A dreadful accident happened at Hull on Wednesday morning. The
Union steam-packet, which plied between Hull mid Gainsborougls, was lying oft the jetty, about six o'clock, taking in passengers for Gainsburough. The number of persons on board has not been aseer- mined, but it is supposed that there were about one hundred and fifty. The vessel was soon to take its departure ; and the engineer had got up the wain, when a tremendous explosion took place. The boiler had burst ; and in an instant the air was tilled with pieces of the boiler, planks of wood, bales of goods, and human bodies. The vessel im- mediately sunk, its sides having been rent asunder ; and soon nothing but the top of one of the paddle-boxes was to be seen above water. The loss of life was fearful. A gentlemen who was in time after-cabin helped through the window, and swain ashore : he said that he left at le, let thirty ptrsons in the cabin, all of whom must have been drowned. There were probably as many or more in the fore-cabin, who also pet ish ed. " Among the individuals who were blown off the vessel, was Mr. Chatterton, an extensive Incwer, of Ilull, lie was sent with great violence actoss the jetty against the yard. armsof the Alhatros ate:Liner, which was laid on the other side ot the pier, and he then fell on the gratings of that vessel : he was immediately piel.ul up, and it was found that his head was fractured in a most frightful m tinier, and that he cuss a corpse. . Mr. Jaques, furniture-dealer, Saville Street, 'Hull, was pieked up dead. A porter in the employ of the Dock Corn. patty, who was on bond, was blown an immense height into the air, and fell on the top of a house three stories high. this mutilated remains rollA down the gable-end of the roof to the spouting. A poor old woman on board the steamer was &so thrown off, and killed on the spot. A lady, very respectably dressed, 1Va8 picked up, having been blown a considerable distance. She was quite dead; her head sets found to be fractured in a most shocking manner. 'Um steward of the vessel was taken to the infirmary in a very dangerous state, and death shortly afterwards terminated his sufferings. The bodies of four or five other petKotis, who hail been blown off the packet and killed, were also picked up." " To give some idea of the great violence which nceompanied the explosion, it is only accessary to mention that a large portion of the boiler and the chimney were blown on to the pier, a distance of thirty yards from the vessel ; a truss of woolleu geoils, weighing 200 pounds, was !how!' over the houses opposite the pier, a height of fifty feet ; a two-stone weight was thrown over the ends of the !loose+ into Wellington Street, a distance of not less than seventy yards; the sides of the vessel were blown to atoms; several bags of flour, weighing twenty stones each, were forced into the air a very great height ; and a truss of goods fell with such violence on the slated roof of an adjoining house as to break it in. ;Many persons standing on the jetty were dangerously hurt by pieces of iron and timber hurled against them from the boat. A lady who was on board the Don of Thorne, another steam-vessel, lying near the Felon, was killed ; as were also two sailors belonging to the same vessel, by pieces of the boiler."
The captain and engineer were both saved, though seriously injured: The cause of the explosion is not certainly known; but the followieg is it not improbable account of it- " It appisirs that, from the fact of the engines being not quite of sufficient power for the size of the vessel, there was frequently a difficulty in keeping up the steam to the point required ; and, shortly before the catastrophe occurred, an effort had been made to get it up, in order to make a good stall. To ac- complish this purpose, a it-tight greater than usual was and the holier giving way under the extraordinary pressure, scattered death around to an an ful extent." put on the 6(1ply-rave ;
Another account says that the small supply of water in the boiler was the cause of the accident.
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