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    m& of every-day occurrence ; arfc they so to continue ? " The Marquis of Worcester saw , no doubt , the dangers to be worked by the power he recognised , if not duly

    controlled ; and so did Savery , and Watt , and all the great inventors and improvers of the steain-engine . Would Mr Watt have placed an ounce too much on the safety-valve of a steam-boat ? or left the

    boiler to supply itself with water ? would he have used a worn-out boiler * or too small &ii engine for the vessel ? No ; it is the dull and ignorant , who but half comprehend the extent or nature of the powers entrusted to their care , who

    tamper with them , and for the meanness of cheating the engineer of his fair price , or the passing and equivocal glory of winning a race > in which the most heedless shovel owns

    all the merit , endanger the lives and property of their felloe-creatures without a thought , if not one of brutal indifference . Who , the most unimaginative , that has for the first time

    witnessed the force of a steamengine , has not been awestruck at the daring of man , that evoked such a power ? A power which waits but the slunftber of the master-hand , to blast it for ever from the face of

    the earth . Cto the might th&t , serving ' , draws lip torrents ftbm . the bowels of the earth , that drives a floating castle , trembling with the energy that possesses it , in the teeth of

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    the gale * be strengthless iu rebellion ? Is such a power to be trusted unreservedly to clowns and fools , who hold little round dabs of gold or silver to be more precious than the lives of fathers , brothers .

    husbands , and children ? And yet it is so trusted . Let us hear what an intelligent traveller says , who is no timid croaker , but a bold adventurer among precipices and backwoods .

    The traveller is in a boat with one of its chimneys leaking smoke and sdot * and a drunken and insolent captain , who goes to bed as soon as they started , ordering no one to wake him till the vessel was

    on fire . " Finding that nothing could be done towards improving our present disagreeable situation , I retired to rest , in hopes of finding some repose after my fatiguing

    journey . I was on the point of taking a nap , when a shock , resembling the report of a cannon , dispelled all inclination to sleep . Uncertain if the cause was not the bursting of the boiler , I went on deck , where , to my no small stirprise , all was quiet , as if nothing particular had happened . The only person I could find was a carpenter

    making plugs of wood : on inquiring the cause of the last shock , he answered vety df % and laconically , * Oh , it Was only one of the boilers that burst / At the same moment another shock was heard , and presently a third . The car-

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    Steam-boat Accidents and their Prevention * 275

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 1, 1837, page 275, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1836/page/50/