Evening capital. (Annapolis, Md.) 1884-1910, 1884-07-11
HARDsHIPs EARLY ENDURED.
The Awful Slaughter of Childhood
aa the Coal Mines.


in the Schuylkill coal region, but now a
resident of this city, 'but the most pain
full is the employment Of boys in and
about collieries. A colliery boy is never
a child. lie has no games. He seldom
speaks. He knows nothing of the world
beyond the bleak hills that environ the
grimy locality where he begins TO earn
his living almost as soon as he is large
enough to be put into trousers.
81 have in my mind now colliery
where for years was one Of the delivers.
1t is one Of the oldest and one of the rich
est mines in the region. passed up and
down its shafts 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 by fire damp explosions.
] have witnessed the agony of wives and
mothers and sisters, as victim after victim
to the perils that constantly threaten the
miner that has been raised from the
for them in their grief The poignancy
Of that feeling time never failed to tenn
per, but the spectacle of score or more
of boys aged before their time, bent, and
stunted, and worn, working their lives
away in the black, dusty breaker, swelt-
ering and suffocating in the summer and
chilled to the bone in the winter, was
something that brought perpetual
heartache. The colliery Irefer to is only
the counterpart of hundreds of others.
It's buildings are on high spur Of the
Blue mountains, and are visible for miles.
The enhance 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
whirling, sharp-toothed machinery with
in, 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 z o'clock in the morn
ing until darkness compels work to cease
these boys sit on their benches, with
backs bent almost double over the run
ming coal, separating the slate from it.
To do this requires great dexterity and
skill with the hands and quick eye.
The slate pickers range from seven to
fifteen years of age. At fifteen or six
teen 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 will take the trouble
to enter the miners graveyard near by he
will not need to be told how many of
these boys never reach the goal Of their
ambition. The tombstones in the grave
yard are numerous, but a great majority
bear the names of boys under the age of
fifteen-slate pickers, who have sue
cumbed to the overstrain of their toll
toll that had made them old, decrepit,
and infirm before they had reached the
freshness of youth.
The wages paid to these boys are from
one dollar to one dollar and fifty cents
per week, if they have the luck to be
steadily employed. Some of them, in
many instances, live long distances from
the collieries where they are employed,
frequently as far as five or six miles. In
such instances they are carried 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
sometimes charged as much as ten cents
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 viii be idle for
some reason. In such cases they get no
pay and / have known it 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 | was in the coal regions / en-
deavored to awaken an interest among
the miners on the subject of this en-
ploying boys at the colleries, with the
idea of making a change In the system.
but nine out of ten of them had large
families of boys, and they were willing
TO run the risk of them being equal to
the hardship of the life of a slate picker
rather than lose the pittance each would
contribute to the family income. I Got
up petition among the people at large
asking the enacting of law prohibiting
the employment of boys under sixteen at
any colliery, and compelling miners to
sent their children to school until they