would be to pass a sentence of absolute starvation :- for instance, in one small village (Banton in Scotland) there are forty widows kept from applying to the Kirk Session by the earnings of their children. (App. I. p. 486.) 5. That at present there are twelve years of boys' labour-supposing them to enter at eight and not to become hewers till they be twenty of age. If you forbid the entrance into the mine till years the boy is ten years old, there will only be ten years of boys' labour. The effect will be tantamount to diminishing the number of boys, so that where twelve used to find employment only ten would now do so.

The reader must judge of the weight of the above arguments, which afford a fine scope for the ingenuity of the expediency-monger and the casuist, as to whether the displacement of capital, and therefore of labour, might not lead to greater misery than that which is sought to be avoided :whether the shutting-up the small-seamed collieries, which are often the best coal-and which, or some of them, can only be wrought by very young creatures-would not enhance the price of a commodity, on the due supply of which, it may be readily shown, the life of the community at large hinges more entirely than on anything save food.

We proceed to another point. The influence of man on his fellow-men may or may not be kindly; but that of the physical circumstances which surround the miner is quite appalling; and even through the stiff and bald detail of the Subcommissioners there are touches of reality which transcend all imagination. The life of a collier,' says one of these gentlemen, is of great danger both for man and child-a collier is never safe after he is swung off to be let down the pit. He is in danger, in the first place, from fire in its most frightful form, assuming a character which the sublime language of Milton can scarcely depict

"Floods and whirlwinds of tempestuous fire.

When the ventilation of a colliery has been allowed to become bad, a quantity of carburetted hydrogen gas accumulates in the wastes, and ignites on the first approach of

:

any light, save the blessed Davy-lamp: the whole mine is instantly filled with terrific flashes of lightning, the expanding fluid driving before it a roaring whirlwind of flaming air, which tears up everything-scorching some to a cinder, burying others under enormous rocks and fragments shaken from the roofs and passages-and then, thundering up the shaft, wastes its volcanic fury in a thick discharge of dust, stones, and the mangled limbs of men and horses. One of these explosions took place at the moment that some of the miners were swinging down into the pit: the force of the wind blew them back into the air. One or two fell on the bank, and were saved; but the rest were again precipitated into the shaft. The author of the History of Fossil Fuel' has given a minute account of a catastrophe, of which the main points are the following.

6

In the forenoon of the 25th May, 1812, 121 men were in the Felling Colliery, when a terrible explosion was heard; a slight earthquake was felt half a mile round; a cloud of dust rose high into the air, and, borne away by a strong west wind, fell in thick showers at the distance of a mile and a half, causing a darkness like twilight at the village of Heworth. As soon as the explosion was heard, a crowd of the rela tions of the colliers rushed to the pit. The men worked the 'gin' with astonishing expedition, and, letting down the rope, rescued 32 persons, of whom three (boys) died in a few hours. An eye-witness, the Rev. Mr. Hodgson, says that the shrieks, wringing of hands, and howling were indescribable: they who had their friends restored to them seemed to suffer as much from excess of joy as they had lately done by grief. But these were the few. Several attempts were made to rescue those who did not appear within a few hours eight or nine bold men descended into the pit-bottom, but found that the entrance into the workings, or galleries, was impeded by an upright column of smoke, which convinced them that the mine was on fire. It was in vain that the 'viewers' assured the people that all hope was at an end; and that the only thing left was to extinguish the ignited coals by closing up the mine itself Each proposition to this effect was met with yells of 'Murder!'

from the kindred, followed by symptoms of determined resistance. Two or three days elapsed, while the widows and orphans never ceased to hover about the pit mouth in the hope to hear some cry for succour-but all was silent as death; and at length the shaft was permitted to be hermetically closed. It was re-opened on the 8th of July, on which day a great concourse assembled to witness this service of danger-some curious only, but the greater part came, with streaming eyes and broken hearts, to seek a father, a son, or husband-constables were appointed to keep off the crowd-and two surgeons were on the spot, in case of accidents. Eight men at a time descended, who remained four hours in, and eight hours out of the mine. When the first shift of men came up, a message was sent for coffins; those which had been prepared were sent in cart-loads through the village of Low Felling. As soon as the cart was seen, the women rushed out of their houses with shrieks which were heard to a great distance. The bodies were found most of them marked by fire-some scorched, and dry as mummies. In one place twenty were crammed in ghastly confusion-some torn to pieces-while others appeared unscathed, and in attitude as if overpowered by sleep. It was only by some article of clothing-a shoe-or by some token, as a tobacco-box-that many friends could recognise the corpse. A neat pyramid, nine feet high, bearing the names and ages of eighty-nine sufferers, is placed over one huge grave in Heworth chapel-yard.

One would think that the memory of one such catastrophe would suffice as a warning against all carelessness. The same. book, however, gives a long succession of equally horrid events; and yet all the sub-commissioners were struck with the recklessness of the miners-one was obliged, for his own preservation, to knock the Davy lamp out of the hands of his guide, who chose in a most suspicious place to trim it, by exposing the flame without the protecting wirework to the gas. Another, on whom probably a practical joke was played, seems to have been much horrified at the miners, who, by way of amusement, would inflate the mouth with a sufficient quantity to produce a stream, by contracting the lips, and setting fire to

6

it, as from an Argand burner, to the great glee of others who looked on. (Report, p. 137.) Another of these gentlemen was bid to walk with his candle exactly opposite his breast; for above him was a layer of wildfire, and below another of choke-damp, the intermediate stratum being alone respirable, the specific gravities of each determining its position. It is mostly in the northern mines that these gases abound in such quantities, that nothing but the fullest ventilation could permit their being worked at all. Some of the mines of Scotland are, however, just sufficiently aired to prevent actual explosion -no thought being given to render the atmosphere incapable of producing chronic disease, and so shortening life. Perhaps the argumentum ad crumenam may have more weight than that ad hominem: it is proved that economy of material is much greater where the mine is thoroughly ventilated than where it is not, as there, in consequence of dampness, the wood-work and machinery rot away in half the time. On the same principle of sheer economy, leaving all the mere humanity part out of the question as a trifle, we may be allowed to express a little surprise at the inconsistency of expending 150,000/. in sinking a shaft, paying enormous sums for machinery, and the furnishing and draining a mine-and though fully aware that the whole may be blown to pieces if a trapdoor be left open five minutes '-yet confiding that risk to the care and good sense of children aged from five to seven years!! (See Report, p. 147.)

Dr. Walsh has thus described two of the less common harbingers of choke-damp and fire-damp, those ministers of death, whose approach is frequently as insidious as it is destructive. At one time, an odour of the most fragrant kind is diffused through the mine, res mbling the scent of the sweetest flowers; and while the miner is inhaling the balmy gale, he is suddenly struck down and expires in the midst of his fancied enjoyment: at another, it comes in the form of a globe of air euclosed in a filmy case; and while he is gazing on the light and beautiful object floating along, and is temp ted to take it in his hand, it suddenly explodes, aud destroys him and his companions in an instant. -History of Fossil Fuel, p. 256.

Another of the awful effects produced by the element is when the mine, that is the coal itself, takes fire. Once igni

ted, it will go on burning for years, nay, centuries-as witness Wednesbury in Staffordshire, or Dudley in Worcester shire, where

'Smoke may be seen distinctly issuing at more places than one, and it is stated that in one of the wells the water is sufficiently hot to be used for washing and culinary purposes. Smoke and steam issue from the crevices on both sides of the road, and on holding the hand to the place the stones are felt warm, as also the steam issuing. This part of the town is built over a pit, from which the good coal has been long extracted, and what is now on fire is the slack or small coal left behind. If a shaft were attempted to be opened the flames would burst forth. ' - (Dr. Mitchell, App. I., p.4.) The combustion is generally spontaneous, but it may and has arisen through carelessness or wilfulness, as in 1833 in one of Lord Fitzwilliam's collieries.

Many of the mines not only have encroached on the penetralia of earth, but have been extended under the beds of rivers or the ocean itself; and we find in our own time not a few instances where the waters have broken loose and filled

them.

'It will readily be conceived that the sound and appearance of an instantaneous rushing of a large body of water into the workings must be awful indeed to those ingulphed therein-particularly when the lights are mostly or entirely extinguished! One of the earliest boyish impressions which the writer retains is connected with an event of this nature, which occurred in a Yorkshire colliery in the beginning of the year 1805. The bottom of a large dam suddenly gave way, and poured its contents into the mine beneath: one of the colliers, recording the deliverance of himself and fellows in verse, the mediocrity of which was relieved by the real impressiveness of the occurrence, thus sang:

It early in the morning was our troubles did begin; Near two o'clock, we understand, the waters rushed in: Then many waded in the deep in such a wretched plight, Their case it dreary was indeed-they had no kind of light! To hear the cries, and see the tears on this occasion shed, The tragic scene, it was enough to cause the heart to bleed: But the all-seeing eye of God, from whom we draw our breath, Beheld, and by his Providence preserved us all from death, »&c.' - History of Fossil Fuel, pp. 250, 251.

In Mr. Curwen's great pit at Workington, which was carried two miles under the sea, it was observed by the men