Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-08-16
BEAUTIES In BLACK.
Under the Coating of Coal Dust at
the Pit BroWs of Old England
FLOWS THE REALMS BEST BLOOD.
The 1asSes Are Superb Athletes and Models
for the Sculptor.
HEALTHY, COMMENTED AND BLAMELESs



shire Railway which completely gridirons
those two important shires of tremendous
industries, the eye rests on fair and pleas
ant English landscape. The nearness Of
great manufacturing cities has crowded the
pretty farmsteadings closely together. The
helds are small and carefully titled. The
roads are narrow and often paved Hedges
are trim; gates are well painted farm Offices
are ample and bright with fresh whitewash;
and line old towers or neat spires here and
there show above masses of ancient trees
through which splatches of color from
thatch, tile or gable hint of quiet village
homes. To the eye it is winsome and pas
toral picture.
Soon the horizon line is pierced with
chimney stacks like mighty spears. Be-
sldes these, as your train speeds along,
there shortly appear little bunchings of
houses clustering about higher grimy
clumps of buildings, and surmounting
these are huge wheels Of steel Seen across
pretty copses, gentle hills or nesting
homes and outbuildings, these seem like
mighty spider-webs against the gray of the
far, lower sky. Scores of these weird, black,
lace-1ike circles are visible. The meadows
| and fields run green and fair close to the
| edges OF the huddled structures beneath
them.
WHERE PIT BROW LASSES WORK.
They are the great wheels above the mine
pits. Over them runs the steel wire or chain
| which lifts or lowers the "hoppet," or
| sends below the "cage" with its half-dozen
| empty trucks to return them to the bank or
| pit brow, each truck laden with its 600 to 800
| pounds of coal. Thousands more men dig
beneath these wheels and fields than labor
In the fields above. There are more miles
OF streets. galleries and ways below the sur
| face OF Lancashire than above, counting all
the countryside highways and city streets.
| 1t is beneath these mammoth wheels which
| lift the coal that warns half of Britain, and
| drives more than half her changing machin-
cry, that you will find nearly one-third of
all the pit-brow lasses OF England at their
toll
Your first glimpse of the pit women at
work IN their strange garb, with their faces,
arms and hands black as night from the
CRIME Of the coal dust, would fill you with
feeling of reyulsion and dread Of contact
with such apparently saturnine creatures,
and thrill of indignation that women were
enslaved by such seemingly degrading work.
Acquaintance with the work and the pit
change these first impressions.
SINGING AS THEY ToILED.
There are five kinds of women's labor at
the mines. To make this clear to those un-
used to mine provincialisms, the five classes
may be called washers ''coblers,"
''tippers," ''screeners," and "illers' or
.1evelers." The work of the former I
found to be at some mines to wash the dirt
from coal in long shute under rough sheds
A rapid flow of water filled two parallel
troughs. The women raked the dirt together
and got rid of it through traps in the
trough Most of these women were singing
heartily as they toiled. They were under
shelter; seemed to take their work easily;
the sound of the running water was pleas.
ant; and they told me they would
not like to exchange their work for
any other labor at the mines 1t occurred
to me there might be some con-
nection between the running water and the
songs; and found it to be true These
were the only lasses who sang always at
their work. The purling of the water
through the shining coal effected these
prisoned humans just as O tiny house.
fountain will bewitch continuous melody
from the throats of canaries and mocking
birds in your window or conservatory.
There was the hint of the wildwood in it;
the whispered voices of the field and
stream; the endless call of natures heart to
all that was responsive in their own.
The "coblers" are the coEe-burners. At
many mines all the fine coal and refuse of
the screens is transformed into coke on
their own premises. The women here from
the nature of the work are compelled to
DO CONSIDERABLE HARD LABOR
Armed with long-handled shovels they
scoop the small coal into arched doorways
of the ovens with the same throw and
force as, and far more deftness and dex-
terity than, the men. When the ovens are
doorway with bricks. which are plastered
over, and the ovens are then left to them
selves for several hours. The coke is finally
taken out in the form of huge lump, which
splits easily in pieces. Here again the
women are employed in splitting the coke
Coolies or Jumps and loading them into
trucks. The coke is apt to cut their hands
and the women are provided with stout
leather hand guards With the aid of these
they pile the coke into the coke wagons or
cars until filled, and then "trim' the loads
neatly, so that none of the coke is lost in its
subsequent railway journey. Almost mines
this work by women is out Of doors in storm
or shine; though several owners have lately
provided sheds.
The clippers" do the heaviest work 40
complished by women at the brows of En-
lish mines. The shafts are surrounded with
q high metal platform, usually covered as a
protection to machinery and workers, but
open at the sides for light and air.
Asu IT WERE A BABY oARRIAGR
As the ''cage" comes up from the depths
below. w.with its load of six trucks they are
moved from opposite sides, the weight of
each truck, chalked on it by the weighman
below, is shouted to the tallyman who is
boxed in a little glass-encased Office at one
side, by tally-boys, and as the trucks are
pulled from the cage by powerful men, they
are caught by the pit-brow women who
shove them to the "tip," where the coal is
conveyed to the screens, and upset.
Each truck when empty must weigh 200
pounds. Its load of coal will run from 600
to 800 pounds. 1t is geared on diminutive
wide tired wheels; but at best is a cumber-
some bulk to handle. Yet two of these
strong pit-brow lasses will catch this truck
as though it were baby carriage and send
1t flying to the 'tip," dump it upon the
screens by the aid of lever, and hurl it
back to the cage for return into the mine,
In wav that would electrify even an
American woman's rights promoter"
The work of the "screeners" while the
most trying on account of the endless cloud
of coal dust in which they are enveloped,
requires less muscle than dexterity. A
screen, kind of riddle Of iron bars, work.
ing on the principle Of an endless chain,. IS
constantly carrying the coal, which has
been dumped upon it from the 'tip above,
down along an incline into the coal cars,