last evening, was postponed on its account.