Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1877-01-19
Boy, in the PennsnIHania Mines.


Several miles from this place, near the
little mining town Of St. Clair, is the
Hickory Colliery. 1t is one of the oldest
mines in the old Schuylkill region, and
its burrows and tunnels undermine the
whole Of the steep black hiHa High up
on a spur of the mountain its rambling
frame buildings, blackened with age and
coal dust, may be seen for miles along
the Schuylkill Valley. The entrance to
the mines ia from the top of the precipi.
tous hill, which, covered with the black
refuse of scores. of years, bears the
semhlance of a mountain of coal. dust
From the doors and open windows of the
colliery buildings great cloud of black
dust is ever streaming, settling on every
thing about till not an objectin the neigh
borhood but is black as the black dia-
mond itself The interior of the build
ings is a cloud Of hszy blsckness; and
the black, silent men, as they appear
and disappear in the dust, seem like so
many evil genii floating in dark storm
clouds without a bright or cheerful
feature to alleviate the gloom of the sur
roundings.
In little room in one of these big
black sheds-a room not twenty feet
square-where q broken stove, red hot,
tries vainly to warm the cold air that
comes 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 pours con-
stantly in from some unseen place above,
crosses the rovm, 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 slate from the coal as it runs
down the inclined plane. 1t is painful
| sight to see the men gong so silently
and gloomily about their work, but it is
q 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 winter, picking away among
the black Goals, bending over till their
! little spines are curved, never saying a
word all the livelong day. These little
fellows go 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 to
three dollars week. One result of their
work is the clean, free coal that burns
away to ashes in the CRATE; another re-
suit found in 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. II any one Of these boys could
have his choice between lying in the
silent church-yard or staying in the liv-
| iprr ~ Z
firmly believe that he would choose The
quiet rest in the hillside.
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 roomful could read
or write, not one of them probably knew
aught of the great world that lies beyond
the hills which bound the valley; not one
who has higher ambition than to be old
and strong enough to go down in the
mine and delve. There is no sadder
spectacle than boys who are men before
their time; and these boys are not only
men, but they are old men. Shut in from
everything that is pleasant, with no
chance to learn, with no knowledge of
what is going on about them, with moth
ing 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
| ht1k ha hat al awA
coal. never saw 80 melaE choly place
as this room where the boys were at work
This room is only sample Of a hundred
more such rooms in the Schuylkill Val
ley. In every one Of them score OF
more of boys are picking away, black
and silent, and more than az many more
arc working in the mines. went down
the shaft Of this Hickory Mine on car,
with seven miners, and four of them
were boys. They went down as quietly
AS if they were going into the catacombs.
1t was nearly dark, and they were going
down to stay all night. Hardly word
was said.
The smallest of the boys do not get
more than a dollar q week, and from this
the pay goes up to two dollars and three.
Some of them live several miles from the
colliery mot this colliery, in particular,
but many of the collieries in this region),
and are carried to the mine every morn
ing in the cars and hack 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 ac-
cident has stopped the works; then they
have nothing to de for 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 Indebtedness to
the company for railroad fares is more
than the company's Indebtedness to him
for labor; so that he has worked all the
month for few dollars less than moth
ing. One of the mine bosses said to me,
when l talked to him about the boys
and believe that he is right; p" It ought
to be made a criminal ofense for any
company to employ a boy in colliery
who is under sixteen years old, and every
miner ought to be made 10 send his boys
to school. II had boy should rather
throw him down the shaft at once than
put him TO work in the mine before he
was old enough to choose for himself. -
POttspillS (Pd.J Cor. PhiIddslpAfa Times.