Every engineer or other person having charge of any steam-boiler, steam-engine, or other apparatus for generating or employing steam, used in any manufactory, railway, or other mechanical works, who wilfully, or from ignorance or from gross neglect, creates, or allows to be created, such an undue quantity of steam as to burst or break the boiler, engine or apparatus, or to cause any other accident whereby human life is endangered, is guilty of a felony.