The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1878-10-02
A Visit TO Stag Town.

t#f$E it1Gg = AeaO W iJAstS 5AVHAs
Did you ever visit Stag Town? or hear
Of ita Until making my last tour in
England, ! never heard Of the ack
County.
Just after leaving Wolverhampton for
Birmingham we began to rush through
settlements Of small, low, brick houses
shuts rather, yet arranged with order
Ehuge caimtays standing in the midst .
them, and clouds of deuse black
coal smoke belching from them,
filling the atmosphere with SCOT
1t was not long before we per-
ceived that this was 9 coal and iron re-
lyon, and here were the peoples and the
work by which these great staples are
produced. 1t was the first sight we had
ofthe life that is led by some Of our fell
loW-men and women, and their children
the subject was one for a study and
wonder, and we became deeply inter-
ested in itsbefore we gave it up.
You should see it in the night" said a
friend who had lived in the REGION, and
had long been familiar with the moods of
the Back Country. 'vThe night is the
time when the lurid CLEANS of the fires
lightup the blackness of darkness, and
make the sublime a picture Of horrors;
you ought to see it in the night"
But it was out Of my power to "see it
in the night" and my friend was so good
at description, took his word for it.
And he told me Of The effect produced on
the agricultural laborers who are tempt
ed, by the promise of high wages, to
leave the farm work and come to the
mines. When they had strike in the
Black Country few years ago, and the
miners and puddlers q do not believe
| you know what puddler is, or does) re-
fused to work for six dollars a week,
agents were sent out among the farmer
and the field hands, who get but half that.
were easily persuaded to quit the green
meadows and hillsides, and turn in as
workers in the mines and furnaces of the
Black Country They made rush to
Stag Town, happy in the prospect Of
doubling their wages, and getting rich in
a hurry. IT'S ever thus in life. Hasting
1 to be rich plunges people into a pit, and
4 these fellows soon found themselves in q
i pit tFrtsssa which they were glad enough to
escape. Why2 For the very good rea-
] son they could not breathe in the day
time nor sleep in the night, and unless a
hard worked farmer can have air and
sleep he is not in q state of great enjoy
ment. He is fond Of high wages, the
English laborer lis and in this respect
| he is not distinguished from other men
who work for wagesbut there is moth:
ing idearer TO farm hand among the En-.
glish than air and sleep, unless it's beer
And so it was short apprenticeship these
farmer boys served in Stag Town. They
quit. RESPONSIVENESS was in vain. Few
and short were the words they said, but
they were ABOUT like these, not excepting
the allusion to Bunyan's Pilgrim, which
showed that the spokesman was above
the average in ook-learning .s
"Let them as think they'd loike it &C
and hev a try, I hev tried, and when !
tell We that these beant a part O. Pill
grm's Progress itself that can COON oor
to it for VERY valleys and belchings 9
smoke and ylame, you won't wonder to
see me back again, and to hear me say
that I am glad o the chance
! III had been a believer in the, heather
mythology Of ante-C Christian times, could
have readily imagined that rartarus was
directly under this region, and the chin
neys from which the thick black smoke
and flame Of the bituminous coal fires
were rising all the while, were the out
lets OF the fire that is never qaenched
Here there are vast iron works and coal
| pits to match, SO that {, Quantities Of coal
are here mined to be consumed On the
spot, as we'll as to be sent away. These
long streets of low brick dwellings are
| ever the cayerns made wider and more
dangerous, as they reach nearer the sur.
! face, or becoming more extensive and moi
safely supported, the roof is mores likely
1 to fall IN. @
Tt does sometimes. The wife of q pas
tor who had lived in this region assurec
me that she had seen houses standing ii
4 apparent security on her way to church
but on her return they had sunk into the
awful abyss. In the midst Of these per
petual fires and smoke and dirt, the
blackness Of the coal pits peryading tht
! whole mass of humanity, the inhabitant.
/ become careless, as the dWellers on The
/ sides of Vesuyius, who dress their vines
mindless of the destruction that may b,
] ready to come upon them. The pits tina
have been made by these sudden sinking
Of the earth become pools Of stagnan
i water, and the boys and beast battle il
them, and sometimes they are dry AMI
wide enough for public play grounds
4 Graveyards have caved III, and the deat
have been mingled in a heap from whicl
4 there will be no rescue before d genera
& resurrection. Yet there are thousands
and perhaps tens Of thousands. of thes
& dwellers on this frail crust, who sleop, i
they do sleep at all, with the knowledyg
q that underneath them men are at wcri
| with picks and with powder, earnin,
| their bread by undermining the house
A above in which are wife and children.
MT. Henry w Shaw Gosh Billings) i
reported to have made more money thai
I almost any other American author BY per
4 sistent working Of his peculiar vein Q
q humor. Some years he has rot $1,000 from