The Sun.
London, England, 1862-01-29 00:00:00

SUN, LONDON, WEDNESDAY EVENING, JAN ITA it Y 29, 1862.

rency-to be trifled with. The military are enforcing
a correct standard of value.

" On Friday last Mr. W. W. Harper, of Alexan-
dria, member of the dry goods house of Harper and
Brothers, was arrested, charged with ' refusing to
sell goods and give specie change for United States'
Treasury Notes at less discount than 5 per cent.'
He made the refusal to a negro boy who had bought
some calico. He was arrested at the instance of a
United States' officer, and taken before the Provost-
Marshal, who referred the case to the Military Go-
vernor, General Montgomery. General Montgomery
has decided that all persons are liable to arrest and
punishment who depreciate United States' Treasury
notes or embarrass their circulation. An enlarge-
ment of military prisons under this rule will imme-
diately be called for."

At the same time the exchange of notes for gold,
which was promised at the Sub-Treasurer's, has
ceased. The sutlers have raised the rate of discount
of the notes in camp to 10 or 12 per cent. in some
instances.

can trade it out at their leisure. These tickets
are of as low a denomination as 10c., and the
following is a specimen of the camp cur-
rency " Macombe Regiment.—Good for 10c. in
goods at sutler's store.—(Signed) Lot Chamber-
lin." The situation of sutler is considered worth
25,000 dols. a-year properly improved ; and, unlike
other traders, he makes no bad debts. When
pay-day comes he sits at the table with the pay-
master, and the amount of his account is deducted
from each man's pay. The office is much sought
after, and is frequently filled by very pretentious
personages. The idle life of the camp developes
the worst features of this evil system, and the crav-
ing of the American appetite for such rubbish as
sweet pies, nutcakes, sagarsticks, and the miscel-
laneous trash which in England boys throw aside
with their tops and marvels is increased by inac-
tion and example—men acquire a distaste for their
simple but excellent rations, suffer rapidly in
health, and become incapable of enduring the
fatigue and privations of a campaign. The quantity
of sugarsticks consumed by a single American re-
giment in a day is past ,belief, to say nothing of
cakes, pies, sardines, peanuts, popped corn, pickles,
apple-sauce, smoked herrings, and the inevi table
tobacco and whisky, when not strictly excluded.
The men would need the stomachs of ostriches to
preserve their health under such an infliction.
Their liberal pay—nearly 2s. sterling per day, ex-
clusive of rations—is frittered away before it is
received, and their families, when they have any,
are thrown on public charity for support. The new
allotment system, by which the soldier can set
apart a stated portion of his pay for his family, and
thus place it beyond the reach of the sutler's cupi-
dity and his own folly, will be a great advantage to
the men and to the service; but to reach the root of
the evil the sutlers should be got rid of altogether,
and the men should be paid monthly.
The weather continues mild and open, and in this
vicinity there are not six inches of snow on the
ground. Kingston harbour was quite open last
week, and the ferry steamer renewed its trips to
Cape Vincent, on the opposite side of the lake, So
far the winter has been much like that of 1837-38.
The high tariff in the United States is beginning
to have a favourable effect on Canadian trade.
During the past week large quantities of cotton
goods have been purchased here for the American
trade ; some of these were bought in bond, and will
pay duty on entry into the United States, but more
were purchased duty paid, and will be smuggled.
Cotton goods are uow fully 30 per cent. dearer on
the American than on the Canadian side of the
frontier line.

THE .DIe,EADFUL COLLIFTY CCID.UNT
LY NORIIIIDIB.E.ELAND.

NEWCASTLE, MONDAY NIGHT.
The strong feeling which has been excited here
during the past ten days by the heartrending inci-
dents of this great calamity appears likely to resolve
itself into an agitation for a'compulsory double-shaft
system, and Parliament will probably be asked in
the next session for an act to prohibit, for the future,
the " winning" of coals in any mine until two shafts
have been sunk. The proposition is by no means a
new one ; it has been advocated for years past by
the miners themselves and by their friends ; but,
either because the influence of the coalowners has
been too strong, or because public attention has not
before been so forcibly directed to the subject, it has
never yet been put into so tangible a shape as it is
likely now to assume. Nobody has denied that it
would be a bepeficial reform, but hitherto its advo-
cacy has been confined to a few enthusiasts, whose
general views with regard to mining operations
practical men would pronounce Utopian. No doubt,
the subject is attended with some difficulties. Par-
liament is generally slow to lay down rules for the
regulation of any trade without a paramount neces-
sity proved, and in this case an attempt will very
probably be made to show that such a❑ interference
would so seriously effect the profits of the coal trade
as to amount to a virtual prohibition of the work-
ing of many pits. The colliers may be threatened
with a reduction of wages ; the public with the

o. incremoo /It the price
of coal. it is hoped, however, that the coalowners
will not oppose to the general feeling such argu•
tnents as these, which, even if they were well
founded, could have little weight in comparison
with the safety of the men whose industry and en-
durance have so large a share in the material pros-
perity of the country. Single shafted pits—though

there are too many of them—are fortunately the
exceptions, and I have not heard that the coal
won from them costs consumers any less than
that which is got by a double shaft. In the
case of some pits, where the seam is pretty
well worked out and very little coal remains
to be got, it is probable that to require another
shaft to ba sunk might stop the work altogether ;
but the number of these pits is not very large, and
it is just such collieries where there is a large ex-
tent of old workings or " goaves" which require the
strictest regulation, particularly if fire-damp be
generated in them. If the question is discussed
while the memory of the recent disaster is fresh,
profit and loss are not likely to have any great
weight in its settlement, though I believe it would
not be difficult to show that the double-shaft system
is not only the safest but the cheapest and most
advantageous method of mining. The best managed
pits are always the most remunerative in the long
run, if coal owners would only be convinced of it.
It is no doubt a great temptation to a lessee, when
he has made his first shaft, to set to work to draw-
ing up coal at once to repay himself for his outlay ;
but generally, in the end, he has either to leave a
large percentage of the coal, or to go to the expense
of the second shaft from which he shrank at the
outset. Hand to mouth mining is a very poor busi-
ness, but where no expense is spared to lay out a
pit on scientific principles there is always a return
in the shape of an increased yield of coals at a
cheaper rate.
None of the scientific or professional men who
have been examined before Parliamentary com-
mittees have ever had a word to say for single
shafts ; in fact, the strongest condemnation of the
system might be quoted from the evidence of some
of the most eminent of them, oven so far back as
the time of George Stephenson, who was a strong
advocate for the substitution of several pits, though
of smaller area, in the place of one large one, brat-
ticed off into two or more compartments. I am
sure the viewers and others, on whose shoulders
the responsibility of the practical working
of collieries rests, would rejoice if an Act of Par-
liament abolished the single-shaft system to-mor-
row. The expense of sinking a shaft varies so
much according to the strata that it is difficult to
fix an average, but to put it at from £lO to £l5 a 1
yard is to allow a very fair margin. The second,
shaft generally costs less than the filet, for, as
the water is drained off by the first sinking, if
the two be within a reasonable distance there
is none of the expense of tubbing, Bze.
At' Hartley. it is said, a new shaft to the
depth of the old one might have been sunk for
£2,000. But whatever might be the first outlay, it
is contended that it might be saved in a very few
years. As the workings of a pit extend a very large
item in the price of the coal is the cost of bringing
it up from a distant gallery to the bottom of the
shaft. In the course of time the saving of the ex-
pense thus incurred in tramways, labour, and time
would go a long way to pay for the sinking of a
new shaft. Again, the bratticing, ot• Wooden parti-
tion, by which the single shaft is divided into two
parts, is continually requiring repair or renewal.
tither it gets rotted or a part of it gets knocked
out by some of the small accidents which are perpe-
tually happening in shafts, or there is a leakage
which weakens the ventilation ; but it is always re-
quiring tinkering of some kind. I have seen £3,500
a year put down as the cost of keeping the brattic-
ing at one pit in order, though I should be inclined
to think that that was a case which stood pretty
nearly alone. But that it is ordinarily a perpetual
source of expense,amounting before the pit is worked
out to much more than a second shaft would have
cost, there cannot be a dispute. To the other econo-
mical advantages of the double-shaft system may be
added the assurance it offers against loss by acci-
dents such as this. It is generally believed that the
Hartley Pit will neyer be worked again—certainly.

not by the present owners—so that for the saving of
some £2,000 all the coal remaining unworked will
have to be abandoned, or to get at it again an enor-
mous expense will have to be incurred in pumping
up the 1,000 gallons of water per minute which
have been rushing in ever since the beam broke. It
is almost a wonder that lessors, who in most cases
get a royalty on the coal raised, do not for their
own interests stipulate in each lease that two shafts
shall be sunk ; and if Parliament should interfere
to remedy their shortsightedness, neither they nor
their lessees can have a reasonable ground of com-
plaint at having a mode of work forced upon them
which is not only cheapest in the long run, but
best calculated to extract the fullest value from
the property itself. Passsing from economical con-
siderations, as a security against accidents and
loss of life, the argument for Legislative interference
of some sort becomes almost unanswerable. The
importance of having a front door and a back door
to every mine is so obvious, that when the news of
this accident was first spread people unacquainted
with colliery operations could scarcely comprehend
how it had happened, It seemed so absurd that men
should be so fool-hardy as to trust themselves in the
bowels of the earth with only one means of exit,
that it was with difficulty that the exact position of
the miserable captives was realised. Unfortunately
it is not necessary to wait until another great cast-
ing breaks in a similar manner for this terrible
catastrophe to be repeated. Where there is furnace
ventilation, and that is the mode generally adopted
here, to obtain a good current of air through a
bratticed shaft against the obstructions it meets
with, it is necessary to drive the furnace so hard
that there is always risk of the brattice catching
fire, in which case the whole ventilation*of,the pit is
destroyed, the communication with the bank is cut
off as completely as in the Hartley case, and before
fresh cages can be rigged and the ventilation restored
those of the men who have escaped the fire perish
by the insidious after-damp. When an explosion
takes place some part of the brattice is nearly cer-
tain to go, and the same fate awaits the men. This
was the case at an explosion at IKillingworth when
it was 23 or 24 hours before the bottom of the pit
could be reached. At an explosion at the Wall's-
end Colliery, in 1835, 60 yards of the brattice were
blown out, and of the 102 lives lost there it was ad-
mitted by no less an authority than Mr. l3uddle
that 50 might have been saved had there been a
second pit. At Heaton, near here, years back, 75
men and boys were starved to death in an upper
seam, where they had been driven by an irruption
of water. There was no communication from the
surface with that seam just as in this case, and after
subsisting some time on their candles and the car-
cases of the horses, they perished by the lingering
pangs of hunger. At the accident at Burradon,
which is not yet two years old, had there been a
second communication with the seam, at least
two•-thirds of the sufferers might have been
saved. I might give other instances ;in fact, when
one comes to read down the long list of lives which
have been sacrificed for the want of this simple and
obvious precaution, one is tempted, in the first glow
of indignation, to pass a stronger condemnation on
the blind obstinacy of those who persist in the single
shaft system &ter so many fearful warnings than
perhaps would be altogether justifiable. But apart
from the necessity of providing a second passage
from the workings, as a means of ventilation the
double shaft is a matter of most vital importance.
In all cases the bratticed shaft is a bungling ineffi-
cient expedient for ventilation purposes, but where
the miner's terrible enemy, the carburettecl hydro-
gen, is generated it amounts to almost a crime to
trust the safety of the men to it. The passage of the
cages up and down and the working of the pumps
detract so much from the sectional area of the upcast
and downcast that it may be said to be almost im-
possible to drive air enough down a single bratticed
shaft to sweep the faces of the workings clear of the
noxious gas. Looked at in this light, it is not merely
a second shaft, but several shafts which in many cases
might be insisted on. More shafts, more air, are
synonymous terms. Without an adequate number of
shafts it is impossible in fiery mines of any extent to
obtain that amount of ventilation which is necessary
for the safety of the miner; and the majority of explo-
sions might very easily be traced to a neglect of this
principle. With a powerful furnace, or fan, or pump,
it is easy enough to get the anemometer to register
60,000 or 100,000 cubic feet of air passing in and out
of a mine ; but how much of that passes round the
workings, and at what rate, are the material points.
Since the days when Mr. Huddle introduced "
ring," we certainly do not hear of the air being
coursed 30 miles round a mine ; but• there is no
doubt that in many cases the currents are far too
long and languid to do the work of clearance effec-
tually. The true security against fire-damp explo-
sions is to be sought, not in safety-lamps, which
too often lead men into danger, but in perfect ven-
tilation, and this can only be obtained by additional
shafts, according to the area of the workings. Th ere
are many mines in the neighbourhood which could
not be considered safe with two shafts, much less
with one. Some enthusiastic advocates of this prin-
ciple have gone so far as to lay it down that a shaft
ought to be sunk for every 40 acres of_ working, and
no gallery should be carried more than 300 yards
from the bottom of a shaft ; but the circumstances
of mines differ so much that it would be impossible
to lay down any general rule. Parliament probably
will not be moved to go further than to require a
second shaft in all cases ; but if it were inclined to
carry a reform more extensive than that simply
which the late accident has demonstrated to be ne-
cessary, there would not be much difficulty i❑ em-
powering the Inspector, with proper securities for
the interests of the coalowners, to fix the number
of shafts in each case. The area is not so important
as the number, and in many instances it would not
cost more to sink two or three narrow shafts than
a single one of larger diameter. An additional ad-
vantage of this arrangement would be the complete
isolation of each district of a mine, so that when an
accident happened its effects would be confined en-
tirely to one district, and the ventilation of the rest
of the mine would remain uninjured.
All further search for bodies has been abandoned,
and I am glad to say that there is good reason to
conclude that the number of bodies which has been
recovered— 199—(with the five killed in the shaft)
represents the whole extent of the calamity. It
was conjectured that some eight or ten had been
cut off by the falling beam and drowned in the
lower workings. Every inquiry, however, has been
made at the surrounding villages, and as far as can
be ascertained, there are none now missing. The
number of lives lost may therefore be put down at
204. Large numbers of people still continue to
hang about the pit, and about £4O has been got for
the benefit of the relatives by charging 6d. a
head for admission to the pit heap. Yesterday
a large collection of the tin flasks, candle boxes,
and other articles which miners use, was
brought up, and all day long the heap was
wistfully turned over by the poor widows and or-
phans, each anxious to discover some memorial of
their lost relatives. On one of the tin flasks was
found, scratched in rude characters—probably just
at the moment when the writer had discovered the
full horrors of his situation—" Mercy, oh God !"
On another were scratched the words, "Friday
afternoon. My dear Sarah,—l leave you,"—as
though the poor fellow had succumbed in the act
of taking an affectionate farewell of his wife.
The inquest is not to commence before Monday
next.

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