Authors: George W. M. Reynolds,James Malcolm Rymer
; and as it was commenced low down, the getter was obliged to lie flat
on his back or on his side, and work for a long time in that uneasy manner.
"I did as well as I could with the labour allotted to
me; but it was dreadful work. I was constantly knocking my head against the low
roofs of the passages or against the rough places of the sides: at other times
I fell flat on my face, with the masses of coal upon me; or else I got knocked
down by a cart, or by some collier in the dark, as I toiled along the passages,
my eyes blinded with my tears or with the dust of the mine.
"Many - many weeks passed away; and at length I grew
quite hardened in respect to those sights and that language which had at first
disgusted me. I became familiar with the constant presence of naked men and
half-naked women; and the most terrible oaths and filthy expressions ceased to
startle me. I walked boldly into the great cavern which I have before
described, and which served as a place at meeting for those who took their
meals in the mine. I associated with the boys and girls that worked in the pit,
and learnt to laugh at an obscene joke, or to practise petty thefts of candles,
food, or even drink, which the colliers left in the cavern or at their places
of work. The mere fact of the boys and girls in mines all meeting together,
without any control, - without any one to look after them , - is calculated to
corrupt all those who may be well disposed.
"I remained as a carrier of coal along the passages
till I was ten years old. I was then ordered to convey my load, which by this
time amounted to a hundred weight on each occasion, up a ladder to a passage
over where I had hitherto worked. This load was strapped by a leather round my
forehead; and, as the ladder was very rudely formed, and the steps were nearly
two feet apart, it was with great difficulty that I could keep my balance. I
have seen terrible accidents happen to young girls working in that way.
Sometimes the strap, or tagg, round one person's forehead has broken, and the
whole load has fallen on the girl climbing up behind. Then the latter has been
precipitated to the bottom of the dyke, the great masses of coal failing on the
top of her. On other occasions I have seen the girls lose their balance, and
fall off the ladder - their burden of coals, as in the other case, showering
upon them or their companions behind. The work was indeed most horrible a
slave-ship could not have been worse.
"If I did not do exactly as Phil Blossom told me, the
treatment I received from him was horrible; and my mother did not dare
interfere, or he would
serve her in the same manner. He
thrashed me with his fist or with a stick, until I was bruised all over. My
flesh was often marked with deep wales for weeks together. One day he nipped me
with his nails until he actually cut quite through my ear. He often pulled my
hair till it literally gave way in his hand; and sometimes be would pelt me
with coals. He thought nothing of giving me a kick that would send me with
great violence across the passage, or dash me against the opposite side. On one
occasion he was in such a rage, because I accidentally put out the candle which
he had to light him at his work, that he struck a random blow at me with his
pickaxe in the dark, and cut a great gash in my head. All the miners in pits
baste
and
bray
- that is, beat and flog - their
helpers.
"You would be surprised if I was to tell you how many
people to the pit were either killed or severely injured, by accidents, every
year. But there are so many dangers to which the poor miners are exposed!
Falling down the shaft, - the rope sustaining the clatch-harness breaking, -
being drawn over the roller, - the fall of coals out of the corves in their
ascent, - drowning in the mines from the sudden breaking in of water from old
workings, - explosion of gas - choke damp,* [* "Explosions of carbonated
hydrogen gas, which is usually called by the miners 'sulphur,' sometimes prove
very destructive, not only by scorching to death, but by the suffocation of
foul air after the explosion is over, and also by the violence by which persons
are driven before it, or are smothered by the ruins thrown down upon
them."- Appendix to First Report] falling in of the roofs or passages, -
the breaking of ladders or well-staircases, - being run over by the
tram-waggons, or carts dragged by horses, - the explosion of gunpowder used in
breaking away huge masses of coal, - and several other minor accidents, are all
perpetually menacing the life or limbs of those poor creatures who supply the
mineral that cheers so many thousands of fire-sides!
"Deaths from accidents of this nature were seldom, if
ever, brought under the notice of the coroner: indeed, to save time, it was
usual to bury the poor victims within twenty-four or thirty-six hours after
their decease.
"I earned three shillings a-week when I was ten years
old, and my mother eleven. You may imagine, then, that we ought to have been
pretty comfortable; but our household was just as wretched as any other in the
mining districts. Filth and poverty are the characteristics of the collier
population. Nothing can be more wretched - nothing more miserable than
their dwellings. The huts in which they live are generally from ten to twelve
feet square, each consisting only of one room. I have seen a man and his wife
and eight or ten children all huddling together in that one room; and yet they
might have earned, by their joint labour, thirty shillings or more a week.
Perhaps a pig, a jackass, or fowls form part of the family. And then the
furniture! - not a comfort - scarcely a necessary! And yet this absence of even
such articles as bedsteads, is upon principle : the colliers do not like to be
encumbered with household goods, because they are often obliged to
flit
- that is, to leave one place of
work and seek for another. Such a thing as drainage is almost completely
unknown in these districts; and all the filth is permitted to accumulate before
the door. The colliers are a dirty set of people; but, poor creatures! how can
they well be otherwise? They descend into the mines at a very early hour in the
morning: they return home at a very late hour in the evening, and they are then
too tired to attend to habits of cleanliness. Besides, it is so natural for
them to say,
'Why should we wash ourselves to-night, since
to-morrow we must become black and dirty again?'
or
'Why should we wash ourselves
just for the sake of sleeping with a clean skin?'
As for the boys and girls, they are often so worn out - so
thoroughly exhausted, that I they go to rest without their suppers. They cannot
keep themselves awake when they get home. I know that this was often and often
my case; and I have preferred -indeed, I have been compelled by sheer
fatigue, to go to bed before my mother could prepare any thing to eat.
"Again, how can the collier's home possibly be
comfortable? He makes his wife and children toil with him in the mine: he
married a woman from the mine; and neither she nor her daughters know any thing
of housekeeping? How can disorder be prevented from creeping into the collier's
dwelling when no one is there in the day-time to attend to it? Then all the
money which they can save from the
Tommy-shop
, (of which I shall speak
presently) goes for whiskey. Husband and wife, sons and daughters all look
after the whiskey. The habits of the colliers are hereditarily depraved: they
are perpetuated from father to son, from mother to daughter; none is better nor
worse than his parents were before him. Rags and filth - squalor and
dissipation - crushing toil and hideous want - ignorance and immorality; these
are the features of the collier's home, and the characteristics of the
collier's life.
"Our home was not a whit better than that of any of our
fellow-labourers; nor was my mother less attached to whiskey than her
neighbours.
"But the chief source of poverty and frequent want -
amounting at times almost to starvation - amongst persons earning a sufficiency
of wages as the
truck system
. This atrociously oppressive method consists of
paying the colliers' wages in goods or partly in goods, through the medium of
the tommy-shop. The proprietor of a tommy-shop has an understanding with the
owners of the mines in his district; and the owners agree to pay the persons in
their employment once a month, or once a fortnight. The consequence is that the
miners require credit during the interval; and they are compelled to go to the
tommy-shop, where they eat, obtain their bread, bacon, cheese, meat, groceries,
potatoes, chandlery, and even clothes. The proprietor of the tommy-shop sends
his book to the clerk of the owner of the mine the day before the wages are
paid; and thus the clerk knows how much to stop from the wages of each
individual, for the benefit of the shopkeeper. If the miners and their wives do
not go to the tommy-shop for their domestic articles, they instantly loss their
employment to the mine, in consequence of the understanding between their
employer and the shopkeeper. Perhaps this would not be so bad if the tommy
shops were honest; because it is very handy for the collier to go to a store
which contains every article that he may require. But the tommy-shop charges
twenty-five or thirty per cent. dearer than any other tradesman; so that if a
collier and his family can earn between them thirty shillings a week, he loses
seven or eight shillings out of that amount. In the course of a year about
twenty pounds out of his seventy-five go to the tommy-shop for nothing but
interest on the credit afforded! That interest is divided between the
tommy-shop-keeper and the coal-mine proprietor.
"In the district where my mother and I lived
there was no such thing at all as
payment of wages in the current money of the kingdom. The tommy-shop-keeper
paid the wages for the proprietors once a month: and how do you think he
settled them? In ticket-money! This coinage consisted of pewter medals, or
markers, with the sum that they represented, and the name of the tommy-shop on
them. Thus, there were half-crowns, shillings, sixpences, and half-pence. But
this money could only be passed at the tommy-shop from which it was issued; and
there it must be taken out in goods. So, you see, that what with the
truck-system and the tommy shop, the poor miners are regularly swindled out of
at least one fourth part of their fair earning
"The wages, in my time, were subject to great changes:
I have known men earn twenty-five shillings a week at one time, and twelve or
fifteen at another. And out of that they were obliged to supply their own
candies and grease for the wheels of the carts or
trams
.
The cost of this was about three-pence a day. Then, again, the fines were
frequent and vexatious: it was calculated that they amounted to a penny a day
per head. These sums all went into the coffers of the coal-owners.
"Such was the state of superstitious ignorance which
prevailed in the mines, that every one believed in ghost, arid spirits. Even
old men were often afraid to work in isolated places; and the spots where
deaths from accidents arose were particularly avoided. It was stated that the
spectres of the deceased haunted the scenes of their violent departures from
this world.
" By the time I was twelve years old I was as wild a
young she-devil as any in the mines. Like the other females. I worked with only
a pair of trousers on. But I would not consent to hurry the trams and skips. I
saw that my mother had got a great bald place on her head, where she pushed the
tram forward up sloping passages; and as I was told that even amidst the black
and filth with which I was encrusted, I was a good-looking wench, I determined
not to injure my hair. I may as well observe that a stranger visiting a mine, and
seeing the boys and girls all huddling together, half-naked, in the caves or
obscure nooks, could not possibly tell one sex from the other. I must say that
I think, with regard to bad language and licentious conduct, the girls were
far - far worse than the boys. It is true that in the neighbourhood of
the pits Sunday-schools were established; but very few parents availed
themselves of these means of obtaining a gratuitous education for their
children. When I was twelve years old, I did not know how to read or
write: I was unaware that there was such a book as the Bible; and all I knew of
God and Jesus Christ was through the oaths and imprecations of the miners.
"It was at that period - I mean when I was twelve years
old - that I determined to abandon the horrible life to which my mother had
devoted me. I had up to that point preserved my health, said had escaped those
maladies and cutaneous eruptions to which miners are liable; but I knew that my
turn must come, sooner or later, to undergo all those afflictions. I saw nine
out of ten of my fellow labourers pining away. Some were covered with
disgusting boils, caused by the constant dripping of the water upon their naked
flesh in the pit.. I saw young persons of my own age literally growing old in
their early youth, - stooping, asthmatic, consumptive, and enfeebled. When they
were washed on Sundays, they were the pictures of ill-health and premature
decay. Many actually grew deformed in stature and all were of stunted growth.
It is true that their muscles were singularly developed , but they were
otherwise skin and bone.* [* " Amongst the children said young
persons I re marked that some of the muscles were developed to a degree
amounting to a deformity; for example, the muscles of the back and loins stood
from the body, and appear almost like a rope passing under the skin." -