THE FATAL ACCIDENT AT MELBOURNE ON QUEEN'S BIRTHDAY.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 21, 17 June 1871, Page 4

THE FATAL ACCIDENT AT MELBOURNE ON QUEEN'S BIRTHDAY.

[From the Aegtjs, May 25.] The almost perfect success acheived 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 blown up and to pieces by the explosion of a mine. So far as is known the unhappy affair occurred in this wise. The engineers had constructed 21 mines, each containing 19 lbs of powder, and when the troops had returned from crossing the bridge, the order was given that the mines should be exploded. This was done by means of wires connected with a galvanic batter}', for it has long since been a strict order of Colonel Anderson 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 ex-' ploded 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 mines came to be fired off. At this time Sergeant Draper was at the firing point, and Corporal Alexander, with Sergeant Phelan (formerly of the Royal Engineers), did the work of connecting the mines with the wire, and signalling with a red flag when it'was safe to fire. Corporal 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 effigy of an engineer had been laid on the top of the mine to, increase the illusion. As no further signall 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 flesh adhering, which being shown immediately afterwards to Mr E. M. James, the surgeon of the corps, who was on the ground, was declared to be humam remains recently exposed to fire. Portions of the busby,* including the horse-hair tuft, and the trousers of the deceased, were subsequently found near the spot, and it was seen by hundreds that a portion of what appeared to be the body of an engineer—-but what was generally taken to be the effigy of one merelyfell into the river after the explosion. Its evident weight was remarked as something unexpected, but that circumstance excited little attention at the moment. Mr Fosse, of 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 coat thrown some fifty feet high into the air, which is remarkable as showing that the deoeased —if the body was his—must have been right over the mine when it went off.