Phillipsburg herald. [volume] (Phillipsburg, Kan.) 1882-1905, 1888-04-20
superstitions Of the Mines.

| pointing out that miners have imprOv-
ed much intellectually under very adj
verse circumstances. In the old
fashioned feelings of fear of witches,
warlOcks, ghosts, wralths, chaPpins,
cheepins, dreams, etc., a great change
has taken place, a change more notice
able among miners than among any
other branch of our railway-telegraph-
educated working people.
The working place of the mines could
easily be converted into the happy
hunting grounds of the spirits of both
the upper and neither regions, either
by innocents of the fairy believing
family, or philosophers of the Ochiltree
type. Less than fifty years ago the
miner thought it a baleful augury to
meet a woman on his pitward path In
the morning, The evil omen was
heightened if the woman was barefOOted
Red hair was the superlative feature
of bad luck. The ''Kilbegies' of
those days turned the prejudice to com
Portable account. They dare not, In
fact were not expected, to leave their
beds till all the workers had been
safely and snugly engaged with the
"cleek." Nowadays. the miners wife
Is the first to have her foot on the
kitchen deck of a morning, sounding
the work alarm and filing the labor
war flask.
The people whom it was dangerous
to meet were not all of the gentler sex.
Men with injured spines or pedals were
equally obnoxious. OF this I give an
illustration. Over a dram a Scotch
collier, who had the peculiar gift of
those known as "flat-fOOted, " said to his
companion: Barney, I hear ye dinna
like tae meet me in the mOrnin'." "Who
said that ?" queried Barney. "a peck
o meal widna fill a their mooths, re-
piled the Scotchman. well, to be
plain, Johnnie, I'd as lief meet We in
Intervening, said Barney, in a friendly,
but serious tone.
One Of the most remarkable supersti-
tiOus ideas of all I ever heard of pre-
vailed in the mining districts of Shet-
tlestOn. A family there, all the
branches of which were capital work
men, had their ability ascribed to the
influence of a family familiar spirit that
the neighbOrs called "Uncle Hairy,
and to the present day miners of that
performances of this local ''Banshee,"
whose appearance, according to report,
was that of a Cahban. But, most sin
gular, to the most remote branches of
the tribe with which the Brownie" is
said to have been closely connected, it
was both watchful and charitable, while
to all others it was malignant to a dew
ilish degree.
In the same locality a good story is
told of a well-known character, who
was a sensible "wit, bearing the cog
nOmen of "Tip-'er-up." He was always
pretty early down the "heugh." One
morning, rushing into the bottom Of
the shaft where a number of miners
were taking their morning smoke be-
fore proceeding to work, he was in such
an awful state of excitement to get up
that some of those present pressed him
to say what was wrong. IF We had
seen what I saw this morning We wad a
be glad to win up, ," said the Upper"
as he was hauled away to the pithead.
In mute CONSERVATION the whole of the
miners followed, and when the Upper"
further on was asked what he really
had seen, he replied, with a humorous
leer, "A bare shearin', and no a pun
lynn (nO Goals ready for filing.
The late Mr. Macdonald, NJ P, in
formed your correspondent of the course
of chat on this subject,
that even those who passed as
pOssessOrs of little ordinary common
senae above ground were liable to forget
themselves whenever they went below
the turf on their working mission. In
proof, he related an incident that oc-
Cured in the ''Afoss'-the district
bearing that name which lies between
Airdrie and Slamannan.
A number of mines had been In the
burgh drowning, or rather burying,
AnimOsity, as the poet Rodgers puts
it, and, on their way home at ''the wee
short hour ayOnt the twal, impressed a
poor, innocent goat, and interned il In
a shallow pit that was worked by
Windlass, a GOLFERS shovel being at
tached to its tail. Next morning the
first corners into the mine were so
alarmed by the glazing eyes, and PitifuI
bleat of the poor animal, accompanied
by the noise of its tail, that the men
fed, and work was suspended for a day
or two, until the missing goat and the
/ ghost In the pit were found to be one
and the same.
1 once had a tragi-cOmical picture OF
/ the philosophy of dreams" IN one class
OF miners. Next place 20 where was
working as a boy an explosion took
place, by which the worker there was
! burned. Rushing IN the dark into the
wall, my feIlOw-WOrker lifted the in
/ iured man into an empty hurley which
CHANGED to be standing handy by; of he
went to the pit bottom. Up, then, to
the mans home. His wife, when we
arrived, asked, whats this ?" Then
1 realizing the state Of things, exclaimed:
Good GOdi Is that him roasted like
arcL- Aha aa-- ae.asu IL LII I,,.- -