The Ottawa free trader. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1843-1916, 1877-05-26

The Troeoyrhiw Colliery, Pont.y-Pridd
was flooded on the l1,h of April by one OF
those accidents which, whether preventable
or not. never are prevented; and TIL men at
tain the faculty Sir Arthur Helps lmplored
for them-,he faculty OF seeing fire minutes
sorward-never Will be, and the men Of course
fed for their lives Four Of them got into a
recess, SAW the wafer rise on men, prayGu
Welsh fashion with the fervent faith now only
Granted to Catholics and Calvinlsts, saw the
,Tater stop-resisted by the compressed air
and were dug out, after an explosion caused
Wv the very digging three of them still alive.
Five more rushed into "stall, ;" or long, mar
row cul.de-sac, hoping to be out of the way Of
The water, and were there imprisoned by the
rushing fluid which would have drowned
them all, but that it was stopped by the re-
s!s.ance of the compressed air. The "stall'
having no end, there is, of course, point IN
il at which the air, driven fuIiously in by wa
,er filling up the whole entrance must either
End an outlet or burst its bonds exploding
the superintendent weight, or must remain,
no farther compressible by the water, as solid
a barrier as mass Of India rubber would be.
The water under such circumstances is ar.
rested as if CONCEALED. arrested in wall, and
the men were imprisoned in low chamber
Of uncertain length-fOr we do not know al
what point the elements, finding their strength
equal, ceased contendlng' -accoIding to
Southey's fine slmile-with coal for root, coal
Cor floor, coal for walls on three sides, and
for the fourth wall water, yielding to the
touch-fit to drink, or the men would have
died in sixty hours-yet as impossible as
stone. The mere existence OF that fourth wall,
its softness and penetrability and lmpenetra'
tility, the special form Of death 1t must have
been perpeiually suggesting-for who could
realize that it would stay there hcapcd up like
The wall of the Red Sea the possibility Of
lis disappearance il the pumps could finally
conquer, vet the certainty TO experienced mi
ners that it would not disappear in time, must
Lave been to those confined by il an aggraTa.
ton of horror, even n scene Ia which all
horrors seem to have been concentrated.
Nothing is worse than suspense, and these
men had to endure suspense for seven days
suspense as of men waiting for the gallows,
certain that their sentence would not be re,
mitted, vet aware that mob was fighting
against law ia order that they might be
reed One agony-darkness-might have
3een spared them They had three or four
pounds of candles with them, and might have
Lad light, but they felt the horror Of hunger
% be greater than the horror of Darkness and
ate the candles up. In any even, however, their
situa,ion-burled sixth of a mile below the
surface, with drowning in immediate pros
pect. in a black cavern full of fetid air, press
ing on them as it presses on divers, with moth
.Dg but few candles to eat for a week, and
with hope wearing out day after day-was
as CHASTITY as any Dante ever imagined to be
the lot Of criminal, or blasphemer, or false
Pope. The men were all eventually rescued
&live.-LOHdOn Spectator.