Ellsworth American. [volume] (Ellsworth, Me.) 1855-current, 1873-04-24
Interior of an English CoaIpit.

Has the reader any idea of what coal
pit, viewed from the earth's surface, is
like! 1t has not . very imposing ap-
pearance. 1t is a round black hole
about twice the size of an ordinary 100
table, and straddlirg over it is a sort of
gallows, a wire rope as thick as ones
wrist hanging down over a wheel and
lost in the depths below. Byandb the
action is reversed, aclicking aud wheel
ing is heard in the adjoining engine shed
and up comes the tub Ga square box
holding twenty-five hundred weighD
filled with coal. 1t came up so while
our little party Of six U being the only
novice presenD was waiting to GO down.
l viewed the coarse, strong tub with ap-
it was emptied we should all getinto il:
but in this Twas disappointed. 1t was
not in the tub, but standing on the graf
ing on which the tub had stood, that We
had to descend; or 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
mine furnace was not unbearable by the
time it had benumbed ones senses alb t.
Six hundred feet down, and half
mile this way or that under low-archcd
roofs, from which depended frequent
fieeces 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
dabs of clay-blacker than ever. We all
carried tallow dips stuck in balls OF
clay, and in Indian file followed the
'Buttey' aud his foreman through the
turnings and windings that led to the
chambers from which coal was being
hewn. Chambers as wide as an ordina-
ry 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 human
creature naked to the waist and blacker
than any sweep, with savage, cleaning
eyes and savage, glitiering teeth, and
with u weapon in his hand that in the
uncertain light looked like a tomahawk,
grinning at you, or making a dash with
his weapon apparently in the direction
of your visage, but which alights harm
lessly on the face of the coal wall.
Heavers, packers, tubbers, filters,
these are all men, and hard as the work
is they earn good wages, and if they dis
like the labor they are at liberty to leave
1t. But they don't dislike the labor.
and they are Jolly enough-all except
the boys. 1t was these boys that 80
perpetuaily haunted my coal-scuttle
when returned from Staffordshire. 1t
is villainously cruel to serve the poor
little chaps so. The matter stands this
way. The heweris the man whose busi-
ness 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 peck
right along for length, say of twenty
feet. Naturally in the process of peck
ing he makes deal of slack and the
boy in question is called the slack boy
Regarded as q boy, as human creature,
he is slack indeed. He is not much like
q boy. He is more like large-sized
monkey. All tourists his perpetual pos
ture, and he wearsa leather girdle about
his waist from which an iron chain de-
pends, the other end of it being attached
to an iron cart. The slack boy has an
iron shovel as well, and the business of
his wretched life is to crawl out with
his load, always on his hands and knees,
aud with hispo0r limbs hung about with
. few rags of which naksdness might be
ashamed It London Society.