A few mornings since a terrible accident occurred; In the Long Island Brewery, on Powers, near Bergen street. by which Frank Gilram, an employee in the establishment, had his head blown to pieces by the explosion of a beer barrel. Gilram and Michael Quinn were engaged In cleaning barrels, which Is done by filling the vessel with hot water and slacked lime and then rolling it about in order to generate the gases. While they were thus engaged, a barrel which they were rolling exploded with a loud report and hurled the fragments in every direction. One of the pieces struck the head of Gilram, severing it from the body, and dashing it against the beams of the room so violently that it was crushed into a mass of blood, flesh and bone. Quinn was hurled to the distance of about twenty feet, where he laid in an insensible condition, but was not seriously injured. Gilram resided at No. 64 Union street, and leaves a wife and children.

Illustrated Police News, January 25, 1872.

Bayonets and Knives—A Sister’s Influence and Prevention of Murder. 

Joseph Staples and Alfred Leighton had a bloody fight at Leighton’s house in Falmouth, Me. Stapes went home partly drunk, and threatened Leighton with violence. The latter seized a loaded gun, with a sharp bayonet attached, and started out, when Staples met him and tried to obtain possession of the weapon. Staples was stabbed four tunes with the bayonet. Leighton snapped the trigger, but the charge did not explode. Staples then managed to secure Leighton’s arm, holding the gun and taking a clasp-knife from his pocket, opened it with his teeth, and made a desperate slash at Leighton’s throat. He laid open the cheek from ear to mouth, and then cut the other side of his opponent’s face in the same manner. At this point of the struggle a sister of Leighton’s managed to get between the men, and ating on her advice, Leighton leaped through a window and fled to Oliver Harding’s, which he reached in a fainting condition. Medial aid was summoned and his wounds were dressed. Staples’s wounds were also dressed, and he is now quite comfortable, but not out of danger .The bedroom where the fight took place is covered with blood from wall to ceiling.

National Police Gazette, December 4,1880.