Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-10-12

singularly enough with solid mahogany
frames, but the seats are of painted pine
and are waxed weekly. These are for
"best," and all the best.
FOR EVERYDAY USE
one or two FIRMS or rude benches are pro-
vided The single table is of pine, one top
coming flush with the sides. the other, de-
tached, two inches thick, one side unpainted
and secured snowy white daily with
"growder," a rotten granite which lathers
like soap, and the other side painted for
Sunday or company" use, and a drawer
beneath for the rude cutlery. The table
ware is something startling in cheap goods,
and each member of the family is provided
with a real "chany" cup and saucer with
gorgeous gilt band. Two or three rude
engravings, generally of scriptural subjects
in cheap oaken frames such as the village
carpenter may make. with the beds and
bedding under the thatch, complete the
furniture of the miners cottage
For his class and means he is a generous
liver. Soups and stews are consumed by the
gallon. For his breakfast, If he is out of the
mine, ''mawther," the wife, will provide the
usually vIllainous "tay'' consumed by the
English and Irish working classes, infre-
quently an egg, perhaps bit of saffron cake,
a Cornish favorite apparently devoid of
everything but sweet and color, and, may
be, bread (without butter) and treacle.
Sometimes this is varied with "butter sops,"
stale bread scalded and seasoned meagerly.
At noon, or for the mine ''croust" or lunch,
there are ''taty pasties," or potatoes and va
grant meat scraps inclosed in crescent
shaped crust, interchangeable with "fggy
pasties," the same as 'taty pasties" with
few raisins added; "hoggans," or round
pork pies and "faggans, tough crust cakes,
so hard, at least in Cornish renown, that
they would not break if hurled down
], 1,000-lathom mine shaft. For supper,
'fcroust, that is, lunch of any kind left over
from the days provision, or perhaps "a
baker taties, which means mashed pota-
toes fried in grease, turned and Drowned,
and cut in as many segments as there are
members of the family, may be provided.
The one big Sunday meal, however, is sell
dom lacking in generous supply of boiling
meat; and as every cottage has its acre or
halfacre garden, there is nothing to him
der an ample supply of vegetables.
SINGLE DAY WITH HIM.
But let us follow this Cornish miner for
one day. We will suppose him to be one
of the forenoon core" whose shift" is
from A. NJ. until 2P. NJ. He will prob
ably live from four to six miles, say from
the great Dalcoth mine here near Camborne,
which 1 am visiting. He must rise at
o'clock. His cottage is cold, dark and
cheerless. Having donned his clothing.
which comprises coarse wool stockings,
cuordoroy trowsers, a gingham shirt, a cheap
ducking waistcoat, with huge, low, front
tapped pockets and cambric sleeves,
"billy-cocked" hat of the "slouch" variety,
which lasts him ten years, if in winter
1aI knh
nailed shoes; he eats his cold "croust" which
the wife the previous night has left on the
table; gets his "foggan" or "pasty." which
is always ready in a clean ''crib-bag" in
the cupboard; lights his short pipe like an
Irish dudeen, which is explosively sucked
and puffed and ponderously guarded by his
whole huge hand, and then sets out on his
rugged tramp. Nine times out OF ten his
route is across bowling moors, over danger
GUS paths that literally wind about pitfalls,
or through six-foot lanes where the thorn
trees prod and lance him savagely. Dark
and drear this trip for any man. Pitch dark
and wild it always is for the Cornish miner,
for it nearly always rains in Cornwall, and
the wind forever RACES over the rock-strewn
peninsula so that even the gravestones are
propped that the sign posts of the dead may
not be blown away. When the mine is
locker in the "dryroom" near the great en-
gine furnaces, where he prepares tor his de-
scent into the mine. He strips to the skin
and dons complete coarse ducking suit, a
woolen shirt, high boots as stiff as sheet
iron, with hobs protruding from the soles as
big as the heads of 20-penny nails, and his
miners hat, hard as board, on the front of
which he slaps a chunk of putty-like clay.
This forms a socket for his candle, his only
light below. With this, his water proof box
of matches and his string of candles tied, or
"skewered," 2" to his shirt or buttoned coat, he
seeks his "core- -pairdners" at the "man-
engine house" and is ready for the descent,
which for you or is an experience full of
GREwsoMENEss AND PERIL.
The shafts of most Cornish mines are now
timbered in the center from top to bottom.
The "man-engine" works, with 25-foot
up and down stroke, perpendicular spliced
timber, at this mine, 5000 feet long. Every
25 feet are landings called "sollars." The
miner stands upon step attached to this
gigantic rod and is instantly dropped %
feet to the next "sollar," when he springs
aside upon the landing; for the reversal of
the motion is constantly bringing men from
below. and one miss-step loses him his turn,
or may cost him mis- life. 'Thudl-thudl''
for 20 minutes and he has descended 5000
feet into the bowels of the earth, and is at
once at work as onlya Cornish miner will
work. But while hundreds of these human
fre-fies are ascending and descending,
another curious scene is in progress. Mine
boys, helpers, scores of them, from 15 TO 18
years old, and tine most recklessly daring
cubs in all England. scorning to
descend the ''man-engine," have a
wild and startling way of their own.
At the corner of each shaft is
"manbole" with stationary ladder from top
to bottom with smooth half round sides and
wrought iron 'rungs." Springing upon
these like monkeys, the boys slide from one
"sollar" to another, their hands just touch
ing the slippery sides and the toes of their
hob-nailed shoes beating the iron rungs with
horrible "whi-r-r-r-r-rp'-the numbers en-
gagged in the lightning like descent causing
deafening and shrill thunder as though the
iron ratchets at 100 ferries were clinking and
screaming simultaneously.
The miners life "below grass" is we'll
known to all. That of the Cornish miner is
not remarkably distinctive, save that his
proprietary interest renders him more daring.
He is brave to foolhardiness, and the aver
age OF loss OF life is greater here than else
where. Some curious characteristics are his.
He is eternally
SINGING WESLEYAN HYMNS
as he drills, blasts and wheels. He is al
ways a Methodist, and ever devout In
stances of his exalted heroism in the face of
certain death would fill book. He is
hereditarily hero. His religion, does not
as with some folk, diminish his bravery.
His eight hours "shift" are hours of tre-
mendous labor. But triling ''touch-pipe''
or cessation is taken, when his "croust'' or
lunch is eaten and just Glitch" or touch
at his pipe is enjoyed. When the shift