Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1872-05-19
In A COAL PIT.
the Life or the English Golfers.
From the London Society.

the Life of the English Golfers.
From the London Society.
Have the readers of London Society any
idea Of what a coal-pit, viewed from the
aartl's surface. is like? 1t has not very
very imposing appearance. 1t is simply a
round black hole, about twice the size OF an
ordinary table, and stradliDg over 1t IS
sort Of gallows, wire rope as thick as ones
wrist hanging down over wheel and lost ID
The depths below. BY and by the action is
reversed, clinking and awheezing is beard
in the adjoining engine shed, and up comes
the stubs "a square box holding z,2OO
weight) filed with coal. 1t came up SO
while our little party Of six Il being the
only novice presently was waiting to 60
down. 1 viewed the course, strong tub
with appreciation, making sure that as soon
as it was emptied we should all get into it,
but in this was disappointed. 1t 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 nothing
to shold on" to but cross chain over mead.
But the pit was only 900 feet deep, and the
coal smoke that arose from the enormous
mine furnace below was not unbearabie by
the time il had benunbed ones senses
bit.
six hundred feet down, and half a mile
this way or that, under low-arched roofs,
from which depended frequent feeces OF
fungus, snowy white and looking like
lambs wool, and making the black floor
and the black walls, lit by feeble tallow dips
stuck there in daps Of clay, blaeker than
ever. We all carried taliow dips stuck in
halls of CLAW, and in Indian file followed the
aButtoy'' and his foreman through the
turnings and Windings that led to the
acbambers,n from which coal was being
beWn. Chambers are wide as an ordinary
street, and as high as the three-storied
houses: and on every side, whenever the
dingy light of the red-nosed dip was shifted,
was revealed a human creature naked TO
| the waist and blacker than any sweep, With
| savage cleaning eyes and savage glltterlng
| teeth. and with weapon in his hand that
in the uncertain light looked like a toma-
hawk, grinning at you, or making dash
with his weapon apparently in the direction
| Of your visage, but which allghts harmonl'
| ously on the face of the coal wall.
HeaveTs, packers, tubbers, fillers-thest
| are all men, and hard as the work is they
earn good wages, and if they dislike the Ia
| Dor. they are at liberty to leave 1t. Blu
they don't dislike the labor, and they arr
Jolly enough-all except the boys. 1t wa
these boys that so perpetually haunted my
coal-scuttIe when | returned from Stafford
/ shire. 1t is villanously cruel to serve tn
poor little chaps so. The matter stand
this way. The newer is the man who's
business it is to "break in" at the foot OF
coal wall. He lies on his side or his stom
ach, and he breaks in with his peck RICH
along for length, says, of twenty feet, a ga
that is two feet or less in height. Hepeck
his way into the rock till he has burrowe
sixteen or eighteen feet. Naturally in tn
process of pecking he makes deal
1slack," or small, and the boy in question
IS called the f" slack boy" Regarded as
bow. as a human creature, he is slack II
deed. He is more like a large-sized NOR
KEY. All tours is his perpetual posture, an
he wears leather girdle about his Wais
from which an iron chain depends, u
other end being attached to an iron car
The slack has an iron shovel as well, an
the business of his wretched life is to craV
in at the hole the newer makes, to hll h
cart with chips and dust, and then to crav
out again with the load always on
, hands and knees, and with his poor linn
) hung about with few rags of which make
5 ness might be ashamed.