The Express.
London, England, 1862-02-20 00:00:00

NUM WATER VI LONDON paIOOL

70 DDT—Mutt. Afternoon. Glt.
TO.lNfting—fterninn, 61 Afternoon, eft Oen

_ .
LONDON, PBURNDAY, FEB. 20.

THE amount of English capital floating in sub-
scription-lints at all seasons, but more particularly
at the beginning and end of each year, would form
_ .

a curious estimate. Public charity is a flood
that never runs dry in this country. On great

occasions it broadens and swells into a mighty ;es of

national alms; but, as every Police-offic; poor-box
bean witness, it is perpetually fed by a multitude of
quiet and unseen springs of loving-kindness well-
ing up from thousands of tender human hearts ever
on the watch to do good in secret. These are the
tributary streams that fertilise and refresh a bleak
and stony world., keepsociety sound at the roots, and
preserve it from the drought of selfish luxury and
ease. Subscription-Sidi, it is true, will nut always
bear a strict analysis of 'motives ; but if the
. .

weaker as well as the wiser mad better instincts of
human nature are, by a merciful ord inane, self -taxed
in the name and service of charity ; if vanity,

respectability, fashion, and other coarser stimu-
lants arouse the sympathies of the vulgar rich,
the result at any r►te is an &Auld moral gaiu to
the community, in spite of the complicated ma-
chinery by which even charity is transacted in a
country where religion itself is ma " institution,"and

the Church is an " interest." Doubtless a list of

small and anonymous contributions for the relief
of some solitary ease of distress i• better reading
than a pompous column of subscribers who let the

- - .
light of. rank and wealth shine so graciously before
their fellow-creatures of meaner title and smaller
substance. But it is an error, if not a sin, to put
harsh constructions on generous acts ; subscription-

lists set the fashion, and in a society so unequal,
so sharply divided and contrasted as ours, an act

of fashion is an act of faith.

Seldom has the contagious subscription fever,
always prevalent from December to March,
raged with more intensity than this present
winter. Seldom have the immense resources of
self-bastion possessed by this country been more
abundantly displayed. While a loyal national
homage is offered to the memory of the Palace so
early and so suddenly snatched away that we seem
to miss him fur a moment rather than to mourn his
loss—the Hartley Colliery calamity throws the
entire population of a village upon the charity
of a nation. Here was an appeal to melt the
coldest heart. Widowed Majesty yearned to
widowed poverty, and that thrill of royal ivy
and compassion rail through all hearts and homes
of rich and poor throughout the land. Notwith-
standing the sounewhat hasty intimation from
the Msesies-nurse: that enough had been sub-
scribed, the public declined to comply with
the Limo MAYoll'S unsolicited advice, and conti-
nued to pour in their free-will offerings day after
day more and more abundantly. It is reported
that nearly fifty thousand pounds have already
been suhacribed, and of this sum it has been the
Wren duty of the Gum. Mayon of LioNtsiN, who
thought ten thousand pounds sufficient, to receive
at least one-third. Although no manifestation of
the power and spontaneity of public charity in Eng-
land can be deemed surprising, these Hartley Col-
liery donations are certainly a memorable instance.
Nor is it the least gratifying and noticeable aspect of
this subscription that it is largely made up of an
aggregate of small contributions from the poor.
That spirit of mutual sympathy and mutual self-
devotion which was seen in the buried pitmen, and
iu the sinkers who risked their lives in trying to rescue
their comrades, is conspicuous in these associated
mites of labour and poverty. If ever there
was a case that fairly demanded the sympathy of
all men by right a their common humanity, it
was surely this ; and, if struggling labour and
poverty could feel most poignantly for the bereaved
ones in their desolation, wealth and ease might
well take thought of the human lives that
furnish their sea-coal fires. Fifty thousand pounds
is a handsome sum to be subscribed by the public
in leas than a month, but what is it among the
many for whose comfort these poor miners
laboured day and night in the jaws of darkness
and death ? Nor is it by any means an
enormous amount to make permanent provision
for four hundred women and children left desti-
tute. Public charity never stops to weigh and
measure what it gives, for it gives out of the
abundance of the heart, and not in proportion to
the need. In such a case as this it is literally
tune that I. e'eat fe tatesnaire. When the
immediate distress has been provided for, wno
shall say that the men who perish in coalpits have
not as good a title to a nation's gratitude as the
men who die under the battleflags T .1 ud if we
raise a patriotic fund, and build hospitals for our
soldiers and sailors yet unborn, why not raise a
permanent fluid for these heroic labourers under•
grilled, of whom every year as many are cut off
by the common casualties of pit-work as in a
general action by land or seat Accidents in mines,
where the combatants are always in the trenches,
invisible and implacable eneinies all round, and :Oleo
alternative of deathefor ever threatening, are weekly
occurrence*. Sines the Hartley calamity four
accidents have been reported, differing only in the
number of victims and the period of their agony.
Death in the coal-pit is, in fact, so common that,
tulles' the number of victims is unusually large, or
the circumstances of the accident exceptional iu
character, it excites no public notice, and destitu-
tion is the common lot of the surviving mourners.
It appease certain that a considerable surplus
will remain in the hands of the Relief Committee.
How shall the surplus be applied f The question
has been anticipated and answered by more than ono
correspondent in our own columns, and a thought-
foil and letter which we published yester-
day indicates with sufficient clearness sod precision
the mode nee hien the suggestion of a permanentself-
pporting It.•hef Fund, which has been warmly
adopted by miners of Northumberland and
Durham, should be carried out. It is satisfactory

to tied that the calamity at Hartley has thoroughly
awakened the miners in the North country to tits
necessity of co-operative action, and of organising

a system of mutual self-support. The 204 poor
fellows at Hartley Colliery will not, writes Mr.
3lowros, " have died in vain " if their fate has
pointed out to their surviving comrades the way
to independence of public charity, whenever one
of those casualties occurs to which ruiners are
incessantly exposed. The constant immi-
nent perils of labour underground seem to
engender that reckless indifference which is
seen among soldiers in the trenches. "In
" other branches of industry," Mr. MOUTON
remarks, "of a dangerous nature, sell-supporting
" funds have been provided for the widows and
" orphans of those who are cut off by accidents ;
" but among the colliers, who are more liable to
" fatal casualties than any other of our industrial
" population, not even excepting our sailors, no
" provision of this kind has ever been established."
The Hartley accident, we have seen, has left
the population of a village entirely destitute ; and
the fact is certainly not to the credit of the
coalowners, who draw untold wealth from the
labours of the pitmen. It is to be hoped
that the miners will not rest satisfied now, until
not only the Legislature has provided additional
security to their lives, but by their own free
00-operstion a fund has been established which
shall secure from destitution wives and families
whom some fatal accident has suddenly deprived
of their natural support. The Legislature and
the Executive may fairly insist on due security to
the lives of the pitmen being provided by the
owners of collieries. The Hoes Szcarraav'e
instructions, of the 31st ult., to Mr. Ksivvon
BLACKWELL, and the appointment of a Special Com-
mission of Inquiry, are an ample warrant of the
solicitude of the Government in this respect. But
neither the Legislature nor the Government can be
expected to fulfil the duty of the coalowners towards
their workmen. In France, no doubt, the Government
steps in continually between the master and the
workmen as a second Providence ; but in England
neither muter nor workman would tolerate any
arbitrary paternal meddling. To make coalowners
pecuniarily responsible for accidents, like railway
companies under Lord CAMPII6I.I:B Act, would
probably tend to cripple the trade without bene-
fiting the colliers. All such interference with the
conditions of industry is impracticable in England.
It remains, then, for the colliers themselves
throughout the country to form an association for
mutual insurance and support. This idea is
already, we are glad to learn, making way in the
north country. The Central Hartley Relief Com-
mittee has consented to devote the surplus of the
subscriptions to the formation of a capital fund,
and it is to be hoped that the example of the
coalowners who have declared themselves in favour
of the movement will be generally followed. The
interests of owners sod pitmen, like the interests
of masters and workmen in all trades, are really
interdependent; and only *elfish ignorance or gross
inhumanity can pretend to separate them. A
self-supporting fund, moreover, is at once a bond
of union and a pledge of moral and social im-
provement, and we trust that many years will not
elapse before, in all the coal districts, that hardy
and valiant clans of our working population, who
have shown at Hartley of what heroic virtue and
self-sacrifice they are capable, will be raised, by
their own free efforts, to the condition of the more
fortunate and prosperous of their comrades in that
noble army of labour which is the strength and
glory of England.