Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1873-03-14
E.N'GLESH COLLERRS.

a coal-pit viewed from the earth's sur
face has not very imposing appearance.
1t is simply round hole, about twice the
size of an ordinary table, and straddling
over ii is sort of gallows, wire rope, as
thick as ones wrist, hanging down over a
wheel and lost in the depths below.
BY and by the action is reversed, clink-
ing is heard in the adjoining engine shed,
and up comes the stub "a square box hold
ing 1920 weight filled with coal. viewed
the coarse, strong tub with appreciation,
making sure that as soon as 1t was empted,
we should all get into it but in this l was
disappointed. 1t was not l.. the tub, but
standing on the grating on which the tub
had stood, that we had to descend on the
naked grating, with nothing TO "hod ON
to but "A cross chain over head. But the pit
was only 600 feet deep, and the coal smoke
that arose from the enormous mine furnace
below was not unbearable by the time it
had benumbed ones senses a bit.
Six hundred feet down, and a half mile
this way or that, under low-arched roofs,
from which depended frequent fleeces of
fungus, snow 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 ev-
err. We all carried tallow dips stuck in
balls of clay, and in Indian file followed
the "Buttoy" and his foreman through the
turnings and windings that led to the
chambers from which coal was being
hewn.
Chambers are as 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 shift
ed, was revealed a human creature naked
to the waist and blacker than any sweep,
and with weapon in his hand that in the
uncertain light looked like a tomahawk,
grinning at you, making a dash with his
weapon apparently in the direction of your
visage, but which alights harmlessly on
the face of the coal wall. Heavers, packers,
tubbers, fllers-these are all men, and
hard as the work is they earn good wages,
They don't dislike the labor, and they are
jolly enough-all except the boys that Sc
perpetually haunted me after / returned
from Staffordshre. 1t is villainously cruel
W StINc INC pun iiitio Sh"po So'
The matter stands this way. The newer
Is the man whose business it Is to "break
i'm at the foot of coal WALL He lies on
his side or on his stomach, and he breaks
in with pick right along for length
say of twenty feet, a gap, that is two fee
or less in height. lie pecks his way int
the rock until he has burrowed sixteen OF
eighteen feet. Naturally, in the process o
pecking, he makes great deal of "slack'
or small coal and the boy in question /,
called the "slack boy" Regarded as boy
as human creature, he is slack indeed
He is more like large sized monkey. AL
fours Is his perpetual posture, and he wear
a leather girdle about his waist from whicl
an iron chain depends, the other end of
being attached to an iron cart. The slacl
boy has an iron shovel as well, and tn
business of his wretched life is to crawl Il
at the hole the newer makes to fill his car
with chips and dust, and then crawl out a
gain with The load, always on his hand