Shocking Accident
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A Warning.--In
Petersburg, Va, on Friday,
Mr. Wm. D. Poland and
Jno. C. Ezell were dreadfully injured by the explosion of a shell.
The case should be a warning to those who delight in handling relics from the battle field.
The
Express says:
‘
Mr. Ezell had been presented by a friend with one of those huge shells, thrown from a nine inch reified cannon, weighing over one hundred pounds, which he wished to preserve in his house as a curiosity and as a memento of this unholy war. To keep it with safety, he resolved to take the cap off and remove the powder, so that thereafter there could result no accident from its handling.
For this purpose he took the shell into the yard, a few feet from the side door, and proceeded to the extraction of the powder.
The cap had been removed and a considerable portion of the powder, when he turned the conical end of the shell down and struck it several times on a large rock near by, in order to jar the balance of the powder out. In thus knocking the iron against the rock — like Striking flint against steel — a spark of fire was struck, which of course rapidly ignited the powder, both around and in the shell, and caused the explosion.
Mr. Ezell had his right leg horribly shattered below the knee, and the entire flesh of the left leg, below the knee, turn off and scattered around him. One of his hands was also slightly injured.
Mr. Poland, who, just as the explosion occurred, had returned from his garden and was about entering the house, had his left forearm and his right thigh shattered and mangled, and received a slight wound in the right side.
’
