Mary Duncan, sixteen years of age, coal-bearer : "Began to carry coals when twelve years old..

Do not like the work, nor do the other women, many of whom have wrought from eight years of age, and know no other. My employment is carrying coals from wall-face to the daylight, up the stair-pit. I make forty to fifty journeys a day, and can carry 2 cwt. as my burthen. Some females carry 2 to 3 cwt., but it is overstraining." (Ibid., p. 464.)

Agnes Moffatt, seventeen years of age:

"Began working at ten years of age. Works twelve and fourteen hours daily. Father took sister and I down; he gets our wages. I fill five baskets; the weight is more than 22 cwt.; it takes me five journeys. The work is o'er sair for females. Had my shoulder knocked out a short time ago, and laid idle some time. It is no uncommon thing for women to lose their burthen [load], and drop off the ladder down the dyke below. Margaret M'Neil did a few weeks since, and injured both legs. When the tugs which pass over the forehead break, which they frequently do, it is very dangerous to be under a load. The lassies hate the work altogether, but they canna run away from it." (Ibid., p. 440.)

Jane Peacock Watson, aged forty, coalbearer, Bearing Pits, Harlow Muir, Coaly Burn, Peebleshire:

"I have wrought in the bowels of the earth thirty-three years. Have been married twenty-three years, and had nine children; six are alive, three died of typhus a few years since; have had two dead born; thinks they were so from the oppressive work. A vast of women have dead children, and false births, which are worse, as they are not able to work after." (Ibid., p. 458.)

William Hunter, mining oversman, Arniston Colliery: "I have been twenty years in the works of Robert Dundas, Esq., and had much experience in the manner of drawing coal, as well as the habits and practices of the collier people. Until the last eight months, women and lassies were brought below in these works, when Mr. Alexander Maxton, our manager, issued an order to exclude them from going below, having some months prior given intimation of the same. Women always did the lifting, or heavy part of the work, and neither they nor the children were treated like human beings; nor are they, where they are employed. Females submit to work in places where no man, or even lad, could be got to labour in; they work in bad roads, up to their knees in water, in a posture nearly double; they are below till last hour of pregnancy; they have swelled haunches and ankles, and are prematurely brought to the grave, or, what is worse, a lingering existence. Many of the daughters of the miners are now at respectable service. I have two who are in families at Leith, and who are much delighted with the change." (Ibid., p. 453.)

Robert Bald, Esq., the eminent coal-viewer, states, that

"In surveying the workings of an extensive colliery under ground, a married woman came forward, groaning under an excessive weight of coals, trembling in every nerve, and almost unable to keep her knees from sinking under her. On coming up she said, in a plaintive and melancholy voice, Oh, sir, this is sore, sore, sore work! I wish to God that the first woman who tried to bear coals had broke her back, and none would have tried it again!" (App., Pt. I., p. 387, note.)

Mr. Franks says:

At the conclusion of his account of this employment. "When the nature of this horrible labour is taken into consideration, its extreme severity, its regular duration of from twelve to fourteen hours daily, which, once a-week at least, is extended through the whole of the night; the damp, heated, and unwholesome atmosphere in which the work is carried on; the tender age and sex of the workers; when it is considered that

such labour is performed, not in isolated instances selected to excite compassion, but that it may be truly regarded as the type of the everyday existence of hundreds of our fellow-creatures-a picture is presented of deadly physical oppression and systematic slavery, of which I conscientiously believe no one unacquainted with such facts would credit the existence in the British dominions." (Ibid., p. 387.)

The labour in which children and young persons are employed in this district, next in severity to the sore slavery of coal-bearing, is coal-putting, in which we find the sexes more equally distributed. Putters drag or push the carts containing coal from the coal-wall to the pit-bottom; weight varying from three to ten hundred-weight.

The following represents the mode of putting backwards with the face to the tub.

The boxes or carriages employed in putting are of two sorts, the hutchie and the slype; the hutchie being an oblong square-sided box with four wheels, which usually runs on a rail; and the slype is a wood-framed box, curved and shod with iron at the bottom, holding from 24 to 5 cwt. of coal, adapted to the seams through which it is dragged. The lad or lass is harnessed over the shoulders and back with a strong leathern girth, which behind is furnished with an iron hook, which attaches itself to a chain fastened to the coal-cart or slype, and is thus dragged along. The dresses of these girls are made of coarse hempen stuff, (sacking), fitting close to the figure, the coverings to their heads are of the same material; little or no flannel is used, and their clothing, being of an absorbent nature, frequently gets completely saturated shortly after descending the pit, especially where the roofs are soft.

Where the seams are narrow and the roofs low, children and young per-. sons of both sexes drag on all-fours, like horses. The workings in these

narrow seams are from 100 to 200 yards from the main-roads, and the passages through which they have to crawl with their loads do not exceed from twenty-two to twenty-eight inches in height. "The danger and the difficulties," observes Mr. Franks, "of dragging on roads, dipping from

one foot in three to one foot in six, may be more easily conceived than explained; and the state which females are in after pulling like horses through these holes their perspiration, their exhaustion, and very frequently even their tears, it is painful in the extreme to witness; yet, when the work is done, they return to it with a vigour which is surprising, considering how they inwardly hate it." (App., Pt. I., p. 388.)

Of the severity of the labour performed by young women in these pits, the account of her work given by Margaret Hipps, seventeen years old, putter, Stoney Rigg Colliery, Stirlingshire, may serve as an example.*

66

My employment, after reaching the wall-face, is to fill a bagie, or slype, with 2 to 3 cwt. of coal. I then hook it on to my chain, and drag it through the seam, which is twentysix to twenty-eight inches high, till I get to the main-road-a good distance, probably 200 to 400 yards. The pavement I drag over is wet, and I am obliged at all times to crawl on hands and feet with my bagie hung to the chain and ropes. It is sad sweating and sore fatiguing work, and frequently maims the women." (R. H. Franks, Esq., Evidence, No. 233: App., Pt. I., p. 479, 1. 50.)

Sub-Commissioner:

"It is almost incredible that human beings can submit to such employment, crawling on hands and knees, harnessed like horses, over soft slushy floors more difficult than dragging the same weights through our lowest common-sewers, and more difficult in consequence of the inclination, which is frequently one in three to one in six." (Ibid., 1. 61. See also witnesses, Nos. 102, 231, 236, 262, 362.)

Another form of severe labour, to which children of eight years of age and upwards are put, is that of pumping water in the pits.

Alexander Gray, ten years old, below-ground pump-boy, New Craighall Colliery, Inveresk:

"I pump out the water in the under bottom of the pit, to keep the men's rooms dry. I am obliged to pump fast, or the water would cover me. I had to run away a few weeks ago, as the water came up so fast that I could not pump at all, and the men were obliged to gang. The water frequently covers my legs, and those of the men when they sit to pick. I have been two years at the pump. I work every day, whether men work or not: no holidays but Sabbath. I go down at three, sometimes five, in the morning; and come up at six and seven at night. I know that I work twelve and fourteen hours, as I can tell by the clock." (Ibid., p. 449.)

Janet Murdoch, twelve years old, pumper :

"I have wrought in the mines four months. My present employment is to bucket the water and lift [carry] to level face; the work is constant and most wearying, as the place is low I lift in, not being four feet high." (Ibid., p. 481.)

The duty of the horse-driver, or haulier, is to drive the horse and tram, or carriage, from the wall-face, where the colliers are picking the coal, to the mouth of the level. He has to look after his horse, feed him in the day, and take him home at night; his occupation requires great agility in the narrow and low-roofed roads; sometimes he is required to stop his tram suddenly-in an instant he is between the rail and the side of the level, and in almost total darkness slips a sprig between the spokes of his tram-wheel, and is back in his place with amazing dexterity; though it must be confessed, with all his activity, he frequently gets crushed. His size is a matter of some importance, according to the present height and width of the main roads.

Mr. Waring, speaking of the jockey-boys in the mines, in the Forest of Dean, says

"In this vocation, sits on the front edge of the foremost wagon, immediately behind the horse-a position of considerable danger, in case of a sudden jolt from a loose plate, or other cause; but accidents of this kind are so rare that I did not hear of a single case. In the collieries at Howlet's Slade I observed a commodious dickey, or movable seat, attached

*The engraving on the preceding page represents this girl at her work in a seam of coal.

to the front carriage by strong iron grapnels, being readily unshipped and transferred to another wagon when required. This seat was devised for the safety of the boys, by the considerate managing proprietor, Mr. John Trotter Thomas, of Coleford. On the whole, I was most impressed with the idea of danger to the heads of these young charioteers, from their almost constant proximity to the rugged roof of the mine; and so nicely did they adapt their posture to the space above them, that their woollen caps brushed a distinct line of transit along the moist surface of the rock, whenever it was low enough to touch them; shewing that another inch of elevation would have seriously endangered their skulls."

In Cumberland, the journeys along these tram-ways are greatly lengthened, owing to many of the large collieries being sub-marine. In the William Pit they have 500 acres under the sea, and the distance is two miles and a half from the shaft to the extreme part of the workings. There is a stable also under the sea in this immense pit for forty-five horses. A feature exists in this driving employment, and which constitutes the chief labour of the occupation. To prevent the baskets from running down hill and falling on the heels of the horses, it is customary for the driver to place himself as a post between the foremost basket and the buttock of the horse. He places the left shoulder against the horse, the right foot on the rail of the tram, and the right hand on the top of the basket; the left leg being generally supported by the trace. When the train of corves is heavily laden, or the descent very steep, a pole is placed through the hind wheels of the trams, and thus it is in a measure dragged. Nevertheless the work is very toilsome, and accidents sometimes occur by the foot slipping off, and getting struck by part of the wheel or axle. "The work strikes one as being palpably unnecessary, and as a barbarous preference of the human body for a mere mechanical process, in which shafts might be, and in some of the inland pits are, used instead. It was indeed stated by one witness, that the use of shafts would be very awkward for the purpose of turning at the foreheads. I believe a very little management would obviate this difficulty." (J. C. Symons, Esq., App., Pt. I. p. 299.)

There is a practice in Lancashire but little known in any other part of England-that of employing mere children to manage the engines by which the men as well as the coals are drawn out of the pit. The power of the steam-engine is applied directly, and in the simplest form, to this purpose; and upon the accurate stoppage of the engine, at the exact moment of their appearance at the surface, depends whether the men ascending shall not be wound over the pully above, and dashed down the shaft again—an event which has here repeatedly occurred. (App., Pt. II. p. 823.)

Mr. John Ogden, chief agent to the Chamber Colliery Company :
"Young people are employed as engineers from twelve to twenty years of age."

Joseph Gott, aged fifty-three, and Richard Barker, aged forty-six, colliers, coal-mine near Rochdale :

"Children should not be employed so young as engineers; many a man has been killed by it." (Ibid., p. 850.)

John Gordon, aged thirty-five, and Edmund Stanley, aged thirty-four, miners in the employment of Mr. Abraham Lees, at Stoneywell Lane, near Oldham :

"Think that such young boys should not be entrusted, as engineers, with the lives of a lot of men, as they are; they are not 'stayable,' and no one under eighteen ought to be entrusted with such a job. This is a general opinion among the men themselves." (Ibid., p. 851.)

Cyrus Taylor, engineer at one of the Slibber Pits, going in thirteen:

"Is past thirteen, and has been five weeks, next Saturday, learning to be engineer at the Slibber Pits, of the company of Messrs Jones. Was working at the bottom, but got two fingers eut off [shewing the stumps on the left hand]. Winds men as well as coals. The proper engineer is Samuel Taylor, no relation of his, and who is somewhere about, mending wagons. Samuel Taylor always comes into the engine-house to be with him when he is winding men." (Ibid., p. 856.)

James Woods, engineer at one of the Hunt-lane Pits, going in sixteen:

"Has been an engineer about four years. Is now working at the Hunt-lane Collieries, at the Hor-lane Pit. Is busy at his work; is reckoned attentive; in winding, has wound over tubs of coals twice; has never wound over men, but was once appointed in place of a lad who wound over three men, and killed them: this was at the Trundley Pit, one of the Chamber-lane Pits, and about two years ago.' (Ibid., p. 856.)

It appears that the same practice of employing children as engineers is not unknown in the west of Scotland :-" I was not a little surprised," says the Sub-Commissioner, "to find that the management of a high-pressure steam-engine, on the proper working of which many lives depend, was not unfrequently entrusted to a mere boy of from twelve to fourteen years of age. In general, indeed, his father was the pit-head man, and from his station could see and communicate with the lad, who acted entirely by his directions; but still it appeared to me a practice full of danger. It should be mentioned, that frequently the drainage of the Scotch collieries is all pumped up at one pit, whilst coals and men are raised by small engines for this purpose alone at distinct pits; consequently, every hutch which is raised or lowered requires the engine to be twice stopped to allow of its being hooked on and off, and if this is not done according to the signals given by the pit-head man and bottomer, serious accidents might occur. It is also necessary, when men are going up and down, to moderate the speed at which the engine works, otherwise they would run the risk of being dashed against the rocky sides of the shaft. The bottomer consequently always calls out, Men on!' when men are coming up, and it is the duty of the engine manager to regulate the speed accordingly. If, too, the engine does not stop at the proper moment, the men might be hoisted up and dashed against the pit-head frame, which has sometimes happened. All this requires vigilance and care on the part of the engineer, which can hardly be expected of a boy so young as many employed as such."

CHAPTER IV.

OF THE TREATMENT AND PHYSICAL CONDITION OF THE PERSONS EMPLOYED IN COAL MINES.

I. HOURS OF LABOUR.

THE first thing that suggests itself to the mind, in considering the treatment of the unfortunate beings doomed to labour in these gloomy receptacles of suffering and crime, is, next to the age at which they are sent into them, the hours during which they are kept at work upon a stretch.

The hours of work vary considerably in different districts, but universally where there are air-doors to be kept, the youngest children descend into the pits with the first and ascend with the last set of workpeople.

Generally speaking, the hours of labour vary from eleven to thirteen hours, with, in some places, an hour, or nearly so, taken out of the time for meals. There are, however, extreme variations from this length of the working day, in opposite directions. In the Forest of Dean, South Gloucestershire, North Somersetshire, and some parts of Ireland, there are many pits in which a day's work is completed in from eight to ten hours; while in Scotland, and the west, the labour of the pit is often protracted to from fifteen to eighteen hours; as it is also in Derbyshire. The thin pits generally work the shortest time, owing to the oppressive nature of the labour. Excesses, of course, occur, and appear to be by no means unfrequent.

In the fearful abuse of protracted hours of work, there seems to be no comparison between Wales, Lancashire, Yorkshire, and Northumberland. "It will be noticed (says Mr. Leifchild) how frequently the boys state that they have remained in the pits for twenty-four and thirty-six consecutive hours, and even forty-eight These statements were too numerous to be disputable, and were often fully con.

hours.