The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1877-01-25

DrOKen StOve, red hot, tries va1nly tn
warm the cold air that GENES in through
the open window, forty boys are picking
their lives away. The floor of the room
is an inclined plane, and a stream of coal
pou1s constantly in from some unseen
place above, crosses the room, and pOurs
out again into some unseen place below.
Rough board seats stretch across the room,
five or six rows of them, very low and
very dirty, and on these the boys sit and
separate the slate from the coal as it runs
down the inclined plane. It is a painful
sight to see the men going so silently and
gloomily about their work, but it is a
thousand times worse to see these boys.
They work here, in this little black hole,
all day and every day, trying to keep cool
in summer, trying to keep warm in win
ter, picking away among the black Goals,
bending over till their little spines are
curved, never saying word all the live
long day.
stood and watched these boys for a
long time, without being seen by them,
for their backs are turned toward the en-
trance door, and the coal makes such a
racket that they cannot hear anything a
foot from their ears. They were muffled
up in old coats and old shawls and old
scarfs, and ragged mittens to keep their
hands from freezing; and as they sat and
picked and picked, gathering little heaps
of blackened slate by their sides. they
looked more like SO many black dwarfs
than like a party of fresh young boys
The air was cold enough and the work
was lively enough to paint any boys
cheeks in rosy colors; but if there was a
red cheek in the room it was we'll hidden
under the coating Of black dust that COW
cred everything. These little fellows 60
to work in this cold, dreary room at seven
O'Clock in the morning and work till it is
too dark to see any longer. For this they
get from one dollar to three dollars q
week. One result of their work is the
clean, free coal, that burns away to ashes
in the CRATE; another result found in a
little miners graveyard, beside pretty
little church, where more than every
other stone bears the name of some little
fellow under fifteen years of age.
The boys are of all sizes and ages, from
little fellows scarce big enough to be
wearing pantaloons up to youths of fifteen
and sixteen. After they reach this age
they go to work in the mine, for there
they can make more money. Not three
boys in all this roomfnl could read or
WllV. Duut VI lIOlu CtcIy LuluS LIldL Is
pleasant, with no chance to learn, with no
knowledge of what is going on about
them, with nothing to do but work, work,
grinding their little lives away in this
dusty room, they are no more than the
wire screens that separate the great Jumps
Of coal from the small. They have no
games; when their days work is done
they are too tired for that. They know
nothing but the difference between slate
and coal.
The smallest of the boys do not get
more than one dollar a week, and from
this the pay goes up to two dollars and
three dollars. Some of them live several
miles from the collicry, and are carried
to the mine every morning in the cars and
back again every night, the company
charging them ten cents for each trip and
deducting the fares from their wages at
the end Of the month. Sometimes, after
the boys have got to the mine, they find
that some accident has stopped the work ;
then they have nothing to do tor the day
and get no pay. In this way, am told,
it is no unusual thing for boy to find, at
the end of the month, that his indebted
ness to the company for railroad fares is
some dollars more than the company's in
debtedness to him for labor; SO that he
has worked all the month for few dollars
less than nothing.-Po:tsciNe Pa Cor.
Philadelphia Times.