An alarming explosion of gas occurred shortly after noon on Wednesday at the W.M.C., Griffith-street, Rushden.  The bath-room is fitted up with a geyser, and Mr. Tom Jaques was about to have a bath, when a terrific explosion was heard in the dry flue, due doubtless to an accumulation of gas there.  The exhaust pipe runs into this flue. 

An iron grating inside the chimney was hurled with great force into a yard below.  The chimney pot was blown up into the air, and some of the bricks – four courses of which were dislodged – in falling broke the windows in the roof of the cloak-room and the bath-room.  The explosion also went downwards into the bar below. 

A picture which hung on the wall was shattered and a number of glasses which stood on the mantelpiece in the bar were broken.  One young man named Minney was slightly injured, but the rest of the occupants of the bar escaped with a fright. 

Fortunately the window of the bath-room was open, or the explosion might have injured Mr. Jaques.