A terrible colliery disaster occurred last Saturday morning at Lens,
in the Pas-de-Calais district. Nearly eighteen hundred
men were at work in the mine of the Courrieres Company, when a series of violent explosions took place, with the result that close upon eleven hundred men lost their lives. The exact cause of the accident is as yet undiscovered ; fire-damp has hitherto never been known in the Pas-de-Calais district, and the miners have worked with open lights; but, however generated, poisonous gas and fire were responsible for a death- roll larger than any yet recorded in the annals of mining catastrophes. This shocking calamity, which has evoked widespread sympathy with the victims, has had one remark- able sequel. At the request of the Kaiser, the salvage corps of the Hibernia Mines at Gelsenkirchen, in Westphalia, at onoe proceeded to the scene of the disaster, and being equipped with a special respiratory apparatus Tmknown in France, were enabled to lend most valuable assistance in clearing the galleries and recovering the bodies. This peaceful invasion of French territory by uniformed Germans bent on an errand of mercy and help has not unnaturally created a deep impres- sion on a nation which has always found it easier to forgive than to forget.
