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MINUTES OF PROCEEDINGS OF 
The Head Constable of Richmond, in Yorkshire, reported as follows :— 
“ I have seen miners with a quarter cask (25 lb.) making their charges 
by the fire frequently, and they generally keep it under the bed or 
in the pantry, where their children have access to it. 33 At Wigan, a 
collier was filling cartridges from a can of powder, when a spark from 
the candle fell into the can and produced a serious explosion. In 
another instance a boy was left alone in a house where an open barrel 
containing 7 lb. of powder, with a piece of wood simply placed over the 
head, was in the bedroom. A box of matches was known to be in the 
room, and it is supposed that the boy, who died from injuries received, 
exploded the powder by means of them. 
Numerous illustrations such as these could be quoted of the fearfully 
careless manner in which powder is very generally dealt with in manu¬ 
facturing districts. It naturally follows that other explosive agents, 
such as dynamite and gun-cotton, should be treated with similar and 
perhaps even greater recklessness. The apparently less dangerous 
nature of such materials when unconfined tends to render the miner 
even more regardless of precautions, and hence it is unquestionably 
wrong to foster the notion of the safety of these materials in the hands 
of the miner, especially as it frequently occurs that the men who use 
these materials are unable to read the printed instructions which are 
supplied by the manufacturers with the cartridges for the purpose of 
guarding against accident. Thus several frightful accidents have 
occurred through direct exposure to the fire of frozen cartridges of 
dynamite for the purpose of thawing them,* and the apparently 
harmless nature of dynamite and compressed gun-cotton has on more 
than one occasion caused the miner, when a charge has become jammed 
in a blast-hole, to endeavour to drive it home with his rammer, with 
all the force at his command—with what result need scarcely be 
stated.f The wholesome effect of stringent regulations which keep 
constantly before the minds of the ordinary operative the dangerous 
nature of gunpowder and all operations connected with it and with 
other explosives, is well exemplified by the care and caution which 
generally become developed as characteristics in the men employed in 
Government factories of this class; and although there is but little 
hope of the possibility of enforcing even the mildest precautionary 
measures with the miners themselves, it can hardly be doubted that 
their minds must become to some extent influenced by example, and 
that, by constantly witnessing the strict enforcement of precautions at 
the stores to which they resort to obtain their supplies, they must in 
* The necessity for thawing dynamite cartridges before use in cold weather, and the disregard of 
instructions furnished by the makers for doing this with safety, constitute one of the chief causes 
of accidents with this material. Fatal explosions have resulted from the placing of cartridges in 
front of a fierce fire or upon a stove. Quite recently, a pit sinker, at Mountain Ash, placed some 
dynamite in the oven of the fireplace in his house, and sat down to breakfast. Before the meal was 
ended the dynamite exploded, killing the man and injuring two others. 
f A fatal accident occurred quite recently at Ebbw Vale in consequence of a man using great 
force in ramming a dynamite charge into a blast-hole with a wooden rammer. The printed 
instructions distinctly laid down that the cartridges were never to be rammed. It came out at the 
inquest that the partner of the man killed could not read. 
