at Wallsend Colliery, June, 1835. 363 



immediate vicinity of the shaft, yet as there were no workings near it, and 

 the wastemen were not travelling the pipe-drifts at the time, the cause of 

 the accident appeared to be more mysterious than ever. 



Stephen Reed, Esq., the coroner, empannelled his jury this day, and de- 

 cided to adjourn from day to day till all the bodies were found. 



This afternoon twenty-five more funerals took place, as the bodies were 

 passing rapidly into a state of decomposition from the effects of the after- 

 damp. Mr. M'Intyre opened one of the first bodies that was found, only 

 twenty-three hours after death, and found the stomach in a state of gan- 

 grene. It was with difficulty that coffins could be procured fast enough, 

 and nothing could exceed the solemnity and heart-rending scenes which 

 the melancholy processions of the funerals presented. No written descrip- 

 ion can convey an adequate idea of the scenes of woe and mental agony ; 

 the lifting of the cwpse never failing to renew those wailings and lamen- 

 tations which had in some degree subsided. 



The Rev. Mr. Armstrong, the clergyman of the parish, was unremitting 

 in his endeavours to sooth the grief of the bereft widows, parents, and the 

 fatherless, and to administer all the consolation in his power, under the 

 afflicting circumstances of the case ; and on Sunday the 28th of June he 

 preached an excellent and impressive sermon on the occasion, when up- 

 wards of £20. were collected as the commencement of a fund for the re- 

 lief of the destitute relatives of the sufferers. Several benevolent persons 

 in the neighbourhood exerted themselves in administering comfort and 

 consolation to the afflicted ; and the attentions of the preachers in the Me- 

 thodist connexion, for the same benevolent purpose, were also unremitting 

 and most praiseworthy. 



Of the four persons who had been got out alive, John Brown was the 

 only one who was capable of giving a collected account of all he knew of 

 the accident. Reed's leg had been immediately amputated above the knee, 

 and he was too ill to be talked to. Robert Moralee was also too ill ; and 

 the boy, Middleton, was in a state of fever and delirium, and told so many 

 improbable and different stories, that little or no reliance could then be 

 placed in what he said. 



John Reed only survived the amputation of his leg a few days ; but when 



