Spirit of the age. [volume] (Woodstock, Vt.) 1845-1913, 1872-05-23
In n COAl-PIt.

Have the readers of this paper
any idea of what q coal-pit, viewed from
the earth's surface, is like 1t has n moi
very imposing appearance. Tt is simply
n round black hole about twice the size
of an ordinary "loo" table, and strad,
ding over it is a sort of gallows, wire
rope as thick as ones wrist hanging
down over wheel and lost in the depths
below BY and by heaction is reversed,
a clinking and a whcezingis heard in the
adjoining engine-shed, and up comes
the club" IA square box holding TWEEN
ty-two hundred weight filed with coal.
1t came up so while our little party of
six It being the only novice present) was
waiting to go down. viewed the coarse
strong tub with appreciation, making
sure that as soon as it was emptied we
should all gel into it but in this I was
disappointed. It was not in the tub,
but standing on the grating on which
the tub had stood, that we had to de-
scend on the naked grating with moth
ing to "hold on" to but cross-chain
over head But the pit was only 600 feet
deep, and the coal smoke that arose from
the enormous mine furnace, below %as
not unbearable by the time it had be-
numbed ones senses q bit,
Six hundred feet down, and half n
mile this way or that, under low-2rched
roofs, from which depended frequent
feeces of fungus, snowy white and look
ing like lambs wool, and making the
black floor and the black walls, lit by fee
bic tallow dips stuck there in dabs Of
clay, blacker than ever. We all car
ried tallow dips stuck in balls of
clay, and in Indian file followed the
" Rutty' and his foreman through the
turnings and windings that led TO the
chambers" fronH which coal was being
hewn. Chambers as wide as any ordin-
airy street and as high as the top Of the
three-storied houses and on every side,
whenever the tiny light of the red-nosed
dip was shifted, was revealed a human
creature naked to the waist and blacker
than any sweep, with savage glittering
teeth, and with weapon in his hand
that in the uncertain light looked like q
tom0hawk, grinning at you, or making
dash with his weapon apparently IN the
direction of your visage, but which
alights barmlessly on the face of the coal
wall.
lleavers, packers. tubbers, filters
these are all men, and hard as the work
is, they earn good wages, and if they
dislike the labor, they are at liberty to
leave it. But they don't dislike the la
Dor, and they are jolly enough-all ex-
cept the boys. 1t was these boys that so
perpetually haunted my coal SHUTTLE
when / returned from Staffordshire. 1t
is villainously cruel to serve the poor lit
tie chaps so. The matter stands this
way. The newer is the man whose bus
mess it is to "break in" at the foot of q
coal wall. He lies on his side or on his
stomach, and he breaks in with lbs peck
right along for length say, of twenty
feet, a gap that is two feet or less in
height. lie pecks his way into the rock
till he has burrowed sixteen or eighteen
feet. Naturally in the process of pack
ing he makes deal of " slack" or small,
and the boy in question is called the
" slack boy" Regarded as boy, as u
human creature, he is slack indeed. He
is not much like boy. He is more like
/ largc-sizcd monkey. All tours is his
perpetual posture, and he wears a leath-
or girdle about his waist, from which an
ron chain depends, the other end Of it
1eing attached to an iron cart. The slack
BOY has IN iron shovel MS well, and the
business of his wretched life is to crawl
n at the hole the newer makes, to fill
lis cart with chips and dust, and then
o crawl out again with the load, always
IN his hands and knees, and with his
Door limbs hung about with few rags
# which nakedness might be ashamed.
London SJciety.