§ MR. H. J. TENNANT (Berwickshire)To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been called to the death of a boy, 1331 Ernest Helliwell, fourteen years of age, who, while standing in front of the fire was struck by a flying piece of a bursting grindstone at Messrs. Atkinson Brothers' grinding wheel in Sheffield on 30th January last; whether the grindstone was running in front of the fireplace; and, if so, whether the requirements of the law were carried out.
(Answered by Mr. Secretary Gladstone) I have made inquiry into this case, and from the report which I have received it appears that the grindstone which caused the accident was not running before the fireplace in the sense in which the words "before any fireplace" in the seventh paragraph of the Third Schedule to the Factory Act have always been interpreted, i.e., within the space between lines drawn at right angles to the wall from each edge of the fireplace. No breach of the Act has therefore been committed.