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MIRFIELD.
A CANAL BOATMAN KILLED BY GROSS NEGLECT.—
On Thursday, Mr. Taylor, coroner for the Honor of Pontefract,
held an inquest at the Black Bull Inn, Mirfield, on the body of Wm. Allen, twenty-six years of age. A little before five o'clock on Tuesday evening last, the deceased and
a man named Joseph Honley, of Thornes, near Wakefield, were engaged in a keel loaded with barley, filling sacks, which were being hoisted into Mrs Eliza Crowther's malt
kiln on the Calder and Hebble Canal. Honley, who had just fastened a sack on to the rope, called out to those above "Go on." The sack was then pulled up. At that
time the deceased was engaged underneath filling an empty sack. When the ascending sack was about half-way up, the rope broke, and the sack of barley, weighing sixteen stones,
fell on the deceased. "When released, Allen was so injured that he could not move any of his limbs, and he died the next morning at five o'clock. The rope was in a
worn condition, and the deceased had previously remarked that it was not fit to work under.— Robert Barlow, bookkeeper at Mrs. .Crowther's, stated in the course of
his evidence that a new rope for the hoist had been lying in the kiln for a week, and that he had heard Mr. John Frith Crowther tell William Lee, Joshua Haworth, and George
Peace to get a new rope put on the hoist. Mr. Crowther was from home last Monday; but Leo, Haworth, and Peace were engaged in landing sacks.— John Taylor, of Hull, canal
boatman, said a month ago, when he was at the kiln, he considered the rope bad. Verdict, "Accidentally killed; but the jury are of opinion that there was gross neglect in
continuing to use a rope which was known to be deficient."
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