The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1871-05-06
The Coal and Iron District of Worcester.
shire, England.

An Illinois correspondent contributes
the following to the Germantown Telegraph.
In the immediate neighborhood of Cud-
ley, Worcestershire, England about ten
miles from Birmingham, the coal has been
on fire for very, very many years, and there
is no means to extinguish it. Persons who
have gardens over the fire can and do raise
three crops a year-could raise potatoes
and rhubarb in January, but not very pala-
table, having a hot sulphurous taste. lam
speaking from personal observation. On
mild night, when the wind is quietly
slum5ering, it is common thing to see in
different parts around you gentle, faint,
blush flame, Pickering on the surface; and
| in daytime it is pale colored smoke; and
| to hold pocket-handkerchie over it for
minute or two it becomes impregnated
with very sickly and disagreeable smell.
Market-gardeners lay pipes in their gar
| dens underneath their different beds, as
they would for draining, to conduct the
heat. 1t is not an unusual thing to see
! smoke curling up by the side of the door,
step, but little or nothing is thought of it.
Use is second nature. The people are bred
and raised in smoke and SCOT in that locali-
ty; for when it rains fine drizzling showers,
the water, if caught in plates or dishes,
can be written with, so intensely thick is
the atmosphere occasioned by the great
trade of that neighborhood. When the
works are in full blast person may stand
on Castle-Hill, at Dudley, and see more
blast-furnaces, FORCES, and other fires at
one glance, at night, than he could begin
or attempt to count, such is the extent of
the business doing in coal and iron.
1t is not an unusual thing to see strongly
built houses wrecked and rent in twain by
the sinking of the earth from excavation.
At Upton many houses have sunk from
three to ten feet, and in some instances
families are living in the garrets which
formerly resided on the first floor or kitchen
Some sixty years ago q farmers team of
four horses and wagon with the WAGNER
and his boy, were returning empty from
Dudley, and when a mile out of town on
the highway to Kidderminster, the earth
opened and in went man, boy, horses and
wagon and were never seen or heard of
afterwards, so deep was the chasm and into
which the dirt kept falling in and covering
up the hole. The accident was seen and
an alarm was given, hundreds hocked to
the place, but no assistance could be rem
dered. All available teams were immedi-
ately put on to haul dirt and rubbish to
partially fill up the abyss, and they were at
work for several weeks before the road was
again passablc.
So densely populated is the whole of that
country that there are six stations in six
miles on some Of the railways, and at ecery
one of which the parliamentary trains have
to stop for the convenience and accommo-
dation of the working CLASSES and poor
people-who are carried at the rate of one
penny mile. Return tickets are issued
at every station for fare and a half.''-
The parliamentary trains all run % miles
an hour, stoppages included. Persons at
all conversant with the maps of England
and Wales can soon trace out the locality
herein alluded to. JOHN WHATMoRE.