TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 237 



dental, and to be shrouded in mystery, and tliis view has seriously arrested pro- 

 gress. Where mystery begins prevention ends. It is now trusted that it will be 

 tlioroughly recognized that explosions are not the result of the freaks of fate, but 

 of commercial greed ; and this fundamental principle being firmly established, it 

 cannot be doubted that these catastrophes will ultimately, in one way or another, 

 be prevented. Thus it is thought that a most important step has been taken which 

 is a considerable matter for congratiUation. 



It is also satisfactory that the Parliamentary Committee has recommended that 

 coroners, when conducting inquiries consequent on steam-boiler explosions, should 

 be assisted by scientific assessors, a practice which was strongly urged in the Report 

 laid before the British Association at the Exeter Meeting*. It may, however, be 

 open to question whether it would be better that the engineer, as the Parliamen- 

 tary Committee recommend, should be appointed by the Board of Trade, or that 

 the coroner should be empowered to appoint two competent independent engineers 

 to investigate the cause of the explosion, and report thereon, as suggested in the 

 Report referred to. But whichever course be adopted, if competent reports be 

 ensured, a public service will be rendered. 



Not only, however, should the " result " of each investigation be reported to 

 Parliament, but also all the evidence of an engineering character, accompanied 

 with suitable drawings to illustrate the cause of the explosion, so that all the 

 information to be derived from these sad catastrophes might be disseminated as 

 widely as possible. 



Further, it is presumed that the reports on explosions which occur in Scotland, 

 where coroner's inquests are not held, will nevertheless be presented to Parliament. 



It is most important that the Bill embodj'ing the recommendations of the Par- 

 liamentary Committee should provide for other engineers having an opportunity 

 of making an examination of the fragments of the exploded boiler, as well as those 

 appointed by the Board of Trade, otherwise the intervention of the Board of Trade 

 ■will have a seriously harassing effect. The system practised in Scotland, where 

 the Procurator-Fiscal appoints an engineer to report to him oflicially, is found "Ncry 

 much to impede other investigations ; and engineers who have gone all the way 

 from England to visit the scene of explosions in Scotland with the view of giving 

 the facts to the public have been forbidden access to the scene of the catastrophe, 

 so that the Procurator-Fiscal receives information which he does not circulate, 

 while he withholds the opportunity of gaining information from those who would 

 circulate it, and thus he stands in the way of the public good. It is most impor- 

 tant that care should be taken that investigations by Board of Trade officers do not 

 have the same obstructive effect in England; and to this end there should be a 

 special provision that the coroner be invested with a discretionary power to admit 

 any suitable parties to make an investigation. 



Passing over the consideration of details, it is certainly considered that the 

 three following conclusions arrived at in the Parliamentary Report, first, that as 

 a rule explosions are not accidental but preventible ; secondly, that on the occur- 

 rence of explosions a complete investigation of the cause of the catastrophe should 

 be promoted by the appointment of a scientific assessor to assist the coroner; and, 

 thirdly, that reports of each investigation should be presented to Parliament: 

 these three conclusions, it is considered, form a foundation from which a super- 

 structure will spring in course of time which must eradicate steam-boiler ox- 

 plosions. 



What the precise character of that superstructure should be is a question on 

 which opinions may differ. Some, among whom are the Parliamentary Com- 

 mittee as already explained, prefer a system of pains and penalties to be inflicted 

 on the steam-user in the event of his allovring his boiler to give rise to an explo- 

 sion. Others prefer a system of direct prevention by the enforcement of inspection, 

 on the following general basis : — They would recommend a national S5'stem of 

 periodical inspection, enforced but not administered by the Government, that 

 administration being committed to the steam-users themselves, with a due infu- 

 sion of ex officio representatives of the public. For this purpose they propose that 

 steam-users should be aggregated into as many district corporations as might be 

 * Transactions of the British Association at the Exeter Meeting, 1869, p. 50. 



