506 EXPLOSION 01 STEAM BOILERS. 



second, at the establishment whci-e it is to be used — b}' the nearest govern- 

 ment engineer, who after inspection furnishes the owner a certificate of con- 

 dition and restrictions under which the boiler shall be operated. The tests 

 are obligatory (except for mines) and give the manufacturer an immunity in 

 the use of a steam boiler nowhere else approximated. 



Under our system, or rather lack of system, the manufacturer buys and 

 operates his boiler at his own option ; if he desires to drive a forty horse- 

 power engine with a twenty horse-power boiler, there is no law so far as the 

 writer is aware to prevent his doing so. 



The one great impediment to procuring a legal enactment relating to 

 steam boilers is the general indifference of the public to the safety of human 

 life. Take the preceding instance : If in carrying out the intention to drive 

 a forty horse-power engine with the twent}- horse-power boiler, the boiler 

 " lets go," the public sympathy would be as great for the man who lost the 

 boiler as for the men who lost their lives. 



As an illustration of this, the writer would relate a circumstance hap- 

 jJening several years ago : 



A Steam boiler, furnishing power to a very large agricultural ma- 

 chine shop, exj^loded with terrible violence, demolishing one entire section 

 ■of the building, and killing and injuring several of the workmen ; the 

 writer, coming on the ground a few minutes after- the explosion, saw the 

 workmen bearing off the corpse of one of the victims. Shocked at the 

 sight, and desirous of ascertaining the extent of damage to life and limb, he 

 suggested to a bystander "that it appeared to be a ^fQVJ rough accident; "' 

 the response came in a suppressed tone, "it was rough on Smith, he would 

 be obliged to buy a new boiler." In this instance six men were killed and 

 perhaps twenty seriously injured. It may not be out of place to remark 

 that this was one of those rare cases where the engineer enjoyed the princely 

 income of "six dollars a week." 



In nearly every instance of boiler explosion, it appears that the usual le- 

 gal investigation of the causes of the accident is a mere "farce," that neither 

 determines the real nor proximate causes, or locates the blame where it prop- 

 erly belongs; and whilst the facts usually adduced at the inquest may form 

 a foundation upon which the experienced engineer can build a theory of 

 explosion, it is in the great majority of cases simply absurd to base a legal 

 verdict upon the opinion of men whose knowledge of the steam boiler is of 

 the most limited kind. 



Several j-ears ago a small cylinder boiler furnishing steam to a "digester" 

 in a large soap and candle works in Cincinnati, suddenly "let go," killing 

 the attendant and one of the factory hands on the spot; %vhilo a section of 

 the shell weighing upwards of a thousand pounds jjassed directly up two or 

 three hundred feet, thence westward nearly a half mile and fell, killing 

 three small children. 



At the inquest it was ascertained that no one but the attendant was to 

 blame, and as he was already dead, the coroner "generously forebore to 



