THE ROCKEFELLERS AND THE HOME OFFICE the juggle by which the low flash-point was thus stereotyped in the Act of 1879 had its effects. The number of petroleum accidents began to increase, and so Sir. V. Majendie was sent to visit 242 places in England and the Continent and then to America. In both these series of visits he was accompanied by Mr. Boverton Redwood, Secre tary of the Petroleum Association, " who was good enough to accompany me and render me great assistance," as Sir Vivian put it. I have no means of knowing whether Mr. Redwood was able to obtain the same letters of intro duction from Mr. Wm. Rockefeller which he had secured in 1877, but I do know that there was one subject the pair did not inquire into. It appears in Colonel Majendie's examination before the Select Committee on Petroleum by Captain Hope (Report and Evidence, 1894, Q. 206-212) :— Q. Are you aware that in Scotland, where Scotch oil has been mostly in use, there have hitherto been very few fires or lamp accidents ? A. No, I have no statistics of lamp accidents. I have only a general knowledge derived from newspapers and from those who have given to the subject a larger study.
Q. When you were making your inquiries in America did you go into the question of the frequency of lamp accidents ? A. Not lamp accidents, I think, at all.
While this surprising omission was occurring lamp accidents continued to go up. In London they rose from 45 in 1873 to 271 in 1890. In that year the twin brethren, Sir. F. Abel and Mr. Redwood, were directed by the Home Office to make an inquiry into the subject, and they discovered that it was all due to bad lamps. This ingenious theory set every one—Press, coroners, County Council, Home Office—in full cry after a lovely red-herring, and diverted attention for several years from the Standard's explosive oil. When Mr. Lockwood came over in 1877 it was the bad wicks ; now, in 1890, it was the bad lamps. The objections to attempting to secure immunity from petroleum lamp accidents by any lamp law are these :— 1. Nobody has yet guaranteed any absolutely safe lamp.
2. Nobody call guarantee that a safe lamp will remain safe in wear, or can compel its owners to buy a new one when it is in bad repair.
3. In both Scotland and America, where petroleum is pro duced and refined, the remedy has been sought, not in a lamp law, but in raising the flash-point.
While the British officials were chasing the lamp-law will o' th' wisp Mr. Rockefeller was sending over here petroleum oil which could not be sold in most of the States of the Union, and the number of lamp accidents here was still rising. In London they rose 271 in 1890 to 473 in 1895. By this time an inquiry could not be avoided ; the Select Committee to which I have referred began to sit, and between 1894 and 1898 to take evidence and report.
The evidence before that Committee in support of the Standard Oil Trust's conten tion was extensive and peculiar. There was Sir Frederick Abel, who admitted to the Com mittee that as chemist to the War Office he had recommended the adoption of 100 deg. or 105 deg. oil for use in barrack-rooms. Yet he was prepared to maintain that 73 deg. was sufficiently high for a lamp in a crowded tene ment house, where obviously the chances of accident are far greater than in the strictly regulated and disciplined barrack-room. Then there was Mr. Boverton Redwood, and he too declared that the flash-point of 73 deg. was sufficiently high for public safety. The most remarkable thing about his evidence was the damaging admissions he was compelled to make, which gave away his whole case. Here are two :— In my opinion a considerable proportion of the lamp acci dents which occur would not happen if only oil of 120 deg. or even 100 deg. Abel test were used (Q. 1,824, 1896 Blue Book).
Undoubtedly in a sense the higher the flashing-point the safer the oil, and from that point of view oil of 100 deg. flashing-point must be safer than oil of 73 deg. flashing-point (Q. 1,893).