GREAT FIRE IN BARTHOLOMEW CLOSE.—Between two and three o'clock on
Wednesday morning, the watchman 011 duty near the premises of Mr. Adlard, the printer, observed a thick volume of smoke issuing from the immense warehouse of Messrs. I:lough:ton and Messenger, the wholesale oil-merchants. These warehouses are surrounded by the ex.. tensive show-rooms and workships of Messrs. Seddon, upholsterers and cabinet-makers, in Aldersgate Street, and by the range of stabling be- longing to Mr. Sherman, proprietor of the Bull and Mouth, and the printing establishment of Bagster and Thorns. An immediate alarm was given, and in a very few minutes a number of engines had arrived ; but as it ever has been, ever is, and ever will be, half an hour had elapsed before a drop of water could be precnred. The fire meanwhile did not stand still because the engines did ; and before the latter were in play, Mr. Adlard's premises and the roof of Messrs. Seddon'savere on fire, and in a very short time the conflagration had obtained an ascendency in both which rendered the hope of saving them altogether fruitless. An accident happened which very much augmented the difficulties of the firemen. The numerous butts of oil in Mr. Houghton's cellars being burst by the heat, their contents poured into the waterways ; and for a considerable time some of the engines were casting on the fire a mixture in which the inflammable ingredients greatly predominated, thus feeding what they were meant to extinguish; nor was it until the oil had run away by the sewers that many of the engines could be ad- vantageously worked. So great was the quantity of oil lost in this way, that the Thames near the month of the sewer was covered, and the whole of the vicinity of the fire still smells strong with it. The buildings which caught fire next to those of Seddon, were Mr. Slierman's stables. There were eighty valuable horses in them at the time, which were saved with difficulty. By six o'clock the whole area embraced by the conflagration appeared as one sheet of flame. About this time the walls of Houghton and Messenger's warehouse, fell with a fearful crash. It was reported out Wednesday, that there was a quantity of gunpowder on these premises ; but this has since been proved to be a mistake. There was, however, a.quantity of percussion-caps on the premises of Messrs. Wasp and Co., Which took fire after the stables of Mr. Sherman ; and the explosion of these appears to have given rise to the story of the gunpowder. 'When the walls of Messrs. Houghton and Messenger fell, the shower of ignited fragments of wood and paper
that they sent up was SO prodigious that it extended over the greater
part of London. Small portions were picked up as far south as the Surrey Theatre, and as far west as Piccadilly. The fire was not wholly got under until it had burnt for twelve or fourteen hours. The follow- ing is the number of premises destroyed and partially damaged-those of Messrs. Houghton and Co., Mr. Adlard, printer, Messrs. Seddon, the National School, the stables belonging to Mr. Sherman, Mr. Wasp, leather-manufacturer, Mr. Wilkinson, and Mr. Cousins, have been entirely consumed, together with nearly all the valuable stock in trade. The back wall of Mr. Slade, carpenter, has been completely demolished, and also the back gable-end of Messrs. Bagster and Thorns's premises. In addition to these, nearly twenty other houses contiguous to the fire have been partially damaged. The first estimate made the loss amount to 200,0001.; subsequent accounts have swelled it to half a million. About one hundred tool-chests, belonging to the young men who worked svith Messrs. Seddon, were destroyed. The, mahogany in the yard was valued at 15,000/. Very few of the tools were insured ; to what extent the rest of the property destroyed was covered in that way, we have no- where seen stated.
THE BRIG 1VIATILna.-This unfortuate vessel blew up at Bonny, on the 13th May last ; and the whole of her crew, together with one hun- dred blacks that were on board at the time, perished in the explosion. The only persons belonging to the brig that were saved were a sailor who had just left her, and a boy who was on shore when the accident happened. The crew of the vessel a-head of the Matilda were so alarmed by the shock and the smoke that accompanied it, that they sprung into a canoe alongside, in the thought that it was their own vessel that had blown up. They were soon undeceived, and returning on board again, found that the Matilda had disappeared, while their own decks were covered with hooks, knives, and fragments of wreck, and pieces of human bodies. It had thundered very heavily during the day, and the lightning is supposed to have fired the Matilda's magazine.
EXPLOSION AT JARROW.---The particulars of this dreadful accident, which we mentioned last week as having deprived forty individuals of life, were detailed before the coroner's inquest. " Mr. Buddle had visited the workings weekly up to Monday week, after which he was not in them again till after the accident, when, on getting to the face of the east drift, the cause of the accident was quite manifest. The whole front of the drift was detached from the roof on the left side, as if the block of coal forming the face of the drift had been detached by a blast of gunpowder. A ragged aperture of about nine inches wide was left between the coal and the roof, and a fissure about the same width torn out on the left hand side. On probing these apertures as far as they could reach (about six feet at that time) they found nothing but open space behind. The miners had holed into an old waste, and the fracture was occasioned by the elastic force of what they term a bag of foulness,
• which had been compressed in that species of natural gasometer, and which had rushed off in an enormous quantity, and fired at the first light with which it came in contact, consuming all the vital air in the small division beyond the stone drifts, and filling the workings with a dense smoke and after-damp, and deranging the ventilating apparatus so mach as to cause the suffocation of the people before the air course could be restored."
Be,]) Darvnrci.-On Friday last week, as Mr. Roberts, his brother, and daughter, were returning to town in a gig, along the Uxbridge road, . the whole party were thrown out by the shock of collision with a heap . of stones. Mr. Roberts had his leg broken, and his two companions were much bruised. The horse galloped forward to the Bed Lion Inn atActon, where, coming in contact with the gig of Colonel Whately (one of the King's Grooms in Waiting), both vehicles were smashed to pieces, and the Colonel was very severely, but happily not dangerously Cut in the head.
SINGULAR DEarrr.-Mr. E. Thomas, of Titehfield, returning from Portsdown Fair, fell off the cart on his face, when a tobacco-pipe in his mouth was forced into the fleshy part of his neck, which caused his • death shortly afterwards.
• TENDER MERCIES or LEGITIMACX.-Amongst the papers taken at the Tuileries, was a project of an ordinance, which had been sub- mitted to the last Council of Ministers, for the establishment of Courts Martial. The journalists who had signed the protest were to have been handed over, to be tried and executed within twenty-four hours.
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