exact character of the communication, with a afford an obvious reason for its use there view, no doubt, of satisfying himself that, in which does not exist in this Island. On the acting on the order of the electric telegraph, question of cheapness, it must be remembered he was not exceeding his duty. Perplexed that both wood and land are greatly cheaper as to the proper course to be adopted, the in the United States than in England, and sheriff, in his trepidation, commenced by that these important items in the cost of conelectric telegraph a correspondence with the struction are necessarily low across the Home Office, to the effect that he waited for Atlantic. The question of the relative defurther orders. Two hours and a half elapsed, grees of speed in the transmission of so many when a second order was received per tele- hundreds or thousands of words, can only be graph, instructing the sheriff at once to pro- settled on very accurate evidence. We have ceed, and carry the sentence of the law into a great regard for our Brother Jonathan, but effect. The order was to be forwarded from we cannot forget that the virtue of pathe London Bridge station of the South triotism (which he possesses in a very high Eastern Railway; but here the telegraph degree) occasionally inclines him to stateclerk appealed to the railway officers, to know ments on such points a little resembling the whether the authority for sending such a preliminary announcements of that famous message was sufficient. The Chairman of the American steam-ship which was to arrive in Company was at hand at the time, and ex- Liverpool the day before it left New York. pressed himself not satisfied with it, requiring further proof of its authenticity before allowing the telegraph to be the messenger of death. Accordingly, the superintendent, at once drove over to the Home Office to obtain the necessary proof, and stated to Sir Denis Le Marchant, that in a matter involving such consequences, it became his duty to have a written order, and that without evidence of this kind, the railway authorities would not be justified in instructing the sheriff. The Home Office authorities at once saw the reasonableness of the request; a written paper was signed, the message sent, and the man was executed."

A COAL MINER'S EVIDENCE. THE Common scene of action for our mortal enemy, Death, in all his manifold shapes, whether of deep grief, slow pain, sudden terror, or prolonged and gentle decay, is upon the open face and fabric of our mother earth; but every now and then we are startled by the intelligence of some dreadful loss of life, a loss even of numbers, from a blow dealt in the darkness of many hundred feet beneath the ground. The details of one of the last of these frightful events,-together with some previous accidents of a similar kind in South Staffordshire and North Durham, we enabled to lay before our readers in the words of a miner, as related by himself. He was in the pit at the time of the recent explosion. We only omit such technical terms and local phraseology as would be unintelligible; the rest is all in his own language.

are

But, the tales are not all of a tragic cast. "One day, some accidents on the railway had created much uneasiness, and gave to every want of punctuality an alarming aspect. The officers of the station were heard to mutter their wonder where the down train was.' Eyes were stretched to their utmost, but no sign of the train. All at once, there was a loud tingle of the telegraph bell-sudden "I am a coal miner, as you see, and have thoughts of a terrible collision crossed all been all my life. I was one o' them as had minds-the officer of the station ran in, and the providential escape from the Sloughton took his place before the telegraph, with his Colliery explosion, which all the newspapers, back to the anxious passengers in waiting, I'm told, are a-talking about just now. They who, stretching their necks across the counter, may talk with good cause, but they don't gazed with amazement at the mysterious know, and cannot know, what we suffered, in needle. There was a moment's pause, when our minds more than our bodies,—we as surthe officer turned round, and gravely said-vived to escape. I pray to my God night and 'They want a pound's worth of coppers at the day-and I am not much used to praying, station!" There was a sudden laugh neither that I may never again go through and a buzz, in the midst of which a shrill whistle announced the coming train."

such a scene as that night was. Many a man prayed then, who had never thought of it much since he was by his mother's knee.

The greater part of the despatches sent by this wonderful invention, in England relate, "Now I shall tell you what happened to us we believe, to occasions of disaster and then, as well as I can; for it was a dark and surprise. During the prevalence of the smoky business, you know, and not long cholera, for example, they related principally a-doing, till we got walled up in the ruin; to sudden sickness and death. Its greater and also, if you please to hear me begin my general use in America has lately been the life a bit, of some things of the same kind subject of interesting discussion; but the that have happened to me afore. These immense distances at which persons engaged explosions are nothing new to me. I have in commerce are often apart, in that country, been all my life a miner, man and boy, now and the time required for the despatch and these two-and-forty year: first at Bilston, receipt of the fleetest Post in such cases, and now here in Durham. I must tell you all

in my own way, from the beginning: only, as you write it down for me, just be so good as make it all clear grammar-like and spelling; for I'm no great hand at that.

I lay ill nine weeks. It was caused by a man opening the Davy lamp to prove to another that the gas about them was not so bad as he said. They had betted a pot of beer on it. These sorts of doings are common enough, even when you hear the gas pit-pit-pitting in little explosions as it gets through into the lamp. I once heard a man, one of the under-goers, who was on his way to remove a pillar, complain that his Davy did not show light enough; so, another man accompanied him with a lighted candle in his hand to help him see his work better. A dreadful explosion followed, a few minutes after, and nine men and two boys were killed. The two underneath, where the pillar was to be hewn away, were got out all black, like coke and cinder. If they hadn't been Christians, there was no call to bury them, as far as their bodies were consarned, poor fellows. Wrong too; for they caused the death of other poor fellows by their carelessness and folly.

"After my accident I did not go down again in the pit for six months. I warn't strong enough. I drove a 'gin' on the bank. [the 'gin' consists of a horse going in a circle, and working a wheel that winds up or lets down loads into the pit]. The work was not hard, except in cold or wet weather; but then I often stood in a hovel by a fire, and kept th' old horse going by pelting him with small bits of coal, to let him know I was there. I learnt to read at an evening-school at this time; and to write a little too. But I've forgotten both since.

"I went down in the pit when I was six year old. My father and mother passed me off as seven and a half; so they got my wages. I was employed in carrying picks [little shorthandled pickaxes that hew down the coals] to be mended, and often carried three at a time. I got two and sixpence a week. When I was a few months older, I was put to keep a trap-door. At first they let me have a candle, but after a week they said I could sit just as well in the dark to attend to the trap. I sat in a little hole like a chimney-place, cut in the coal. Sat in this way twelve hours a day, all in the dark. Not so werry dull and lonesome as you'd suppose. A good deal of company coming and going all day. When the horse came with an empty basket and skip, he could open the door with a poke of his head; but when he came along with a load, I pulled it open by a string. He knowed all about it. I sat there with a string in my hand. For this work I had eightpence a day. Some time after I was moved to a trap, where I always had to pull the door open, for the horse and tram, empty or loaded, and then I got tenpence a day. Besides the coming and going of the horses, and men and boys, trappers have other amusement, or perhaps they might get very sad, or go to sleep, as we often did, and get woke with a whip. This other amusement was often a cruel one. I was taught it by other boys. There were rats and mice in the "When I next went down into the pit I pit, as came down in the oats and hay, and drew little waggons of coals, with a girdle they lived by stealing the candles, horses' and chain; this is called hurrying. Hard work food, and the bait-bags of the men. I some-it was. The blisters were often as big as times killed a rat with a large coal; but when shillings and half-crown pieces. All full of I caught mice, I used to put the tails of three water they were. And the blisters of one or four of them into a split stick, and then day were broken the next, and the girdle shake them together till they fought like mad. stuck to the wound. Sore work, I promise I always kept a bit of candle to see the sport you; but I got one-and-sixpence a day for by, sorry I am to own it, now I'm a man. it, and, the last three months, two shillings. There were also a great many jack-gnats, and "After this, I was hired as foal to my wood-lice, and old forty-legs, and black clocks uncle, a young fellow of nineteen who was a -long-legged black beetles with horns. I putter. Those who push the little waggons was often cruel to the jack-gnats when they of coals along the tram-roads are called olistered me, and I used to try and make the 'putters;' and when a young boy helps an clocks fight, but they soon shammed dead, and the old forty-legs always ran away. "After about a year and a half in this way, I was put to sweep the tram-road and clear the rail with a whisp of hay, and pick up coals off the road; and next they set me to walk with a candle before horses. The candles vere short sixteens. I was eight year old now, and got three and sixpence a week, which I took home to my mother.

elder he is called his ‘foal.' When two boys of fourteen or fifteen years of age push toge ther, equally, they are called half-marroics. I was a foal for near a twelvemonth; and then a half-marrow, and got twelve-and-sixpence a-week. One day the butty (overseer) sent us to a part of the mine where we had never been before. There was fire-damp there, and it put out our candles, one after another, as fast as we lighted them. So we saw as it was not safe to try it on any longer, and we began to scramble our way back in the

"Before I was nine years old I had a bad accident from an explosion. The wild-fire came rushing along a road, and knocked dark. Laughing we were a good deal. itself out against the opposite end just at But we missed our way, and got into an old the cross way, where I was coming, which working as had been abandoned for years, saved my life; but some of it reached me, and and got quite lost. We wandered about I was scorched all over the breast and arms. here two whole days and nights afore we

found our way out, and were nigh starved to death.

our mines here, a doggy had his head blown off with the wild-fire.

"It doesn't come of drink, this carelessness of the miners; it's just in our natur not to care-that's all. We do drink and eat too, a good deal; but not in the mine. Our dinners there, are not much, except on particular days, when there is a feast but when we come up from the pit, we have hot suppers at night in our cottages. The doctors say that a miner needs to eat near three times as much as a mechanic who sits at his work all day; and we do eat three times as much. We're not a drunken set o' people; only on Mondays there's a many drunk, and not very handsome-like on Tuesdays. We mostly lie in bed and sleep half Sundays. Some of us are

"I was strong of my age, and the butty said I had some sense in me, and set me to to use the pick sooner than is usual. In general the miner does not use the pick, and become a holer or undergoer [those who go into holes and undermine masses of coal] till he is one-and-twenty. I was set to do this at nineteen, and earned four shillings a-day, and sometimes more. Got badly burnt once at this work. I was lying in a new working where the air was bad, and I was obliged to use a Davy lamp. I had bought a new watch at Tipton, and I wanted to see what o'clock it was by it-else, what was the use on it? -and as I couldn't tell by the Davy, I just lifted off the top-and pheu! went the tee-totallers-but a werry, werry few. The gas, and scorched my face all over, so that the skin all peeled off. It was shocking to see. I was laid up with this for two months -and sarv'd me right, I say now, but it was hard to bear at the time.

I

"As for accidents from the explosion of gas, say there's no help for them, and never can be, so far as the men themselves are concerned. I have been oftentime very careless myself, as I've told you, and so are all miners, and always will be. You may cure the mine of gas, perhaps, but you'll never cure the men. Nor I don't well see how you're to cure the gas, at all times, neither. When a heading [the working at the end of an excavation] is made up a slant, the gas collects in the upper end, and to disturb this gas, as you must do, and distribute it, and drive it away, a'nt so safe and easy a matter, without a chance of a bit of an explosion or two. The worst time of all is when an up-hill heading is united to another heading, for then you're almost certain to have a rush down of the gas, and if there's an uncovered light in the way, you're sure of an explosion. Well-then, don't have a light in the way, on such occasions; make the juncture of the two headings in the dark. That's easy said; and so we're ordered, and so we ought to; but to get men to do it, that's the job. Besides, if it was all being done in the dark, a boy might come running that way with a lighted candle in his hand, a-singing 'Susannah-and then where are you?

Marquis o' Hastings, who's a great coalowner, once told a collier that he knew a miner who had never drank a quart of beer in all his life, put together, yet he had lived to the age of ninety. But the collier said, that if such a man without beer could live to be ninety,-if he had but ha' drunk a quart of ale a day, he'd have lived for ever!

"After I had been an under-goer three years, I had a large piece of coal fall upon me from the roof in one of the workings which broke my leg. My mother was dead, and I was not married at this time, because the girl I should ha' married, took up with somebody else; so I went to my sister to be nursed. She and her husband were going to live at Durham, and persuaded me, when I was well, to go along with them. I soon went down into the pit again, and used to earn five shillings a day. It was here that happened one of those very bad explosions I told you of when you first spoke to me about this last business. The one I now speak of was in the Willington Colliery.

We had

"It was in the Bensham seam of this colliery that the explosion I am going to tell on took place. It took place on the 19th of April, 1841, at a little arter one P.M. The Bensham seam lies about a hundred and forty fathoms from the surface; the coal is over four feet in thickness in most parts, and the pit is good nine feet four wide from wall to wall. The coals are drawn up in iron cages; two tubs on each cage. The "You want to know if there's no autho-pit had been in work some time. rity, and no order down in the mines-nobody advanced two hundred and eighty yards from to walk about and prevent accident from care- the bottom of the shaft. Besides this, there lessness? Well there's the butty, as gives were two north headways, each seven feet wide, out the work; and there's the doggy, who is which had advanced more than two hundred always a-walking about to see it done. But yards. Holings were made between each of what's one man to miles and miles of dark- the headways for air. We had an up-cast ness underground, with gas or bad air every-shaft, called the Edward Pit, by which the where, and roof and walls always liable to air ascended to the surface, after ventilating fall in? The overlookers have enough to do all the workings. The current of air, you to take care o' theirselves, at times. Some understand, descended by another shaft, as years ago-1838 about-at Tamworth-a butty was called the Bigge Pit. One current went coming to his work in the morning, walked one way; another current another. There right into the pit's mouth with two candles was pains enough taken to give us enough in his hand; and only t'other day, in one of wholesome air.

"The main currents of air were restored as usual, and we then continued our search for those who had suffered by the explosion. We found Robert Campbell and another man crushed and buried under a fall of stone, and William Coxon, and Thomas Wood, and Joseph Johnson, all dead, but not burnt. It seemed as if they had got to this place, and then been suffocated and poisoned by the after-damp. Johnson had the top of a linen cap forced into! his mouth, to keep out the poison-but that was no use. A little further on, we found two more men, and near them three little boys

"It was at the west the explosion took hours, the fire was put out. It took thirteen place. I was at work with another man hours and more to do this. and a boy, near five hundred yards, reckoning ins and outs, east of the shaft. A sudden rush of wind and dust came past us. It put out our candles. We knew directly there had been an explosion somewhere, and we ran along in the dark as fast as we could. We fell down several times, tumbling over stones and large pieces of coal or timber that had been shaken and blown out. When we got to the foot of the shaft, we found the iron cage stuck fast, all jammed with the explosion; but we made the signal, and another cage was lowered to us, into which we jumped, before it reached the trappers they were-all burnt horrid. Some bottom, by scrambling up the sides of the distance beyond, Thomas Bainbridge, James shaft. When we got to the bank, and had Liddel, and William Bower, together with taken our breath a bit, we saw the chief two, if not three, more boys, who had been viewer of the pit come running to us with his blown a long way, and also Robert Pearson Davy lamp. We each took a Davy, and and Richard Cooper, both very little boyswent down the pit, to see who we could help. trappers. Up by the north heading we found We knew there had been sad work among the body of John Reed, the deputy who had! them. When we got down to the bottom of charge of the pit, and also five others, some the shaft, we soon heard moans and groans. burnt, some mangled. They were two lads, still alive. We got them hoisted up in the cage to the bank; but they lived a very little while. Soon after, we found two more quite dead, shockingly burnt. We had not gone much further when we found there had been a great fall of the roofing; and among the loose coals and stones, and timbers we found a horse and a pony, all mangled and singed. We now met the after-damp, and were thinking of returning, when a groan made us go forward, and we brought out the body of a young man alive, but in such a state, he couldn't be recognised. We now found that the doors of the trappers in several places had been blown cut, and consequently the air currents had ceased to ventilate all the west and north workings, so that those who were there, and had escaped the explosion, would be likely to lose their lives by the after-damp.

"The cause of this explosion, which cost all these lives, was traced, on examination of all signs and appearances, to the trapper boys, Robert Pearson and Richard Cooper. Cooper's body was found away from his own trap, and lying close beside that of Pearson, where we saw reasons for knowing he could not have been blown by the explosion; and all on us come to the conclusion that he had left his own trap-door open, and gone to play with Pearson. The proper course of the ventilation was thus destroyed, and when George Campbell, whose body was found near, went there with his candle, to fill coals, the gas that had accumulated while the boys were at play instantly exploded.

"You are surprised that children should have charge of these air-doors, on which the safety of the whole mine chiefly depends; but it has always been so. They are often trap"A strange smell of burning now made us pers at six years of age. I was myself. Seven know that some other sort of fire was at work, and eight are the most common ages; someand as we ran in the direction it smelt like times nine. In course the Queen's Ministers burning straw, which told us it was the stables don't know anything about these underground as had taken fire. And sure enough, there matters. Some gentlemen were sent to look they were all in thick yellow smoke and red after us, about eight years ago. They said flames. The horses were prancing wild about, the Queen sent 'em ; and they came down and one, who was blind, got out, and tore among us in the pits, and about on the bank; away, and killed himself by running agen but I suppose they kept what they found to a wall. We all saw death before us, if we themselves.* For here we are with our little couldn't master this fire; because if it com- trapper boys, and our explosions, and our municated with the workings in the west and burnt and mangled men, just as we have north, where the bad gas was, there would be always been. It's a hard life, any way; another blow-up worse than the first. Mr. but to be killed slap off, is worst of all. Johnson, the viewer, acted like a man. We "Now, as to the dreadful explosion and all gave our minds to the work, and succeeded loss of life that happened at Sloughton, I in stopping out, with wood and wet clay plaster, the entrances to these workings. Fire engines were then got down, and we continued to pump at the stables, and at the walls of coal which had took fire on each side, and after we had drenched them with water for several

thought I could tell you all about it, in some sort o' order; but directly I begin to think about it, so many things come at once that

Employment Commission; and, in especial, those of Dr. *Far from it. See Report and Evidence of the Children's Mitchell and Mr Leifchild.

1

it's not easy to think at all, or know what to despair, and crouched down, and covered my say first. The overman had been out late face and head with my hands, and sat there a on Sunday night. He went to the pit at trying to pray, and make my last peace with two in the morning to see that all was safe. God, amidst all manner of cries and loud At three we all came to work, and a hundred praying, and miseries of despair and madness and fifty of us, men and boys, went down. of those huddling in the darkness all round One of the workings was new opened, after me. Sometimes they got a little silent and being closed thirteen years. A dangerous place solemn-like, and listened to the voice of one o' course. One o' the undergoers was sent man who had never ceased to pray aloud all in to remove the first pillar. I went to work along; but presently somebody called out his with others at a good distance. We were at wife's name-two or three cried out on their it about two hours, and then all of a sudden children, their mothers, the girls they were to a rush of wind and coal dust cut by us, taking be married to-and in a moment all again out all the candles, and there was a rumbling was wild cries and rushing about in the noise. We knew very well what it meant, dark. and we all ran towards the shaft. As we "You know how we were saved. A great ran we came upon others in the dark, and part of the roofing had fallen with the exploothers came rushing out upon us from the sion, and this had shut off the fire from us, side workings, and all of us together ran and the advance of the after-damp. Our in a crowd and crush along the dark ways, friends made their way through the ruinin the direction of the shaft, and presently got fresh air in to us, and helped us out. we found those who were foremost had Some died from exhaustion when they reached fallen, and we got a sudden giddiness and the bank; but most of us recovered, to thank gasping, so we knew we had met the choke- God again and again in the arms of our damp. It's a deathly, sleepy sickness you wives and relations, who were all standing in feel, and sinking at the knees, only you're crowds to receive us. They had come from sure it's not the breath of sleep you 're a- all parts round about. The bank was like a feeling, but you 're breathing death. I called fair, only a different sort of merriness, and to those a-head to stop, and so did others near many had no cause. The grief of some was me, but many of them would go on, and down a sad sight for any man. Five-and-wenty they went, one after the other. We felt the had been killed; some crushed, some burnt to bad air couldn't be passed through, and we a black cinder, so that they couldn't be told; hurried backward in a worse disorder, if some torn all in pieces, their limbs being that's possible, than we had come on; and found in different places, and the head of at last we all stopt in a scrambling crowd Anderson flung into a horse-tub-and the in a place where we found the air could rest damped to death. be breathed. Here we remained. What a time it was, good Lord of Heaven! At first the elder ones of us tried to keep some order, and quiet the rest by telling them, as we know'd those on the bank, and plenty of others would be sure to know what had happened, and they'd soon come to help us. They would attend to this for a little, but soon they began to get wild and desperate, and so they went on crying out, and shouting like mad, ending with a scream, until they were tired out. All this time many were down on their knees praying, and some lying about with their faces hid on the ground, and all of us expecting every minute another explosion, or else the advance of the after-damp An effectual remedy for these horrible would bring us certain destruction. And accidents is indeed most difficult to devise. here we remained, hemmed round by the For even if the Government instituted a walls and by the after-damp, which we system of police inspection, it would require could no more get through than through the one officer, at least, to be constantly peramwalls theirselves- hour after hour, every bulating the dark roads and by-ways of every minute of which was a long torment of all mine; and still, as the miner, whose evidence sorts of things in ourselves, and in all those we have just read, very truly says, an exploabout us. I gave myself up for lost after sion might be caused by a moment's carelessthe first hour-then I took hope a little; ness at one end of a mine, while the "authobut after more time had gone, I gave up rity was at the other. hoping, and was as bad as the rest. Still as more time went on, I began to pick up a bit. I knowed our friends would help us if they could. Ay, but could they that was the chance. And then again I fell into

"We think the explosion was caused by the gas from the old working, now opened after being closed thirteen years. Some noise made the undergoer go to this place, and instead of taking his Davy lamp, he ran there with a lighted candle in his hand. He, and the man who was at work there, we found near each other all black and mutilated. He was a mere body of cinder, and was only known by a little book in his pocket, as escaped. The Queen's gentlemen, when they came down here among us, said they could mend these things; but they hav'nt, you see. We think the Queen was'nt told."

To us there appears no other chance of a remedy so good as this:-First, most stringent laws as to the proper ventilation of mines: Secondly, a system of Government inspection, extending to that of frequent visits by day