Fort Worth gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1891-1898, 1891-08-16
PIT-BROW -LASSES.
Laborers Toiling Under Ground
the Year Around.
FIRST IMPRESSIONS CHANGED.
The Five Kinds of Women's Labor at the
Mines-Sot the Forlorn Creatures
One Would Suppose-FuIl
of Sunshine
Special Correspondence Of the Gazette.

Special Correspondence Of the Gazette
WIGAN, ENGLAND, Aug Approaching
Wigan by the Lancashire and Yorkshire
railway, which completely gridirons those
two important shires of tremendous indus
tries, the eye rests on fair and pleasant
English landscape. The nearness of great
manufacturing cities has crowded the
pretty farmsteadings closely together. The
fields 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 fine old towers orssneat
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 il is Win
some and pastoral picture. Soon the horl-
Zon line is pierced with chimney stacks
like mighty spears. Beside these, as your
train speeds along, there shortly appear
little bunchings of houses clustering about
higher grimy clumps Of buildings, and sur
mounting these are huge wheels OF steel
Seen across pretty copses. gentle hills or
nesting homes and outbuildlngs. these
seem like mighty spider webs against the
gray of the far. lower sky
Scores of these weird, black. lace-like cir
cles are visible. The meadows and fields
run green and fair close 10 the edges of the
huddled structures beneath them. They
are the great wheels above the mine pits.
Over there 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 500
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
surface of Lancashire than above counting
all the countryside highways and city
streets. It is beneath these mammoth
wheels which lift the coal that warns half
Of Britain and drives more than half her
changing machinery. that You will find
nearly One-third of all the pit-brow lasSes of
England al 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 grim of the coal dust, would fill you
with feeling of revulsiOn and dread of
contact with such apparently saturmine
creatures and thrill of Indignation that
women were enslaYed by such seemingly
degrading work. Acquaintance with the
work and the pit-brow lasses themselves
will completely change these
FIRST IMPRESSIONS
There are five kinds of womens labor at
the mines. To make this clear to those un-
used to mine provincialisms. the five classes
may be called washers COOLERS, - tip
pers, :" '.screenerS = aud filters or ''lev-
elers'' The work of the former found TO
be at some mines to wash the dirt from the
coal i'll a long shute under rough sheds. \
rapid flow of water filled two parallel
troughs. The women raked the dirt to-
gether and got rid of il through traps in
the trough. Most of these women were
singing heartily as they tOiled. They are
under shelter: seemed to take their work
easily: the sound Of the running water was
pleasant: and they told NE they would not
like TO exchange their work for any
other labor at the mines. il occur
red to me there might be some con-
nectiou between the running water and the
songs and found il to be true. These
were the only lasses who sang always at
their work The puIing of the water
through the shining coal effected these
prisoned humans Just as tiny house-foun
tain will bewitch continuous melody from
the Threats of canarles and mockingbrdS III
your window or conservatory There was
the hint of the wildwood i'll it: the whis-
pered voices of the fields and streams; the
endless call of natures heart to all that was
responsive in their own.
The COOLERS" are the cOke-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
n9-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 dexterity than, the men.
When the ovens are finally charged the
women build up the doorway with bricks
which are plastered over, and the ovens
are then left to themselves for
several hours. The coke is finally
taken out in the form of a 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 pro-
vidcd with stout leather hand guards. With
the aid Of these they pile the coke into the
coke wagons or cars until filled. ana then
trim" the loads neatly, so that none Of
the coke is lost in its subsequent railway
journey. At most 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 ac-
complished by women at the browS Of
English mines The shafts are surrounded
with high metal platform, usually COW
cred as protection to machinery and
workers, but open at the sides for light and
air AS the Gage" comes up from the
depths below, with its load of six trucks
these are removed from opposite sides, the
weight of each truck, chalked on it by the
weighman below, shouted to the tallyman
who is boxed in a little glass-incased 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 10 the screens, and
upset them Each truck when empty
must weigh 200 pounds Its
load of coal will run from 600 to 500 pounds.
1t is geared on diminutive wide-tired
wheels but at best it is a cumbersome bulk
to handle Yet two of these strong pit
brow lasses will catch this truck as though
it were baby carriage and send it 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 a way
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, or ''wag-
ons'' as they are called here, standing upon
elevated tracks beneath. As the coal
passes along, the dust and fine coal used
for oke-making falls into shute beneath
which carries the screenings to storage
bins below But here and there are clogs
of dirt. bits of rock, pieces of shale, and
huge faulty" Jumps of boal. All the Shale.
rock and dirt are picked from the screens
by hand and the way they fly from these
pit brow women s ninble fingers is Won
der. A bystander is in danger of broken