Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1884-06-08
PICKING SLATE AT 81 A WEEK.
The Awful Slaughter of Childhood that
Il Going on at the Coal Mines.

AeD York Sun.
"Ihere are many melancholy features
connected with the life Of a coal miner.0
said Morgan Jones, formerly a mine boss
IN the Schuylkill coal region. but now
resident OF this city. "but the most pain
ful Is the employment Of boys in and
about cOllieI1es. A colliery boy is never
a child. He has no games. He seldom
speaks. he knows nothing of the world
be- Ond the line of bleak hills that en-
yiTon the grimy locality where he begins
% earn his living almost as soon as he is
large enough TO be put into trousers.
i have IN my mind now a cOll{ery
where for years 1 was one Of the delivers.
It's one Of the Oldest and one OF the
richest mines in the region. passed up
and down its shaft every day when it was
not Idle for more than twenty-five years.
/ have helped carry from its depths the
mangled body Of many a poor fellow
workman, crushed beneath some fall Of
coal, or mutilated bv fire damp teXplO-
sions. have witnessed the agony OF
wives and mothers and sisters, as victim
after victim 70 the perils that constantly
threaten the miner has been raised from
the deadly depths, and my heart has
ached for them in their grief. The pOig-
nancy Of that feeling time never failed 10
temper but the spectacle Of score or
more Of bows aged before their time. bent,
and stunted and worn, working their
lives away in the black, dusty breaker,
sWeltering and sufIOcating in the summer
and chilled to the bone in the winter, was
something that brought perpetual heart
ache. The cOllieTy / refer to is only the
counterpart of hundreds of others. Its
buildings are on high spur of the Blue
Mountains. and are visible for miles,
The entrance to the mines is at the top of
the hill, which is covered with the ac-
cumulated coal dust of years, clouds Of
which are constantly rising from the
whi-ling, sharp-tOOthed machinery within,
and pouring from the open doors and
windows The interior is dark and
gloomy, with coal-begrimed men moving
silently about, appearing and disappear
ing in the dust, coming from invisible
corners and suddenly swallowed up in
impenetrable depths.
I'm one room in one Of these cOlliery
buildings-a room not more than fifteen
feet square, have seen forty boys at
work picking slate from the coal that
passes swiftly down the chutes in an end
less stream. They are seated on rough
hemlOck boards stretched across the room
in rows. The windows are always open
in winter and summer in order that the
dust may escape. In winter the wind
whistles through the apartment and the
snow beats in at the windows and doors.
From ! O'Clock in the morning until dark
sit on their benches, with backs bent al
most double over the running coal, separ-
ating the Slate from il. To do this re-
quires great deXterity and skill with the
hands and quick eye. The slate pickers
range from To - years Of age. At 10 or
is they are old enough to enter the mines,
and TO reach that stage in their career is
their only ambition. If any visitor to the
cOllery VIII take the trouble to enter the
miners graveyard near by he will not need
70 be told how many of these boys never
reach the goal Of their ambition. The
tOmbstOnes in the graveyard are numer-
Gus, but great majority bear the names
of boys under the age of 15-slate pick
ers, who have succumbed to the over
strain Of their tOil-tOil that had made
them old, decrepit, and intirm before they
had reached the freshness of youth.
''The wages paid TO these boys are from
81 to 81 30 a week, if they have the luck
TO be steadily employed. Some of them,
III many instances, live long distances
from the cOllieries where they are en-
plOyed, frequently as far as five or six
miles. In such instances they are car
ried to work in the morning and home
again in the evening in the coal cars Of
the cOlliery or company. For this service
they are charged sometimes as much as 10
cents a trip, the money being deducted
from their wages. 1t is no uncommon
thing for the boys to find, after reaching
the cOlliery, that the works will be idle
for some reason. In such cases they get
no pay, and | have known 1t to happen
that at the end of the month it would re-
quire not only all of boys wages to pay
for his transportation, but that he would
still be in debt to his employer. While l
was in the coal regions / endeayOred to
awaken an interest among the miners on
the subject of this employing boys at
collieries, with the idea of making
change in the system, but nine out of ten
of them had large families or boys, and
I they were willing to run the risk of their
being equal to the hardship of the life of
a slate picker rather than lose the pit
lance each would contribute to the family
income. l got up a petition among peO-
pie at large asking the enacting of law
prohibiting the employment of boys under
Is at any cOllieTy. and compelling miners
to send their children to school until they
were that age, but nothing ever came of
it. In the meantime the graveyards of the
coal regions are rapidly filling with boys
whose surroundings might be made such
that they would grow up to be useful men,
bers of their communities, and parents,
employers, society, and legislators look
irllE IN ut tho GIanphfar =