Page:Transactions of the Natural History Society of Northumberland, Durham, and Newcastle-upon-Tyne 1838 Vol.2.djvu/409

 immediate vicinity of the shaft, yet as there were no workings near it, and the wastemen were not travelling the pipe-drifts at the time, the cause of the accident appeared to be more mysterious than ever.

Stephen Reed, Esq., the coroner, empannelled his jury this day, and decided to adjourn from day to day till all the bodies were found.

This afternoon twenty-five more funerals took place, as the bodies were passing rapidly into a state of decomposition from the effects of the after-damp. Mr. M'Intyre opened one of the first bodies that was found, only twenty-three hours after death, and found the stomach in a state of gangrene. It was with difficulty that coffins could be procured fast enough, and nothing could exceed the solemnity and heart-rending scenes which the melancholy processions of the funerals presented. No written descripion can convey an adequate idea of the scenes of woe and mental agony; the lifting of the copse never failing to renew those wailings and lamentations which had in some degree subsided.

The Rev. Mr. Armstrong, the clergyman of the parish, was unremitting in his endeavours to sooth the grief of the bereft widows, parents, and the fatherless, and to administer all the consolation in his power, under the afflicting circumstances of the case; and on Sunday the 28th of June he preached an excellent and impressive sermon on the occasion, when upwards of £20. were collected as the commencement of a fund for the relief of the destitute relatives of the sufferers. Several benevolent persons in the neighbourhood exerted themselves in administering comfort and consolation to the afflicted; and the attentions of the preachers in the Methodist connexion, for the same benevolent purpose, were also unremitting and most praiseworthy.

Of the four persons who had been got out alive, John Brown was the only one who was capable of giving a collected account of all he knew of the accident. Reed's leg had been immediately amputated above the knee, and he was too ill to be talked to. Robert Moralee was also too ill ; and the boy, Middleton, was in a state of fever and delirium, and told so many improbable and different stories, that little or no reliance could then be placed in what he said.

John Reed only survived the amputation of his leg a few days ; but when