The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-09-17

considered, it would be difficult to find par
allel to the depravity OF the design il imputed
to q body of miners to murder in gross great
company of their fellows for no other motive
than that their existence was inconsistent
with the interests of their murderers. ''The
fire, the jury say, and no doubt truly, ''ori-
oinated from the furnace in the mines taking
effect on the wooden brettice" in the shaft
IL is not difficult to trace the hideous rumor
of murder to its proper source. The men
who imagined it to their interest that such
story should be believed can have been no
other than the men who were interested to
divert responsibility before public opinion
from their own misdeeds. Those men were
the owners of the mine.
Even had the rumor referred to been as
t,ue as it has been authortatiyely pronounced
TO be false. its truth would not relieve the
owners of their amenability. 1t was their
clear duty to take order that neither careless
ness nor design could avail to destroy the
men at work in their mine. The precautions
thew took against such an event are what we
know. They not only neglected to provide
an outlet for escape in case their single shaft
should be obstructed, but they lined this
single shaft with the most combustible ma
terial spark from the furnace OF an in
cendiary's match could kindle it at any
moment and at any point of the two hundred
and thirty-seven feet of its length A separate
shaft would no doubt have been costly, but it
would not have been costly enough to do
more than diminish temporarily their great
profits. And, while the second shaft was in
allegiance, a small outlay would have suficed
to make the sole outlet much less dangerous
than it was One of the witnesses, q mining
engineer, once employed in the Avondale
mine, testified that he had planned a con-
tinuous brick fue from the furnace to within
about fifty feet of the surface" 'But," he
swears, ''when l left it went into other hands,
and they were satisfied with wooden shaft "
This proposition for a brick hue, which would
have cost but trife compared with the total
cost of working the mine, and which would
have been perfect protection against such q
fire as has actually occurred, was refused on
account of the cost of carrying it out; and
the result is before the country in the case of
the CHASTITY disaster of last week. If the sim
gle shaft which the parsimony of the company
allowed had been properly protected, it would
have guaranteed the inmates of the mine
against arson or accident.
1t is notable that every witness-even the
stockholders and officers of the coal company
-swears explicitly that ''no mine is safe with
a single opening, and every impartial expert
swears in addition that the lost lives might
have been saved with a second outlet No
human power can undo the deadly work which
has already been done; but legislation is ade-
quate to prevent its recurrence. There ought
to be no delay in providing that no coal mine
which has been worked sufficiently to allow
of the sinking of a second shaft shall be
worked any longer without one. And mines
which have not been worked so far should
be compelled to render their single shaft in
combustible.
There need be no hesitation in placing the
blame of this new "Wyoming massacre
where it belongs-upon the shoulders of the
company which owned the Avondale mine
Corporations have no souls, but they have
pockets, and if they are callous to the grief of
widows and orphans of their making, and to
the reproaches of an angry people, they are
sensitive to pecuniary amercement for gross
negligence of their officers. 1t may not be
clear as legal proposition that this company
is liable in damages to every widow they have
made. But their moral responsibility is clear
enough and, as matter of prudence, it
would be better for them to undertake the
maintenance of the bereaved of Avondale than
to face the destructive wrath of the men
whose comrades have been done. to death in
their service.