The Express.
London, England, 1846-12-12 00:00:00

recently. been made publi;i, have recommended a
. course amain' to thin as that beet suited to meet the
varied conditions under which collieries are
placed. They have saggested that coal pits ought
to be worked under licenses, the use of the
safety-lamp being rendered imperative utiles& when
a license to the contrary has been granted by the in-
., spector, after due examination by him of the state of
_ the pit, and after having obtained reasonable assurance
that the work' may
.be carried on safely with
;naked lights. ammable gas escapes from coal with
very unequal rapidity, sometimes being evolved with
a slownems which prevents its detection, at other
times issuing.from every pore with so much force as
to make a noise resembling a heavy shower of rain.
. This relative rapidity of escape alone can regulate the
nature of the ventilation, and of the lights, which ought
to be employed. A supervisicn of the kind contemplated
would not be a troublesome intermeddling with labour,
, and would equally benefit the owner of the pit and
, the workmen employed by him. The expenses at-
. tending this system of supervision would be but trifling.
Calculations, which we have made with care, have
shown us that a small impost, not amounting to more
than 1-Bth to 1-16th of a farthing per ton of coal,
would amply cover the expenditure.; and need we
. say how gladly the public would pay this small tax
. to procure additional safety for the lives of so many
of their fellow-creatures.
In legislating upon this subject, one thing must
_ not be forgotten. The violent deaths occurring in
mines from explosions are considerably less than one-
half of those arising from other causes. The ma-
jority of sudden deaths in mines are occasioned by
such accidents as the tumbling in of the roof, being run
over by trucks, falling down the shaft, &c., moat of
. which are clearly traceable to want of proper care. If
the owners were made pecuniarily responsible for all
such deaths, by being obliged to support those
• dependent on the labours of the deceased, a great
diminution in their number would soon be obtained,
8.. as additional securities would be applied to prevent
• their occurrence.
We do not anticipate, by the ado of any of p
• the measures we have recommended, a cessation of
the dangers now attending mining operations, but we
' do fully believe that accidents would become much
less frequent, and far less severe in their cense-
qaences. At all events, the time has arrived when
the legislature must consider the subject, and devise
means adequate to meet the great evils attendant on
the present irregnlated system of working in col-
lieries.

Ir is easy to be smart upon " corpulent" oxen or
" unwieldy" trigs, and to " protest" against fat cattle
• shows, as giving " a vulgar turn to agricultural enter-
prise." Vulgar, or not vulgar, the feeding of stock is
the mainspring of improved husbandry. On the
extent to which well-fed stock is kept chiefly depends
the measure of abundance, with which the British
consumer will be supplied with meat and grain from
British soils. And from our own soil, after all, must
come our principal supplies of human food. Foreign
importations may, and will, afford valuable supple-
mentary aid, but it will be only supplementary. It
betrays the purest ignorance of rural affairs to sneer at
feeding stock as " vulgar," and to point to " a swamp
drained, a mountain reclaimed, or a thousand profitable
acres added to the plough," as worthy agricultural
' achievements. We honour such achievements as
much as any one, but they belong to a category
different from the operations of the husbandman.
They are not properly agricultural achievements
• at ail. They do, indeed, conduce to the advance-
ment of agriculture, but so do railroads and many
other economical improvements. They constitute
work for the owners of the soil, not for its occupiers:
while the feeding of stock is essentially the work of

the occupier.
Now, we deny not that the show cattle are gapers-
bundantly fat ; that they have probably cost their owners
more than they will fetch when sold ; or that a large
proportion of their carcases must necessarily be con-
signed to the tallow-melter. But what of that? The
loss is only that of the feeder, who has, perhaps, kept
a thriving beast some twelve months longer than, as a
matter of strict profit, he should have done. The
show beast is, perchance, ono of fifty, or one hundred,
or two hundred beasts, which the grazier has fed oft in
the year, and sold at the most profitable point. His
show beast is a trophy of his skill ia buying,
or breeding, and feeding stock. It marks his pride
in his business. It is a specimen, an exagge-
rated specimen if you will, of his success. And
if thr show an:reale be masters, they arc at
• least juvenile monsters ; for no one who has any
power of observation can miss the obvious fact that
our show graziers have attained the grand desidera-
tum of early maturity. The age of most of the show
beasts is under three years. Twenty months ago
only the large masses of wool and mutton, exhi-
bited in Baker-street, were tiny lambs; while pigs
five and six months old, now reach weights, for
which past generations of farmers were content to
wait years. The effect of this is, that we have more
and better animal food than oar ancestors, and at less
cost.
Nor, in truth, does the fatness of the beasts much
exceed that of a large proportion of the cattle sold in
Smithfield Christmas-market, and it is well known
that the lean of meat thoroughly fatted is far prefer-
able to that of a half-fed animal.
Besides, there are collateral benefits to be derived
from these metropolitan shows of fat cattle, which do
not apply to local exhibitions of the sort. Possibly
they may partake something of the raree,show, but
then they afford a pleasant and useful excuse for holi-
days to hundreds of farmers. Here they meet fellow-
huallandmen from other districts, with whom they
compare notes, by whose stock they test the merits
or detect the faults of their own. It is one of the
opportunities, of which farmers have not too many,
for farmer coming in contact, perhaps in collision, with
farmer. Let any one watch the genuine interest with
which the real farmers, ay, and many of their wives
and daughters, inspect the show stock. Mark the busi-
new-like air with which the evidently practical
graziers handle the beet beasts, or criticise their
ju[iota, or approve or question the awards of the
dges. The sneering ,journalist may or may not
have seen these things. He may or may not have
observed them, if he has seen them. Bat a real and
practical agriculturist cannot walk through the show
without being interested and instructed:—interested
in the farmer spectators, and instructed by observ-
ing the extreme point of the system of grazing,
which, to a certain extent, he may profitably
follow. He sees the kind of animal which
may be fitttened up to the highest point, and he
must be but an unpromising farmer, who does not
thereby gain some knowledge that will serve him in
buying or breeding his own stock.
Besides, with not a few of the exhibitors the feed-
, ing show stock is a matter of business calculation.
They are breeders who yearly sell or let their male '
animals, and their show stock is the bush, which tells
the agricultural world whore good blood is to be met
- with. Even the unpractised eye would have little
- difficulty in fixing upon the best animals, but the
skilful breeder scans each creature with an eye to
business. He marks the various points ;he remem-
bers whose stock possess in the highest perfection
the qualities he desires for his own; and, in due time,
he turns his knowledge to account.
Moreover, it is said that all this over-feeding is waste,
that food whieh might have been applied to feeding
other animals is used to accumulate fat on the show
stock, to be sold as offal grease at threepence or four-
pence per pound. But this, as we have said, is a
matter simply for the consideration of the exhibitor.
If he is satisfied, if he obtains, in some form or other,
that which is to him a compensation for his ostiay,
no one else has any right to complain. The want
that can be said of him is, that he has converted
somewhat more of cattle provender into tallow than,'
so far as relates to the show stock, has been profit-
able. But he has furnished the community with much
meat, and has fertilized his land for the production of
grain. The real wade consists, not in producing too
mach fat, but in not producing enough meat. The
wasteffil farmers are those who abstain from feeding
stock, not those who feed a few, and at most it is a
very few, of their stock too much. The non-produc-
tion of meat, where meat may be profitably produced,
and if
,produced would lead also to great additions of
corn, is the real injury committed by too many far-
mers on the public and on the labouring classes.
That is the practice really to be deprecated, but then
its exposure ailkds no room for rollicking sallies or
mawkish sentiment.

SUGAR islands were to the merchants and states-
men of the latter half of last century what countries
with gold and silver mines were to their grand-