Chapter II: Slavery in the British Mines (1)

In proceeding to speak more particularly of the various forms of British slavery, we will begin with labour in the mines—the horrors of which became known to the world through reports made to Parliament in the summer of 1840. Pressed by the fear of general execration, Parliament appointed a commission of inquiry, which, after a thorough examination of all the mines in the United Kingdom, made a voluminous report. So shocking were the accounts of labour in the mines given by this commission, that the delicate nerves of several perfumed lords were grievously pained, and they denounced the commissioners as being guilty of exaggeration. Nevertheless, the evidence adduced by the officers was unimpeachable, and their statements were generally received as plain truth.

The mining industry of the kingdom is divided into two distinct branches—that of the coal and iron mines, and that of the mines of tin, copper, lead, and zinc. The "coal measures," as the geological formations comprising the strata of coal are designated, are variously dispersed in the middle, northern, and western portions of South Britain, and in a broad belt of country which traverses the centre of Scotland, from the shores of Ayrshire to those of the Firth of Forth. There are, also, some coal-tracts in Ireland, but they are of comparatively small importance. In all these districts, the coal is found in beds, interstratified for the most part with various qualities of gritstone and shale, in which, in some of the districts, occur layers of ironstone, generally thin, but sometimes forming large masses, as in the Forest of Dean. When the surface of the coal country is mountainous and intersected by deep ravines, as in South Wales, the mineral deposites are approached by holes driven into the sides of the hills; but the common access to them is by vertical shafts, or well-holes, from the bottoms of which horizontal roadways are extended in long and confined passages through the coal strata, to bring all that is hewn to the "pit's eye," or bottom of the shaft, for winding up. It is requisite to have more than one shaft in the same workings; but where the coal lies so deep that the sinking of a distinct shaft requires an enormous outlay of capital, only one large shaft is sunk; and this is divided by wooden partitions, or brattices, into several distinct channels. There must always be one shaft or channel, called the "downcast pit," for the air to descend; and another, called the "upcast pit," for the return draught to ascend. The apparatus for lowering and drawing up is generally in the upcast shaft. This is either a steam-engine, a horse-gin, or a hand-crank. The thickness of the seams that are wrought varies from the eighteen-inch seams of the Lancashire and Yorkshire hills, to the ten-yard coal of South Staffordshire. But two, three, and four feet are the more common thicknesses of the beds that are wrought. When there is a good roof, or hard rock immediately over the coal, with a tolerably solid floor beneath it, thin coal-seams can be worked with advantage, because the outlay of capital for propping is then very limited; but the very hardness of the contiguous strata would require an outlay almost as great to make the roadways of a proper height for human beings of any age to work in.

By the evidence collected under the commission, it is proved that there are coal-mines at present at work in which some passages are so small, that even the youngest children cannot move along them without crawling on their hands and feet, in which constrained position they drag the loaded carriages after them; and yet, as it is impossible by any outlay compatible with a profitable return, to render such coal-mines fit for human beings to work in, they never will be placed in such a condition, and, consequently, they never can be worked without this child slavery! When the roads are six feet high and upward, there is not only ample space for carrying on the general operations of the mine, but the coals can be drawn direct from the workings to the foot of the shaft by the largest horses; and when the main roads are four feet and a half high, the coals may be conveyed to the foot of the shaft by ponies or asses. But when the main ways are under four feet, the coals can only be conveyed by children. Yet, in many mines, the main gates are only from twenty-four to thirty inches high. In this case, even the youngest children must work in a bent position of the body. When the inclination of the strata causes all the workings out of the main ways to be on inclined plains, the young labourers are not only almost worked to death, but exposed to severe accidents in descending the plains with their loads, out of one level into another. In many of the mines, there is such a want of drainage and ventilation, that fatal diseases are contracted by the miners.

According to the report of the Parliamentary commission, about one-third of the persons employed in the coal-mines were under eighteen years of age, and much more than one-third of this number were under thirteen years of age. When the proprietor employs the whole of the hands, not only will his general overseer be a respectable person, but his underlookers will be taken from the more honest, intelligent, and industrious of the labouring colliers. Elsewhere, the rulers in pits are such as the rudest class is likely to produce. The great body of the children and young persons are, however, of the families of the adult work-people employed in the pits, or belong to the poor population of the neighbourhood. But, in some districts, there are numerous defenceless creatures who pass the whole of their youth in the most abject slavery, into which they are thrown chiefly by parish authorities, under the name of apprenticeship. Said the Parliamentary commissioners in their report—

"There is one mode of engaging the labour of children and young
persons in coal-mines, peculiar to a few districts, which
deserves particular notice, viz. that by apprenticeship. The
district in which the practice of employing apprentices is
most in use, is South Staffordshire; it was formerly common
in Shropshire, but is now discontinued; it is still common in
Yorkshire, Lancashire, and the West of Scotland; in all the
other districts, it appears to be unknown. In Staffordshire,
the sub-commissioner states that the number of children and
young persons working in the mines as apprentices is exceedingly
numerous; that these apprentices are paupers or orphans, and
are wholly in the power of the butties;[1] that such is the
demand for this class of children by the butties, that there
are scarcely any boys in the union workhouses of Walsall,
Wolverhampton, Dudley, and Stourbridge; that these boys are sent
on trial to the butties between the ages of eight and nine, and
at nine are bound as apprentices for twelve years, that is, to
the age of twenty-one years complete; that, notwithstanding
this long apprenticeship, there is nothing whatever in the
coal-mines to learn beyond a little dexterity, readily acquired
by short practice; and that even in the mines of Cornwall, where
much skill and judgment is required, there are no apprentices,
while, in the coal-mines of South Staffordshire, the orphan whom
necessity has driven into a workhouse, is made to labour in the
mines until the age of twenty-one, solely for the benefit of
another."

Thomas Moorhouse, a collier boy, who was brought to the notice of the Parliamentary commissioners, said—

"I don't know how old I am; father is dead; I am a chance child;
mother is dead also; I don't know how long she has been dead;
'tis better na three years; I began to hurry[2] when I was nine
years old for William Greenwood; I was apprenticed to him till
I should be twenty-one; my mother apprenticed me; I lived with
Greenwood; I don't know how long it was, but it was a goodish
while; he was bound to find me in victuals and drink and clothes;
I never had enough; he gave me some old clothes to wear, which
he bought at the rag-shop; the overseers gave him a sovereign to
buy clothes with, but he never laid it out; the overseers bound
me out with mother's consent from the township of Southowram; I
ran away from him because he lost my indentures, for he served me
very bad; he stuck a pick into me twice."

Here the boy was made to strip, and the commissioner, Mr. Symonds, found a large cicatrix likely to have been occasioned by such an instrument, which must have passed through the glutei muscles, and have stopped only short of the hip-joint. There were twenty other wounds, occasioned by hurrying in low workings, upon and around the spinous processes of the vertebræ, from the sacrum upward. The boy continued—

"He used to hit me with the belt, and mawl or sledge, and fling
coals at me. He served me so bad that I left him, and went about
to see if I could get a job. I used to sleep in the cabins upon
the pit's bank, and in the old pits that had done working. I
laid upon the shale all night. I used to get what I could to
eat. I ate for a long time the candles that I found in the pits
that the colliers left over night. I had nothing else to eat. I
looked about for work, and begged of the people a bit. I got to
Bradford after a while, and had a job there for a month while a
collier's lad was poorly. When he came back, I was obliged to
leave."

Another case was related by Mr. Kennedy, one of the commissioners. A boy, named Edward Kershaw, had been apprenticed by the overseers of Castleton to a collier of the name of Robert Brierly, residing at Balsgate, who worked in a pit in the vicinity of Rooley Moor. The boy was examined, and from twenty-four to twenty-six wounds were found upon his body. His posteriors and loins were beaten to a jelly; his head, which was almost cleared of hair on the scalp, had the marks of many old wounds upon it which had healed up. One of the bones in one arm was broken below the elbow, and, from appearances, seemed to have been so for some time. The boy, on being brought before the magistrates, was unable either to sit or stand, and was placed on the floor of the office, laid on his side on a small cradle-bed. It appears from the evidence, that the boy's arm had been broken by a blow with an iron rail, and the fracture had never been set, and that he had been kept at work for several weeks with his arm in the condition above described. It further appeared in evidence, and was admitted by Brierly, that he had been in the habit of beating the boy with a flat piece of wood, in which a nail was driven and projected about half an inch. The blows had been inflicted with such violence that they penetrated the skin, and caused the wounds above mentioned. The body of the boy presented all the marks of emaciation. This brutal master had kept the boy at work as a wagoner until he was no longer of any use, and then sent him home in a cart to his mother, who was a poor widow, residing in Church lane, Rochdale. And yet it is said that a slave cannot breathe the air of England!

The want of instruction, and the seclusion from the rest of the world, which is common to the colliers, give them a sad pre-eminence over every other class of labourers, in ignorance and callousness; and when they are made masters, what can be expected? In all cases of apprenticeship, the children are bound till they attain the age of twenty-one years. If the master dies before the apprentice attains the age of twenty-one years, the apprentice is equally bound as the servant of his deceased master's heirs, executors, administrators, and assigns. In fact, the apprentice is part of the deceased master's goods and chattels!

But, to speak more particularly of the labour of the children:—The employment of the adult collier is almost exclusively in the "getting" of the coal from its natural resting-place, of which there are various methods, according to the nature of the seams and the habits of the several districts. That of the children and young persons consists principally either in tending the air-doors where the coal-carriages must pass through openings, the immediately subsequent stoppage of which is necessary to preserve the ventilation in its proper channels, or in the conveyance of the coal from the bays or recesses in which it is hewn, along the subterranean roadways, to the bottom of the pit-shaft; a distance varying from absolute contiguity even to miles, in the great coal-fields of the North of England, where the depth requires that the same expensive shaft shall serve for the excavation of a large tract of coal. The earliest employment of children in the pits is generally to open and shut the doors, upon the proper custody of which the ventilation and safety of the whole mine depends. These little workmen are called "trappers." Of the manner in which they pass their earlier days, Dr. Mitchell, a distinguished Englishman, has given a very interesting sketch, which deserves to be quoted here entire:—

"The little trapper, of eight years of age, lies quiet in bed.
It is now between two and three in the morning, and his mother
shakes him and desires him to rise, and tells him that his father
has an hour ago gone off to the pit. He turns on his side, rubs
his eyes, and gets up, and comes to the blazing fire and puts on
his clothes. His coffee, such as it is, stands by the side of
the fire, and bread is laid down for him. The fortnight is now
well advanced, the money all spent, and butter, bacon, and other
luxurious accompaniments of bread, are not to be had at breakfast
till next pay-day supply the means. He then fills his tin bottle
with coffee and takes a lump of bread, sets out for the pit, into
which he goes down in the cage, and walking along the horse-way
for upward of a mile, he reaches the barrow-way, over which the
young men and boys push the trams with the tubs on rails to the
flats, where the barrow-way and horse-way meet, and where the
tubs are transferred to rolleys or carriages drawn by horses.

"He knows his place of work. It is inside one of the doors called
trap-doors, which is in the barrow-way, for the purpose of
forcing the stream of air which passes in its long, many-miled
course from the down-shaft to the up-shaft of the pit; but
which door must be opened whenever men or boys, with or without
carriages, may wish to pass through. He seats himself in a little
hole, about the size of a common fireplace, and with the string
in his hand; and all his work is to pull that string when he has
to open the door, and when man or boy has passed through, then to
allow the door to shut of itself. Here it is his duty to sit, and
be attentive, and pull his string promptly as any one approaches.
He may not stir above a dozen steps with safety from his charge,
lest he should be found neglecting his duty, and suffer for the
same.

"He sits solitary by himself, and has no one to talk to him; for
in the pit the whole of the people, men and boys, are as busy
as if they were in a sea-fight. He, however, sees now and then
the putters urging forward their trams through his gate, and
derives some consolation from the glimmer of the little candle
of about 40 to the pound, which is fixed on their trams. For he
himself has no light. His hours, except at such times, are passed
in total darkness. For the first week of his service in the pit
his father had allowed him candles to light one after another,
but the expense of three halfpence a day was so extravagant
expenditure out of tenpence, the boy's daily wages, that his
father, of course, withdrew the allowance the second week, all
except one or two candles in the morning, and the week after the
allowance was altogether taken away; and now, except a neighbour
kinder than his father now and then drop him a candle as he
passes, the boy has no light of his own.

"Thus hour after hour passes away; but what are hours to him,
seated in darkness, in the bowels of the earth? He knows nothing
of the ascending or descending sun. Hunger, however, though
silent and unseen, acts upon him, and he betakes to his bottle
of coffee and slice of bread; and, if desirous, he may have the
luxury of softening it in a portion of water in the pit, which is
brought down for man and beast.

"In this state of sepulchral existence, an insidious enemy gains
upon him. His eyes are shut, and his ears fail to announce the
approach of a tram. A deputy overman comes along, and a smart cut
of his yardwand at once punishes the culprit and recalls him to
his duty; and happy was it for him that he fell into the hands of
the deputy overman, rather than one of the putters; for his fist
would have inflicted a severer pain. The deputy overman moreover
consoles him by telling him that it was for his good that he
punished him; and reminds him of boys, well known to both, who,
when asleep, had fallen down, and some had been severely wounded,
and others killed. The little trapper believes that he is to
blame, and makes no complaint, for he dreads being discharged;
and he knows that his discharge would be attended with the loss
of wages, and bring upon him the indignation of his father, more
terrible to endure than the momentary vengeance of the deputy and
the putters all taken together.

"Such is the day-work of the little trapper in the barrow-way.

"At last, the joyful sound of 'Loose, loose,' reaches his ears.
The news of its being four o'clock, and of the order, 'Loose,
loose,' having been shouted down the shaft, is by systematic
arrangement sent for many miles in all directions round the
farthest extremities of the pit. The trapper waits until the last
putter passes with his tram, and then he follows and pursues his
journey to the foot of the shaft, and takes an opportunity of
getting into the cage and going up when he can. By five o'clock
he may probably get home. Here he finds a warm dinner, baked
potatoes, and broiled bacon lying above them. He eats heartily
at the warm fire, and sits a little after. He dare not go out to
play with other boys, for the more he plays the more he is sure
to sleep the next day in the pit. He, therefore, remains at home,
until, feeling drowsy, he then repeats the prayer taught by our
blessed Lord, takes off his clothes, is thoroughly washed in hot
water by his mother, and is laid in his bed."

The evidence of the Parliamentary commissioners proves that Dr. Mitchell has given the life of the young trapper a somewhat softened colouring. Mr. Scriven states that the children employed in this way become almost idiotic from the long, dark, solitary confinement. Many of them never see the light of day during the winter season, except on Sundays.

The loaded corves drawn by the hurriers weigh from two to five hundred-weight. These carriages are mounted upon four cast-iron wheels of five inches in diameter, there being, in general, no rails from the headings to the main gates. The children have to drag these carriages through passages in some cases not more than from sixteen to twenty inches in height. Of course, to accomplish this, the young children must crawl on their hands and feet. To render their labour the more easy, the sub-commissioner states that they buckle round their naked person a broad leather strap, to which is attached in front a ring and about four feet of chain, terminating in a hook. As soon as they enter the main gates, they detach the harness from the corve, change their position by getting behind it, and become "thrusters." The carriage is then placed upon the rail, a candle is stuck fast by a piece of wet clay, and away they run with amazing swiftness to the shaft, pushing the loads with their heads and hands. The younger children thrust in pairs.

"After trapping," says the report of the commissioners, "the
next labour in the ascending scale to which the children are
put, is 'thrutching,' or thrusting, which consists in being
helper to a 'drawer,' or 'wagoner,' who is master, or 'butty,'
over the 'thrutcher,' In some pits, the thrutcher has his head
protected by a thick cap, and he will keep on his trousers and
clogs; but in others, he works nearly naked. The size of the
loads which he has to thrutch varies with the thickness of the
seam; and with the size, varies his butty's method of proceeding,
which is either as a drawer or a wagoner. The drawers are those
who use the belt and chain. Their labour consists in loading,
with the coals hewn down by the 'getter,' an oblong tub without
wheels, and dragging this tub on its sledge bottom by means of a
girdle of rough leather passing round the body, and a chain of
iron attached to that girdle in front, and hooked to the sledge.
The drawer has, with the aid of his thrutcher, to sledge the
tub in this manner from the place of getting to the mainway,
generally down, though sometimes up, a brow or incline of the
same steepness as the inclination of the strata; in descending
which he goes to the front of his tub, where his light is fixed,
and, turning his face to it, regulates its motion down the hill,
as, proceeding back foremost, he pulls it along by his belt. When
he gets to the mainway, which will be at various distances not
exceeding forty or fifty yards from his loading-place, he has to
leave this tub upon a low truck running on small iron wheels, and
then to go and fetch a second, which will complete its load, and
with these two to join with his thrutcher in pushing it along
the iron railway to the pit bottom to have the tubs successively
hooked on to the drawing-rope. Returning with his tubs empty, he
leaves the mainway, first with one, and then with the other tub,
to get them loaded, dragging them up the 'brow' by his belt and
chain, the latter of which he now passes between his legs, so as
to pull, face foremost, on all fours. In the thin seams, this
labour has to be performed in bays, leading from the place of
getting to the mainways, of scarcely more than twenty inches in
height, and in mainways of only two feet six inches, and three
feet high, for the seam itself will only be eighteen inches thick.

"Wagoning is a form of drawing which comes into use with the
more extensive employment of railways in the thicker seams.
The tubs here used are large, and all mounted on wheels. From
the place of getting, the loads are pushed by the wagoners with
hands and heads to the bottom of the pit along the levels; and
where they have to descend from one level into another, this is
generally done by a cut at right angles directly with the dip,
down the 'brow' which it makes. Here there is a winch or pinion
for jigging the wagons down the incline, with a jigger at the top
and a hooker-on at the bottom of the plane, where it is such as
to require these. The jiggers and the hookers-on are children of
twelve or thirteen. Sometimes the descent from one line of level
into another is by a diagonal cutting at a small angle from the
levels, called a slant, down which the wagoners can, and do,
in some instances, take their wagons without jigging, by their
own manual labour; and a very rough process it is, owing to the
impetus which so great a weight acquires, notwithstanding the
scotching of the wheels."

Mr. Kennedy thus describes the position of the children, in the combined drawing and thrutching:—

"The child in front is harnessed by his belt or chain to the
wagon; the two boys behind are assisting in pushing it forward.
Their heads, it will be observed, are brought down to a level
with the wagon, and the body almost in the horizontal position.
This is done partly to avoid striking the roof, and partly to
gain the advantage of the muscular action, which is greatest in
that position. It will be observed, the boy in front goes on his
hands and feet: in that manner, the whole weight of his body is,
in fact, supported by the chain attached to the wagon and his
feet, and, consequently, his power of drawing is greater than it
would be if he crawled on his knees. These boys, by constantly
pushing against the wagons, occasionally rub off the hair from
the crowns of their heads so much as to make them almost bald."

In Derbyshire, some of the pits are altogether worked by boys. The seams are so thin, that several have only a two-feet headway to all the workings. The boy who gets the coal, lies on his side while at work. The coal is then loaded in a barrow, or tub, and drawn along the bank to the pit mouth by boys from eight to twelve years of age, on all fours, with a dog-belt and chain, the passages being very often an inch or two thick in black mud, and neither ironed nor wooded. In Mr. Barnes's pit, these boys have to drag the barrows with one hundred-weight of coal or slack, sixty times a day, sixty yards, and the empty barrows back, without once straightening their backs, unless they choose to stand under the shaft and run the risk of having their heads broken by coal falling.

In some of the mines, the space of the workings is so small that the adult colliers are compelled to carry on their operations in a stooping posture; and, in others, they are obliged to work lying their whole length along the uneven floor, and supporting their heads upon a board or short crutch. In these low, dark, heated, and dismal chambers, they work perfectly naked. In many of the thin-seam mines, the labour of "getting" coal, so severe for adults, was found by the commissioners to be put upon children from nine to twelve years of age.

If the employment of boys in such a way be, as a miner said to the commissioners, "barbarity, barbarity," what are we to think of the slavery of female children in the same abyss of darkness? How shall we express our feelings upon learning that females, in the years of opening womanhood, are engaged in the same occupations as their male companions, in circumstances repugnant to the crudest sense of decency? Yet we have unimpeachable evidence that, at the time of the investigations of the commissioners, females were thus employed; and there is reason to believe that this is still the case.

The commissioners found females employed like the males in the labours of the mines in districts of Yorkshire and Lancashire, in the East of Scotland, and in Wales. In great numbers of the pits visited, the men were working in a state of entire nakedness, and were assisted by females of all ages, from girls of six years old to women of twenty-one—these females being themselves quite naked down to the waist. Mr. Thomas Pearce says that in the West Riding of Yorkshire—

"The girls hurry with a belt and chain, as well as thrust. There
are as many girls as boys employed about here. One of the most
disgusting sights I have ever seen, was that of young females,
dressed like boys in trousers, crawling on all fours, with belts
around their waists and chains passing between their legs, at
day-pits at Thurshelf Bank, and in many small pits near Holmfirth
and New Mills. It exists also in several other places."

In the neighbourhood of Halifax, it is stated that there is no distinction whatever between the boys and girls in their coming up the shaft and going down; in their mode of hurrying or thrusting; in the weight of corves; in the distance they are hurried; in wages or dress; that the girls associate and labour with men who are in a state of nakedness, and that they have themselves no other garment than a ragged shift, or, in the absence of that, a pair of broken trousers, to cover their persons.

Here are specimens of the evidence taken by the commissioners:—

"Susan Pitchforth, aged eleven, Elland: 'I have worked in this
pit going two years. I have one sister going of fourteen, and she
works with me in the pit. I am a thruster.'

"'This child,' said the sub-commissioner, 'stood shivering before
me from cold. The rags that hung about her waist were once
called a shift, which was as black as the coal she thrust, and
saturated with water—the drippings of the roof and shaft. During
my examination of her, the banksman, whom I had left in the pit,
came to the public-house and wanted to take her away, because,
as he expressed himself, it was not decent that she should be
exposed to us.'

"Patience Kershaw, aged seventeen: 'I hurry in the clothes I have
now got on, (trousers and ragged jacket;) the bald place upon my
head is made by thrusting the corves; the getters I work for are
naked except their caps; they pull off their clothes; all the men
are naked.'

"Mary Barrett, aged fourteen: 'I work always without stockings,
or shoes, or trousers; I wear nothing but my shift; I have to go
up to the headings with the men; they are all naked there; I am
got well used to that, and don't care much about it; I was afraid
at first, and did not like it.'"

In the Lancashire coal-fields lying to the north and west of
Manchester, females are regularly employed in underground labour;
and the brutal policy of the men, and the abasement of the women,
is well described by some of the witnesses examined by Mr.
Kennedy.

"Peter Gaskill, collier, at Mr. Lancaster's, near Worsley:
'Prefers women to boys as drawers; they are better to manage,
and keep the time better; they will fight and shriek and do
every thing but let anybody pass them; and they never get to be
coal-getters—that is another good thing.'

"Betty Harris, aged thirty-seven, drawer in a coal-pit, Little
Bolton: 'I have a belt round my waist and a chain passing between
my legs, and I go on my hands and feet. The road is very steep,
and we have to hold by a rope, and when there is no rope, by any
thing we can catch hold of. There are six women and about six
boys and girls in the pit I work in; it is very hard work for
a woman. The pit is very wet where I work, and the water comes
over our clog-tops always, and I have seen it up to my thighs; it
rains in at the roof terribly; my clothes are wet through almost
all day long. I never was ill in my life but when I was lying-in.
My cousin looks after my children in the daytime. I am very tired
when I get home at night; I fall asleep sometimes before I get
washed. I am not so strong as I was, and cannot stand my work so
well as I used to do. I have drawn till I have had the skin off
me. The belt and chain is worse when we are in the family-way. My
feller (husband) has beaten me many a time for not being ready. I
were not used to it at first, and he had little patience; I have
known many a man beat his drawer.'

"Mary Glover, aged thirty-eight, at Messrs. Foster's, Ringley
Bridge: 'I went into a coal-pit when I was seven years old, and
began by being a drawer. I never worked much in the pit when I
was in the family-way, but since I have gave up having children,
I have begun again a bit. I wear a shift and a pair of trousers
when at work. I always will have a good pair of trousers. I have
had many a twopence given me by the boatmen on the canal to show
my breeches. I never saw women work naked, but I have seen men
work without breeches in the neighbourhood of Bolton. I remember
seeing a man who worked stark naked.'"

In the East of Scotland, the business of the females is to remove the coals from the hewer who has picked them from the wall-face, and placing them either on their backs, which they invariably do when working in edge-seams, or in _little carts_ when on levels, to carry them to the main road, where they are conveyed to the pit bottom, where, being emptied into the ascending basket of the shaft, they are wound by machinery to the pit's mouth, where they lie heaped for further distribution. Mr. Franks, an Englishman, says of this barbarous toil—

"Now when the nature of this horrible labour is taken into
consideration; its extreme severity; its regular duration of from
twelve to fourteen hours daily; the damp, heated, and unwholesome
atmosphere of a coal-mine, and the tender age and sex of the
workers, 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."

The loads of coal carried on the backs of females vary in weight from three-quarters of a hundred-weight to three hundred-weight. In working edge-seams, or highly inclined beds, the load must be borne to the surface, or to the pit-bottom, up winding stairs, or a succession of steep ladders. The disgrace of this peculiar form of oppression is said to be confined to Scotland, "where, until nearly the close of the last century, the colliers remained in a state of legal bondage, and formed a degraded caste, apart from all humanizing influences and sympathy." From all accounts, they are not much improved in condition at the present time.

A sub-commissioner thus describes a female child's labour in a Scottish mine, and gives some of the evidence he obtained:—

"She has first to descend a nine-ladder pit to the first rest,
even to which a shaft is sunk, to draw up the baskets or tubs of
coals filled by the bearers; she then takes her creel (a basket
formed to the back, not unlike a cockle-shell, flattened toward
the back of the neck, so as to allow lumps of coal to rest on
the back of the neck and shoulders,) and pursues her journey to
the wall-face, or, as it is called here, the room of work. She
then lays down her basket, into which the coal is rolled, and
it is frequently more than one man can do to lift the burden on
her back. The tugs or straps are placed over the forehead, and
the body bent in a semicircular form, in order to stiffen the
arch. Large lumps of coal are then placed on the neck, and she
then commences her journey with her burden to the bottom, first
hanging her lamp to the cloth crossing her head. In this girl's
case, she has first to travel about fourteen fathoms (eighty-four
feet) from wall-face to the first ladder, which is eighteen feet
high; leaving the first ladder, she proceeds along the main road,
probably three feet six inches to four feet six inches high, to
the second ladder, eighteen feet high; so on to the third and
fourth ladders, till she reaches the pit-bottom, where she casts
her load, varying from one hundred-weight to one hundred-weight
and a half, in the tub. This one journey is designated a rake;
the height ascended, and the distance along the roads added
together, exceed the height of St. Paul's Cathedral; and it not
unfrequently happens that the tugs break, and the load falls
upon those females who are following. However incredible it may
be, yet I have taken the evidence of fathers who have ruptured
themselves from straining to lift coal on their children's backs.

"Janet Cumming, eleven years old, bears coals: 'I gang with
the women at five, and come up with the women at five at
night; work _all night_ on Fridays, and come away at twelve
in the day. I carry the large bits of coal from the wall-face
to the pit-bottom, and the small pieces called chows in a
creel. The weight is usually a hundred-weight, does not know
how many pounds there are in a hundred-weight, but it is some
weight to carry; it takes three journeys to fill a tub of four
hundred-weight. The distance varies, as the work is not always on
the same wall; sometimes one hundred and fifty fathoms, whiles
two hundred and fifty fathoms. The roof is very low; I have to
bend my back and legs, and the water comes frequently up to the
calves of my legs. Has no liking for the work; father makes me
like it. Never got hurt, but often obliged to scramble out of the
pit when bad air was in.'

"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 lasses were wrought 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 the last hour of pregnancy;
they have swelled haunches and ankles, and are prematurely
brought to the grave, or, what is worse, 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.'

"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."

The boxes or carriages employed in putting are of two kinds—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 a wood-framed box, curved and shod with iron at the bottom, holding from two and a quarter to five hundred-weight 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 is attached to a chain fastened to the coal-cart or slype. The dresses of these girls are made of coarse hempen stuff, fitting close to the figures; the coverings to their heads are made 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. We quote more of the evidence obtained by the commissioners. It scarcely needs any comment:—

"Margaret Hipps, seventeen years old, putter, Stoney Rigg
Colliery, Stirlingshire: 'My employment, after reaching the
wall-face, is to fill my bagie, or slype, with two and a half to
three hundred-weight of coal. I then hook it on to my chain and
drag it through the seam, which is twenty-six to twenty-eight
inches high, till I get to the main road—a good distance,
probably two hundred to four hundred 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.'

"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.'

"Agnes Moffatt, seventeen years old, coal-bearer: 'Began working
at ten years of age; father took sister and I down; he gets our
wages. I fill five baskets; the weight is more than twenty-two
hundred-weight; it takes me twenty journeys. The work is o'er
sair for females. It is no uncommon for women to lose their
burden, and drop off the ladder down the dyke below; Margaret
McNeil 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 with a load.'

"Margaret Jacques, seventeen years of age, coal-bearer: 'I have
been seven years at coal-bearing; it is horrible sore work; it
was not my choice, but we do our parents' will. I make thirty
rakes a day, with two hundred-weight of coal on my creel. It is a
guid distance I journey, and very dangerous on parts of the road.
The distance fast increases as the coals are cut down.'

"Helen Reid, sixteen years old, coal-bearer: 'I have wrought five
years in the mines in this part; my employment is carrying coal.
Am frequently worked from four in the morning until six at night.
I work night-work week about, (alternate weeks.) I then go down
at two in the day, and come up at four and six in the morning.
I can carry near two hundred-weight _on_ my back. I do not like
the work. Two years since the pit closed upon thirteen of us,
and we were two days without food or light; nearly one day we
were up to our chins in water. At last we got to an old shaft,
to which we picked our way, and were heard by people watching
above. Two months ago, I was filling the tubs at the pit bottom,
when the gig clicked too early, and the hook caught me by my
pit-clothes—the people did not hear my shrieks—my hand had fast
grappled the chain, and the great height of the shaft caused me
to lose my courage, and I swooned. The banksman could scarcely
remove my hand—the deadly grasp saved my life.'

"Margaret Drysdale, fifteen years old, coal-putter: 'I don't like
the work, but mother is dead, and father brought me down; I had
no choice. The lasses will tell you that they all like the work
fine, as they think you are going to take them out of the pits.
My employment is to draw the carts. I have harness, or draw-ropes
on, like the horses, and pull the carts. Large carts hold seven
hundred-weight and a half, the smaller five hundred-weight and a
half. The roads are wet, and I have to draw the work about one
hundred fathoms.'

"Katherine Logan, sixteen years old, coal-putter: 'Began to work
at coal-carrying more than five years since; works in harness
now; draw backward with face to tubs; the ropes and chains go
under my pit-clothes; it is o'er sair work, especially where we
crawl.'

"Janet Duncan, seventeen years old, coal-putter: 'Works
at putting, and was a coal-bearer at Hen-Muir Pit and New
Pencaitland. The carts I push contain three hundred-weight of
coal, being a load and a half; it is very severe work, especially
when we have to stay before the tubs, on the braes, to prevent
them coming down too fast; they frequently run too quick, and
knock us down; when they run over fast, we fly off the roads and
let them go, or we should be crushed. Mary Peacock was severely
crushed a fortnight since; is gradually recovering. I have
wrought above in harvest time; it is the only other work that
ever I tried my hand at, and having harvested for three seasons,
am able to say that the hardest daylight work is infinitely
superior to the best of coal-work.'

"Jane Wood, wife of James Wood, formerly a coal-drawer and
bearer: 'Worked below more than thirty years. I have two
daughters below, who really hate the employment, and often prayed
to leave, but we canna do well without them just now. The severe
work causes women much trouble; they frequently have premature
births. Jenny McDonald, a neighbour, was laid idle six months;
and William King's wife lately died from miscarriage, and a vast
of women suffer from similar causes.'

"Margaret Boxter, fifty years old, coal-hewer: 'I hew the coal;
have done so since my husband failed in his breath; he has been
off work twelve years. I have a son, daughter, and niece working
with me below, and we have sore work to get maintenance. I go
down early to hew the coal for my girls to draw; my son hews
also. The work is not fit for women, and men could prevent it
were they to labour more regular; indeed, men about this place
don't wish wives to work in mines, but the masters seem to
encourage it—at any rate, the masters never interfere to prevent
it.'"

"The different kinds of work to which females are put in South
Wales, are described in the following evidence:—

"Henrietta Frankland, eleven years old, drammer: 'When
well, I draw the drams, (carts,) which contain four to five
hundred-weight of coal, from the heads to the main road; I make
forty-eight to fifty journeys; sister, who is two years older,
works also at dramming; the work is very hard, and the long hours
before the pay-day fatigue us much. The mine is wet where we
work, as the water passes through the roof, and the workings are
only thirty to thirty-three inches high.'

"Mary Reed, twelve years old, air-door keeper: 'Been five years
in the Plymouth mine. Never leaves till the last dram (cart) is
drawn past by the horse. Works from six till four or five at
night. Has run home very hungry; runs along the level or hangs on
a cart as it passes. Does not like the work in the dark; would
not mind the daylight work.'

"Hannah Bowen, sixteen years old, windlass-woman: 'Been down two
years; it is good hard work; work from seven in the morning till
three or four in the afternoon at hauling the windlass. Can draw
up four hundred loads of one hundred-weight and a half to four
hundred-weight each.'

"Ann Thomas, sixteen years old, windlass-woman: 'Finds the work
very hard; two women always work the windlass below ground. We
wind up eight hundred loads. Men do not like the winding, _it is
too hard work for them_.'"

The commissioners ascertained that when the work-people were in full employment, the regular hours for children and young persons were rarely less than eleven; more often they were twelve; in some districts, they are thirteen; and, in one district, they are generally fourteen and upward. In Derbyshire, south of Chesterfield, from thirteen to sixteen hours are considered a day's work. Of the exhausting effects of such labour for so long a time, we shall scarcely need any particular evidence. But one boy, named John Bostock, told the commissioners that he had often been made to work until he was so tired as to lie down on his road home until twelve o'clock, when his mother had come and led him home; and that he had sometimes been so tired that he could not eat his dinner, but had been beaten and made to work until night. Many other cases are recorded:—

"John Rawson, collier, aged forty: 'I work at Mr. Sorby's
pit, Handsworth. I think the children are worked overmuch
sometimes.'—_Report_, No. 81, p. 243, 1. 25.

"Peter Waring, collier, Billingby: 'I never should like my
children to go in. They are not beaten; it is the work that hurts
them; it is mere slavery, and nothing but it.'—Ibid. No. 125, p.
256, 1. 6.

"John Hargreave, collier, Thorpe's Colliery: 'Hurrying is heavy
work for children. They ought not to work till they are twelve
years old, and then put two together for heavy corves.'—Ibid.
No. 130, p. 256, 1. 44.

"Mr. Timothy Marshall, collier, aged thirty-five, Darton: 'I
think the hurrying is what hurts girls, and it is too hard work
for their strength; I think that children cannot be educated
after they once get to work in pits; they are both tired and even
disinclined to learn when they have done work.'—Ibid. No. 141,
p. 262, 1. 39.

"A collier at Mr. Travis's pit: 'The children get but little
schooling; six or seven out of nine or ten know nothing. They
never go to night-schools, except some odd ones. When the
children get home, they cannot go to school, for they have to be
up so early in the morning—soon after four—and they cannot do
without rest.'—Ibid. No. 94, p. 246, 1. 33.

"Mr. George Armitage, aged thirty-six, formerly collier at
Silkstone, now teacher at Hayland School: 'Little can be learnt
merely on Sundays, and they are too tired as well as indisposed
to go to night-schools. I am decidedly of opinion that when trade
is good, the work of hurriers is generally continuous; but when
there are two together, perhaps the little one will have a rest
while the big one is filling or riddling.'—Ibid., No. 138, p.
261, 1. 24.

"William Firth, between six and seven years old, Deal Wood
Pit, Flockton: 'I hurry with my sister. I don't like to be in
pit. I was crying to go out this morning. It tires me a good
deal.'—Ibid. No. 218, p. 282, 1. 11.

"John Wright, hurrier in Thorpe's colliery: 'I shall be nine
years old next Whitsuntide. It tires me much. It tires my arms.
I have been two years in the pit, and have been hurrying all the
time. It tries the small of my arms.'—Ibid. No. 129, p. 256, 1.
31.

"Daniel Dunchfield: 'I am going in ten; I am more tired in the
forenoon than at night; it makes my back ache; I work all day
the same as the other boys; I rest me when I go home at night; I
never go to play at night; I get my supper and go to bed.'—Ibid.
No. 63, p. 238, 1. 32.

"George Glossop, aged twelve: 'I help to fill and hurry, and am
always tired at night when I've done.'—Ibid. No. 50, p. 236, 1.
21.

"Martin Stanley: 'I tram by myself, and find it very hard work.
It tires me in my legs and shoulders every day.'—Ibid. No. 69,
p. 240, 1. 27.

"Charles Hoyle: 'I was thirteen last January. I work in the thin
coal-pit. I find it very hard work. We work at night one week,
and in the day the other. It tires me very much sometimes. It
tires us most in the legs, especially when we have to go on our
hands and feet. I fill as well as hurry.'—Ibid. No. 78, p. 242,
1. 41.

"Jonathan Clayton, thirteen and a half years old, Soap Work
Colliery, Sheffield: 'Hurrying is very hard work; when I got home
at night, I was knocked up.'—Ibid. No. 6, p. 227, 1. 48.

"Andrew Roger, aged seventeen years: 'I work for my father, who
is an undertaker. I get, and have been getting two years. I find
it very hard work indeed; it tires me very much; I can hardly get
washed of a night till nine o'clock, I am so tired.'—Ibid. No.
60, p. 237, 1. 49.

["'This witness,' says the sub-commissioner, 'when examined in
the evening after his work was over, ached so much that he could
not stand upright.']—Ibid. s. 109; App. pt. i. p. 181.