SIR MANCHERJEE BHOWNAC-GREEI beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he he has seen the Report of the coroner's inquest held on the bodies of seven 803 young persons and children who perished in the fire at Hackney Road on the 19th April last; if he has noticed the evidence given at the inquest by the inspector appointed under the Petroleum Act that the catastrophe, which was caused by the tilting of a lamp, occurred owing to the flash point of the oil which escaped being as low as 88 degrees. If his attention has been drawn to the inspector's statement that such oil was largely sold in the East End, and that it was the cause of twenty-six fatal accidents last year; and whether he contemplates taking any steps to prevent the sale of petroleum, the Hash point of which is dangerously low.
§ * MR. RITCHIEYes, Sir, and I have caused the Report of the case to be very carefully considered. From the evidence it would appear that the accident was caused by the fall of a lamp and the escape of the oil, both lamp and oil being in a highly heated condition. I am advised that in these circumstances a conflagration is likely to occur with any form of petroleum used in ordinary lamps. I do not find that the inspector stated that the oil used in this instance I was the cause of the twenty-six fatal accidents last year. As a matter of fact, in twelve of those cases the flash point of the oil was not known, and in two cases it was over 100 degrees. As regards the present case it is impossible to ascertain the exact cause of the heating of the lamp; but if this was in any way due to the oil it can only have been on account of its sluggish or slow-burning nature, and these qualities, I am advised, go rather with a high flash than with a low flash oil.