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THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



[August, 



In some <if the print.slio|) windows is to be found a very imporlant 

 engraving of the philosopher endeavouring to find out the wind in the 

 kitchen l)ellows, an example from which Her Majesty's government 

 appear to have derived a lesson on this occasion. Having been foiled 

 in a previous attempt in 1831, they rediscovered, mirabile dicta, tliat 

 accidents really did occur to steam vessels, when it struck their en- 

 lightened minds that a commission must be the very machine to find 

 out the caiu>es of the said phenomena, and accordingly appointed 

 Captain Pringle, of the Royal Engineers, and Mr. Josiah Parkes, 

 Civil Engineer, as fit and projjer persons to conduct this momentous 

 inquiry. The instructions to these gentlemen were to find out, 1st. the 

 number and nature of the accidents which have happened in steam- 

 vessels within the last ten years, as far as they can be ascertained, and 

 2nd!y, the practical means of preventing the recurrence of such acci- 

 dents. They accordingly sent round a circular, calculated to enlist 

 the prejudices of particular parties, and entrap them to commit them- 

 selves and neighbours. Of some they asked, "What accidents have 

 occurred in Ijoilers not of your construction?" of those who might 

 think steam-vessel ])ro])rietors too chary in repairs, tliey incjuired, 

 " Are the engines and boilers of steamers in your opinion overhauled 

 and repaired as frequently as is requisite to maintain them in a safe 

 working state, both as regards the boilers and effective working powers 

 of the engines ? Not contented with this, they raked up all the old 

 newspapers and penny-a-line paragraphs they could find, and applied 

 to the Thames waterman for the favour of their sentiments on the 

 subject. 



The result of all this labour is a large blue book, which is printed 

 at the public exjiense, and prefaced with a letter from the commis- 

 sioners, stating what they had and had not done, and also the important 

 facts that "they had received, in answer to their queries, much infor- 

 mation from gentlemen residing at places which their time did not 

 admit of their visiting, and that they had also inspected vessels fmild- 

 ing, and macliinery in progress of construction;" and this is but a 

 sample of the miserable twaddle whicli was the natural result of such 

 a preposterous job. The deaths of pigs, boats' oars being cut in two 

 pieces, and similar valuable matter, are in fact the staple of the report. 

 The commissioners, naturally feeling diffident of the possibility of 

 manufacturing a report with such materials, extended, in their public 

 zeal, the sphere of their labours, and not only reported accidents wliicli 

 occurred above twenty years ago, but in every part of the world, and 

 of all cliisses and descriptions. We are luiwilling to attribute motives 

 fiu'ther than the natural anxiety to earn a guinea, or it would cer- 

 tainly have appeared to lis that this looks something like a crusade 

 for the purpose of annoying an important interest, and concocting a 

 govennneut job. Their zeal, however, has overstepped their dis- 

 cretion, and they have themselves furnished the materials for refuting 

 their own absurdities. Having with great labour mustered up 92 

 accidents, they thus classify them ; wrecks 40, explosions 23, fires 

 from other causes 17, and collisions 12 ; and then proceed to dilate 

 upon tlie several subdivisions of tliese various classes. The enume- 

 ration of the several causes of accidents establishes, indeed, nearly a 

 separate cause for each individual accident. 



The schedule of accidents in the Black Book, on which the super- 

 structure of jobbery is to rest, has not been analysed by the com- 

 missioners, so that we must ourselves save tliem the troiible. This 

 list begins in 1817, twelve years before the period defined for the 

 inquiry, and extends down to the jieriod of going to press, enume- 

 rating more than one case of the same vessel, including all the varieties 

 of accidents to which vessels of all kinds are exposed, and having 

 about as much to do with the specific object of inquiry as the com- 

 missioners liad to be employed at all. It includes cases in North 

 America, the Mediterranean, Portugal, Germany, France, and Heaven 

 knows where, and displays an extent and variety of research not 

 equalled since Dr. Jolmson's Essay on Broomsticks. The sources of 

 information, of whicli even the commissioners tliemselves do not 

 attenijjt to uphold the credit, are country papers, jiemij'-a-liners, hear- 

 say reports, anonymous accusations (p. 2,) imaginary suggestions, and 

 no testimony at all ; (case of the Frolic, p. 4,) and would form but poor 

 evidence in a court either of law or of conscience, the sole object being 

 to make o\it as glaring and flagrant a case of mismanagement against 

 the steam-boat interest, as the ingenuity of the operators could suggest. 

 Where the liorror could be touched up in the Greenacre murder style 

 it has been attempted, and even animals pressed into the service to 

 supply the deficiency. Of the 02 cases and no-cases detailed, above 

 sixty are not even attempted to be attributed to machinery, and the 

 whole amount attributable to such causes, including flues getting 

 heated, exjilosions without injury, &c. only amounts to 2ti, of vvliich 

 above one-tliird occurred before the period assigned for the com- 

 mencement of tlie commissioners' labours, and making, in twenty-two 

 years, an average of little more than one per annum. With 800 



vessels annually employed, the mmiber of special accidents was se\en- 

 teen in ten years, or aliout one-fifth per cent, per annum. K)i these 

 cases only 15 were fatal to human life, or not one per cent, per annum. 

 The number of lives lost attributed to defective machinery amounts 

 to 78 !! ! or about 3-G per year, which, reckoning only two millions of 

 persons carried in a year, makes a loss of life of l-555th, or '000177 

 ])er cent, or not one in half a million. The number of pigs we leave 

 to the commissioners to calculate. The causes of the various accidents 

 detailed, it is impossible for us to enumerate, but it is quite sufficient 

 for us to say that most of them ha\e nothing at all to do with the 

 construction or economy of a steam-vessel ; they include causes no 

 longer in existence, (case of the Ncmvich, p. 9,) fires from soldiers 

 smoking on deck and inflaming straw, sailors getting drunk, carrying 

 too lieavy a deck load of pigs, &c. &c. Reference of the cases to 

 their correct causes it is imnecessary to say is not aflforded Ijy the 

 commissioners, altliough we might naturally have expected it, as most 

 of them have nothing to do with steam at all. We find that above 

 one-third of tliem occurred in the Irish sea, and a great many on the 

 east coast of England, and they are more rationally to be attributed to 

 the want of harbours of refuge upon tliose notoriously dangerous 

 coasts. We certainly find, as the commissioners acknowledge, that 

 more accidents occur with the Scotch and northern stf'amers, than 

 with any others; but we do not see why, on that accomit, the whole 

 empire is to be subjected to the stringent rule of empirical inspectors. 



Schedule B is a list of accidents furnished by the Watermen's 

 Company, and is so ridiculous as to cease to be mischievous. Of the 

 thousands of craft navigating the Thames, they are only able to manu- 

 facture 59 accidents in three years and a half, or seventeen a year. 

 These, as far as thej' can be understood from the nonsensical state- 

 ments, appear not to arise from the steamers, but from the parties 

 themselves, drunken watermen. Trinity Mews sailors, amateurs and 

 tailors' apprentices, and vessels unwieldy and overloaded. In order 

 to show the injury to the watermen's craft, every species of vessel is 

 crammed into the service, from steamers and colliers down to fishing 

 smacks and ship's boats ; cases are related as having occurred in the 

 docks, and embellishments of every kind are introduced : " one of the 

 boat's oars was cut in two pieces ; " " a young man (the son of the 

 owner of the smack, who is a widow), was drowned;" a long story 

 about a Mr. Joseph Crannis, of Union Street, Southwark, and his wife 

 Mary Aime, how they went to see his brother off to Hull ; " the pas- 

 sengers were dreadfully alarmed;" "a seaman who had just arrived 

 from the West Indies was drowned." The number of lives said to be 

 lost from these causes is 43, or 12 per amium ; but in order that an 

 idea may be formed of the means used by the commissioners to manu- 

 facture accidents, we will just take the account of 1838. 24 accidents 

 are put down, S of which are barges swamped, some with 84 tons ol 

 coals on board, several are by steamers working against the tide or in 

 the ice, one is a case of a steam-vessel from Hull to London, about 

 a passenger named Stamford going into the engine-room, getting 

 entangled in the machinery, and being crushed to atoms ; his remains 

 were put into a small box and landed at the Custom House Wharf ! ! ! 

 The whole number of boats lost in that year was 8, the number of 

 people upset 19, anil liies lost, 3. 



As to the animus which influences the report, it might appear un- 

 necessary still further to allude to it, but we camiot refrain from calling 

 attention to the maimer in which sUunlers are cast upon the gentlemen 

 interested in promoting steam navigation. 



Mr. Gibson says, " The steam-packet owner looks only to the splendour of 

 the saloon and tlie velocity of the vessel ; it is upon these alone that he de- 

 jicnds for success, tlie safety of the passengers is altogether lost sight of; to 

 ensure speed, the fabric of the vessel is made as light and Himsy as possible to 

 hold together." 



This needs no comment, and we abandon it to the indignation of 

 our readers. 



That the commissioners have failed in making out a case, them- 

 selves and their employers seem to be tolerably persuaded, and were 

 it not for the jiertinacity with which this rotten plank has been clung 

 to, we should have left it to its courted oblivion. We cannot, how- 

 ever, forget that this is not the first attempt of the kind, and that it is 

 not likely to be the last, nor that, by pretending to strike at a single 

 interest, can they blind us to the fact, that they are attacking the 

 whole industrial" interests of the empire. That the measures recom- 

 mended are as mischievous as the evidence on which they are at- 

 tempted to be based is fallacious, is a natural result of the employment 

 of persons who have proved themselves nwrally ineomjietent. That 

 the system is vexatious and in<iuisittn-ial it needs no argument to 

 (iruve", and that it must be injurious anil inefficient is equally certain. 

 What men can be found so little attached to their own ideas, or so 

 unprejudiced against those of others, as to be safely intrusted with 

 the control of the enterprise and genius of the nation 5 We have not 



