The workingman's advocate. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1864-1877, 1869-11-27
THE MINER.
The Living Tomb of Avonda1e.

The Living Tomb of Avondale.
AT this distance from the terrible disaster
at Avondale, what shall we say? The
general reader has had all the accessible
particulars detailed the imagination is left
to furnish those that are Il ore inaccessIb bic.
Before the writer was honored with
pair Of breeches, be remembers catastrophe
that occurred at the Springwell COlliery,
County of Durham, England, the owner Of
which, was no less parsonage than Liddle,
the noble lord of Ravensworth, the patron OF
Stephenson the locomotive engineer, whose
beautiful country residence is familiar to all
the loiterers on the banks Of the bonny
Tyne. which it graces with poetic har-
mony
The shaft at Springwell was a bratticed
shaft, and the mine was only accessible
through this shaft. A furnace operated near
its bottom, and threw its heated gases and
rarifed air, into the uUcast side; the cool
air descending by the other side of the
brattice, was conducted into the working
places Of the mine, and then by traversing
a system of air courses, was passed through
the furnace and up the upeast side of the
shaft While the workmen descended one
side of the shaft, large volumes Of smoke, in
mixture with the gases drained from the
mine, rose through the other, and rolled in
clouds above its mouth, into the clear blue
atmosphere above, which it tainted by its
presence.
But one day when the busy bees Of the
dark dingy mine we're at work with their
picks and shovels and drills; as the little
trapper crOuched in the darkness behind his
trap door; as the little driver sang bis merry
song while be perched on the " hmmers
close beside his horses tail and drove his
load along the wagon way" as the more
sturdy putter ratified along the hedd'OGys
and boards with bis corf and tram; as the
pullies over the shaft revolved rapidly while
the engines drew load after load Of coal
from the shaft and landed them on the
g saddle boards of the pit heap" say
all we're busy at their posts when the shock
of an explosion of fire damp devastated the
mine. Air doors and stoppings were blown
down the brattice partition IN the shaft
was destroyed, and the two compartments
converted into one; a cloud OF dust and
smoke rose and hung in the air over the
mouth Of the shaft, which was omlrous in
aspect and fearful to contemplate from the
distance and those who saw it first, were
those mostly concerned ; and they felt the
shock no less than did the inmates Of the
mine, who we're all destroyed. Those were
the relatives Of the miners; that cloud OF
dust and smoke was tut the telegraph that
communicated the fearful news to the newly
made widow and orphan. The shaft in the
meantime was occupied by mass Of smoke
and choke damp, the results Of the combus-
ton of gases and coal dust, and thus offered
formidable barrier against the volunteered
assistance, that was quickly on the spot,
with ready hanls nd willing hearts, to DO
all in their power in order to aid in extract
Ing the sufferers, lying burnt and mangled
hundred fathOms below; and others who
in some place remote from the seat Of explO
sion who we're unscathed, but fully alive to
their true position waited for the expanding
gases constituting the choke damp to do
! their fatal work. Theirs was a HUlng
tomb Dramatically ealed by deadly gases,
through which it was impossible for living
mortals to pass alike impossible to those in
the mine, as to those on the surface lady to
render assistance. For days after the ven
tilation had been restored, were dead bodies
drawn from that coal mine persons Of all
aces too from the little trap-dOOr-keeper of
seven or eight, to the old lcdStemdH, whose
hair had been bleached by the irosts of
seventy or eighty winters. 1t was fear
| full spectacle to eyes so young as were NINE
i gloried in three summers, to contemplate,
and It taught never to be forgotten lesson.
Those men and boys crlSped and charred
were uncovered as soon as they arrived at
the surface in order to be claimed by their
relatives, the sight Of whom still floats IN my
vision. Then there were the horses looking
as if they had Just been drawn from an over
heated oven. In all forty seven men and
BOYS paid penalty with their lives 1t is
long time to look back-mOre than thirty
years-but young as was, | listened with
much interest to the remarks made at the
time on bratticed shafts. Everybody con-
demned them as a nuisance and protested
against their use but until the Hartley
catastrophy they were not forbidden by En-
glish law, which they now are. There were
MANY bratticed shafts and many were the
explosions that took place in the mines to
which they we're approaches. There were
Garrow, and Sheriff Hill, and Heworth, and
Haswell, all Of which places have been
human slaughter houses, and many Of the
lives that have been lost at those places,
might have been saved but for the destruc-
ton of the brattice in the shafts, and with
it the ventilation, which to restore, III these
cases required considerable time These
accidents happening from time to time in
England, failed to make the owners Of En-
glsh mines of their own accord to provide
two separate shafts; but as we have seen,
the English government Thought tit to inter
fere in the matter, and enforce such pro-
vision.
Wien such matters are left TO the owners
Of coIleries that is when II Is LETT entirely
to them to provide meals of safety for their
workmen, they will restrict the means they
use to their own ideas, and TO the means at
their command, making the object Of safety
to the men, secondary to their own indl-
vidual interest.
(TO BE CONTINUED.