BOLTON DISASTER

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10156, 30 December 1910, Page 5

BOLTON DISASTER

CABLE_NEWS United Pi'ess Association—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright.

NEARLY THREE HUNDRED BODIES RECOVERED. CAUSE OF THE ACCIDENT. ' (Received Last Night, 9.25 o'clock.) LONDON". December 29. Two hundred and seventy-three bodies have been recovered from the Bolton mine. The rescuers believe that tiie explosion occurred close to an electrical coalcutting machine, where the heaviest falls of the roof took place. Mr Robert Smillie, in the course of a presidental address at the Scottish Miners' Conference, expressed indignation at the statement that the inadvertent use of a match had hurled 350 souls into Eternity. He characterized it as a charge against the dead. It was, he said, answered by the inquest, which had shown that the gas had been accumulating daily. Doubtless the explosion was largely, if not wholly, due to coal dust. Probably it did not originate at the coal face, but in the main. The road was dry and dusty. The mine owners ought to remove, the dry-dust, or water it. The law ought to forbid electriccutting machinery where gas was present. More inspectors were required to supervise the mines. RELIEF FROM COMMONWEALTH. Received This Morning, 12.5, o'clock. MELBOURNE, December. 29. The Commonwealth Government has cabled £2OOO to the relief fund for the sufferers by the disaster at the Pretoria. Colliery, at Bolton.