Extracts.

New Zealander, Volume 3, Issue 163, 22 December 1847, Page 3

Extracts.

The late Fearful Explosion at Faversham. —The immediate lou of life by the ezploiion at Messrs. Hall's gun-cotton manufactory) uear Fuvershatu. I amounted to twenty-one perioni, apparently men, women, and youths. Nine bodies were taken from the ruins in a itate to be identified— eleven parsons were mining, mangled limbs and other remains telling their fate : and the list it completed by a man who died from inhaling the acid fumes, while laboring to extt icate suffeters from the wreck. Beiidei these fatalities, sixteen persons were more or less hurt — two of them to a degree that renders their recovery unlikely The works covered an area of twenty acres— there were four buildings, two of which had been used since De. cemberlast, for the making of gun-cotton. The structures were forty feet square, the walls eighteen feet thick— and the several tactoriei were divided from each other by mounds of earth about forty feet high, and of n«irly the lime extent of base — these mounds being intended to prevent an explosion in one building from txtending to another — a precaution which lamentably failed on this occasion. No fire was allowed within the building where the cotton was dried About eleven o'clock in the morning, one of the factories was blown up by an explosion of tremendous violence ; and in a few seconds the other workshop was also destroyed, the ruini of the first having dashed in the roof and set fire to the dangerous contents. Every one in the first factory perished ; some were rescued alive fiom the other, though it is feared that several were burnt to death in the ruins. Buildings, trees, and corn, for a wide circle around, were more or lets damaged The inquest was begun in Friday week. After the Jury viewed the scene of the disaster, Mr. ,Wm. Hall, one of the partnen, was examined. He

stated that he superintended the worki, in conjunction with Mr. Henry Topping, a practical chemist, who had perished in the explosion. On Wednesday morning, the 14th, he was in the gun-cotton factory from six to eight o'clock ; he showed the boys how to fill the tubes with the cotton, at they were not doing it quite to his sntisfac'ion : the directions he gave them weie such as he thought necessary to insure perfect safety. About eleven o'clock, he was returning to the works, when, as he was between fifty and eighty paces distant from the factories, they exploded. As soon as he dnr«d venture to the spot, he hastened to the ruins. One factory was utterly destroyed ; the other was a mass of ruins, from which cries of distress were heard. People were set to w irk. and they extricated some of the sufferers ; then the fire put a atop to the operations ; but as soon as it could be got under by engines, the search was renewed. The tempei ature which h* allowed in the two buildings was 110 (leg, and 120 deg. respectively : he thought that perfectly sufe ; he had exposed cotton to 350 deg. without its exploding. He spent a great portion of his time every day in the factory along with the workpeople. He could not form any opinion of the cause of the explosion. Mr. Day, one of the superintendents of the factory, stated that he had left the premises a few minutes before the disaster ; the temperature was then below the maximum fixed by Mr. Hall ; and it could hardly have been raised ten degrees during the time he was abient. Mr. Alfred White, a manufacturing chemist of Islington i deposed that two months since he had examined the works at the desire of Messrs Hall, And he thought every precaution had been taken to obviate danger. Mr. Topping was a careful and intelligent person, in every way competent to take charge of such works. He knew that Mr. Topping thought 180 deg. would be perfectly safe ; but he did not think he would have raised the temperature without Mr. Hall's sanction The jury wished to examine some of the workpeople ; and as surgeons staled that none of the sufferers were likely to be recovered sufficiently to ap> pear at the inque t fora fortnight, the inquiry was adjourned till the 9th of Augu-t. The Post Office and the Pbnny Post. — At a dinner given recently, by the Liverpool Guardian Society established for the protection of trade, to Mr. Rowland Hill, that gentleman made some statements respecting his position in the Post-Oflice— the present results of his scheme of postal reform — and the difficulties which stand in the way of changes in a machinery so vast and complicated — that it may be useful to quote— became of the general interest of the subject. "It was," he said, ♦' a matter of per>onal convenience to himself that his duties in the Post-Office should be clearly understood ; as the erroneous ideas which prevailed respecting them had involved him in a correspondence which occupied which ought to be devoted to other objects. His, duties were to advise the Postmaster-General on all points on which lib Lordship might be plessed to direct his attention, tad to carry out gradually the remainder of his own system of Post Office Improvement, of which the penny rate was only one feature. Without a general understanding to this effect, he need scarcely say that he should not have felt justified in accepting office. Of the management of the prssent details he had no control whatever. * * He wished to convey to bis hearers some idea of the magnitude of the institution. Were he merely to state that so many millions of letters passed through the Post Office in a year, no one could farm any accurate conception of the reality. The beit mode prob ibly to convey any accurate idea of ths whole, would be for hinvto describe some part. For instance, when he left London, he was at Euston-square when the mail was brought in to go by the tram, this being only one of many which are dispatched by railways. It was considered an exceedingly light mail ; but small as it was, it literally filled six large omnibusses ; and the heavy mails forwarded on Saturday night filled nine carriages of a similar de scription. Again, the number of dead letters,' since the adoption of p re-pay men', had become a very imall fraction — less than the 290 th part of the whole ; nevertheless, the average amount of money found in such letters, in coin, bank notes, and bills of exchaige,.was j£400,000 per annum. Many thousands of pounds were actually found in letters with no address whatever. The company would see, therefore, that in so vast a machine the difficulties in the vtdj of any extensive change was very great. Another difficulty was that the machine was constantly in motion ; it never stood Jtill night or day, and the greatest care, forethought, and calculation, weie therefore necessary in making alterations. In improving, -it would not do to make a mistake; that might stop it altogether ;— they could rarely try the experiment; all must be investigated and settled with unerring certainty befo-ehand. If a steam-engine became defective, it could be stopped, and the requisite repairs made ; but not so with the Post Office. He wished society tobear these facts in mind, aud to continue to him some portion of tkat great confidence which they had hitherto reposed in him, assuring them that so far as he was concerned no time should be lost in carrying out the remaining portions of hit plan. * * It might seem to many absurd that letter* should be carried past a town for which they were intended, and then brought back ; but it was not really absurd. It arose from the impossibility of of every town makiug up a bag for every other town. There were 1 ,000 post towns, and if every one of these made up 1,000 bags, there would be 1,000,000 bags j in fact, moie bagi than letters. * * Perhaps it might be interesting to the company to revert to a few facts connected with the change produced by the plan of Penny Postage. Immediately before he introduction of the reduced rate of postage the number of chargeable, .letters — not including frunks — delivered amounted to 75,000,000 annually; last year it amounted to 299.500,000, or to four-fold the orig. inal number. It would require something more than that to bring the Post Office revenue up to the former gross amount ; but less than five-fold would effect that object. At the, present moment the number of. letters delivered in the London district, comprising a circle of a radius of 12 miles round the Post Office in St. Martin's-le- Grand was quite as gieat as that which under the old system was delivered in the whole United Kingdom, The increase was rapidly going on, aud amounted to 28,000,000 more last year as compared with the previous year. It was the opinion of many gentlemen that the introduction of the penny rate increased the difficulty of effecting improvements. It was said they could not afford 10 give cheaper postage and greater facilities also ; but, in fact, improvements had followed one upon another more rapidly tince the penny postage came into operation than before. When the plan was first proposed, the large towns had only a tingle mail connecting them with London ; now they have two mails per day. Again : in England and Wales there were formerly only 2,000 post offices of every kind ; now there were 4,0«0." Fare. — When we meet with better fare than was expected, the disappointment is overlooked even by the scrupulous. When we meet with worse than was expected, philosophers alone know how to make it better. Passion. — What is' "doW without passion, is generally done coldly ; what i.s done "from passion alone you may have reason to repent of.