The workingman's advocate. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1864-1877, 1872-08-17
In a Coal Pit.

A coal pit, viewed from the earth's sur
face, has not very imposing appearance.
Ii is simply round black hole, about twice
the size of an ordinary table, and strad-
ding over it is a sort Of gallows, a rope Of
wire as thick as ones 5 wIIst hanging down
over a wheel and lost in the depth below.
by -alId-by the action is reversed, a clnk
ing Is heard iii the adjoining engine shed,
and. up comes the tub" Ia square box
holding 200 weight) filled with coal |
viewed the coarse strong tub with appro-
baton, making sure that 1t was
emptied we should all get into it, but III
this | was disappointed. 1t was not in the
tub, but standing on the grating on which
the tub has stood, that we had to descend;
ON the naked grating, with nothing to hold
on to but cross-chain overhead. But the
pit was only six hundred feet deep, and the
coal smoke that arose from the enormous
furnace below WAS not unbearable by the
time it had benumbed ones senses a bit.
Six hundred feet below, and half mile
this way or that, under the low arched
roofs, from which depended frequent tieeces
If fungus, snow white, and looking like
lanbs wool, and making the black floor
and the black walls, lit by feeble tallow
dips stuck there in dabs of clay, blacker
than ever. We all carried tallOw dips
stuck in balls Of clay, and in Indian file
followed the "Buttoy and the foreman
through the turnings and windings that led
to the chambers from which coal was
being hewn. Chambers are rs wide as an
ordinary street, and as high. as three
storied house and On every side, when
ever the dingy light of the red-nOsed dip
was shifted, was revealed human creature,
naked to the waist and blacker than any
sweep, and with a weapon IN his hand that
in the uncertain light looked like toma-
hawk, grinning at you, or making dash
with his weapon apparently IN the direction
of your visage, but which ahghts harmless
| ly upon the face Of the coal wall.
Heavers, tubbers, packers, filters these
are all men, and hard as the work is they
earn good wages They DOT dislike the
labor, and they are jolly enough-an ex-
cept the boys. 1t was these boys that 80
haunted my coal SHUTTLE when | returned
| from Staffordshire. 1t is villanOusly cruel
to serve the little chaps 50. The matter
stands this way The newer is the man
whose business it is to "break in at the
foot Of coal wall. He lies on his side or
on his stomach, and he breaks in with his
pick right along for length, say, Of twenty
feet. a zap that il two feet or less in height.
He picks his way into the rock until he has
burrowed sixteen or eighteen feet. Neces-
sarily, in the process Of picking he makes
a deal "slack and the boy in question is
called the "slsck boy" Regarded as a
boy, a. a human creature, he is slack in
deed. He is more like large sized mon
key. All-fours is his perpetual posture,
and he wears leather girdle around his
waist, from which an irOn chain depends,
the other end Of it being attached to an
iron cart. The slack boy has an iron shov-
el as well, and the business Of his wretch
ed life il TO crawl in at the hole the heweI
makes, to fill his cart with chips and dust
and then to crawl out again with the load
always on his hands and knees, and
with his poor limbs hung about with I
few rags Of which nakedness might b
ashamed. e1