§ SIR THOMAS DEWAR (Tower Hamlets, St. George's)To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been called to an accident in Regent Street on Thursday, the 21st instant, occasioned through gas escaping into a telegraph inspection chamber and coming into contact with leakage in an electric wire; and will he state whether any explosions arising through leakage of a similar character have been reported by the police during the last two years.
(Answered by Mr. Secretary Akers Douglas.) I am informed by the police that, so far as they are aware, there 1445 were within the metropolitan police district during the two years ended the 30th June last, twenty-one explosions of a character similar to that mentioned in the Question. The explosions resulted in injury to eleven persons and in the death of two horses. It does not appear to be a matter as to which I have any power.