The Court of Common Pleas decided on Friday week that
the Grand Junction. Canal Company is liable for the explosion on the Regent's Canal on 2nd October last. Lord Chief Justice Coleridge laid it down that if the Company had created a nuisance, however temporary, they were liable, as they also were if they
had acted improperly in their function as common carriers, and left the facts to the jury. It was shown in evidence that the barges had 323 casks of gunpowder on board and six barrels of benzoline, and that the Company knew the latter to be dangerous, they having refused to be responsible for its safe carriage, or to be responsible for its evaporation. It was also shown that in all human probability the explosion was due to an escape of the vapour of benzoline in a cabin with a lighted candle in it. There had not, in fact, been sufficient care in managing such a cargo, and the jury found against the defendants, both as creating a nuisance and as common carriers. As this verdict will govern all cases, the loss to the Canal Company will be serious, but it is clearly one in the interest of the public. Nothing will make carrying Companies careful except fines, and this particular Company sometimes carries cargoes which might destroy half London.
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