Jasper Republican, Volume 2, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 November 1875 — Great Destruction to Life by a Boiler Explosion. [ARTICLE]

Great Destruction to Life by a Boiler Explosion.

The boiler of the engine Centralia, of the Easton & Amboy Railroad, exploded on the morning of die Ist at the Raritan siding near South Somerville, N. J. The following particulars are given in the New York papers of the 2d: The engineer, the foreman of the laborgang and three other men were killed, and thirty-three laborers were scalded, some of them fatally. The cause of the explosion is said to have been the wornout condition of the boiler and the lack of water kept in it. The engine left Boundbrook about seven a. m. with a construction train, consisting of a caboose and a number of empty gravel-cars, for the purpose of assisting in the repair of the road. The engine was attached to the rear of tha-train and directly in front of it was the caboose and another containing about forty-eight laborers. When the train reached the siding, about two and a half miles west of Boundbrook,*it was run upon a side-track in order to allow the eastern-bound passenger-train to pass. While standing here the boiler of the engine, without any warning, exploded, wrecking the iocomo tive, shivering the caboose to atoms and pouring steam and boiling water into the car in front of it. The laborers occupying the caboose, unconscious of danger, were talking and laughing together, and when the shock came were scattered like leaves before a hurricane. Some of them were blown through the roof and sides and by the force of the explosion were lifted twenty or thirty feet into the air. But eight men escaped uninjured. Many were severely wounded by flying fragments of the cars and engine and two or three were fatally scalded. Five were killed almost outright. The boiler was carried high in the air and landed about 100 feet from the scene of the disaster. Col. Palmer H. Thompson, foreman of the labor-gang, was burned about the body and injured internally. He died about four p. m. He was commander of a Pennsylvania regiment of militia during the late war, and leaves a wife and one child. When the physician came to attend him he said: “ Attend to others first; I am not hurt as badly as they are.” Before dying he described how the force of the explosion had thrown him through the roof of the caboose and thirty feet high. While falling he thought of clutching the telegraph-wires, which he saw many feet below him, to break his fall, but, thinking it would be useless, refrained. He alighted on a tie, which broke in one of his ribs and burst in one of his lungs, which produced a fatal internal hemorrhage. Bound brook was the scene of intense excitement, as the explosion, though it occurred two and a half miles from there, was distinctly heard. Wood-choppers working several miles distant heard the reverberations and hurried to the scene. Many stories were afloat as to the cause of the accident, but, in the excitement that prevailed, it was impossible to ascertain where the blame rests.

Thebe are some peculiar facts concerning the distribution of the nightingale in Europe* It is found as far north as Sweden and as far west as Spain and Portugal, and yet it never visits Scotland, Ireland or Wales. From the boundaries limiting its habitat in England it appears that the bird is restricted to those portions of the country which are covered with secondary or tertiary formations. Hence it may be inferred that the insects on which it lives do not obtain means of subsistence where the primary soil prevails. —The number of church buildings owned by the Southern Presbyterian Church is 1,797; of this number 520 are vacant. The number of preachers without charges is 203; the whole number of preachers is 1,084.