The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1897-09-15
AN EXPLOSION.

striker involved, while the employers
lost little more than half the amount,
or thirty million dollars.
The coal miners live as poorly as
any other class of workmen in the
country. For the most part they are
in dirty villages, with narrow streets,
their houses blackened by coal smoke.
In many mining districts the houses
belong to the company owning the
mines, and the miners pay rent for
them, so that when strike occurs and
they are out of money they are given
orders to leave. Many Of the houses
have nothing more than two rooms
and kitchen, and in some places the
only stores at which the miners can
trade are the company's stores. With
all this the American miners are far
better off than the miners of other
countries. The coal miners of Japan
receive only a few cents day. Both
women and men work in the mines,
and the foreign ships, which get coal
at Japan are always loaded by women,
who pass the coal up the sides of the
ship in baskets.
Women are still used in the coal
mines of Belgium. They dress in
trousers, just like the men, and they
do much the same work. They help
load the coal, and in some of the mines
they drag the cars from the tunnels to
the bottom of the shaft. L. Simonin,
a Frenchman, from whose book on un-
derground life the illustrations of this
letter are taken, describes the horrors
of their life in the mines. For long
times women were used in this way
in England and Scotland, and it was
not until twenty-five years ago that
parliament passed an act keeping them
out.
Children are employed in the Bel
gium mines to-day. The English and
Scotch used them for years. They
were taken into the mines at seven,
eight and nine years of age, and were
kept there until they grew up. The
English coal veins are very thin and
the tunnels are not more than yard
high. These children were used as
beasts of burden. They were har-
messed to little carts filled with coal,
and had to crawl along on all fours
with belts about their waists and
chains between their legs dragging
the coal carts to the surface. Women
became deformed by this work. They
were dressed in trousers and shirts
like men. They learned to fight and
swear like the men and became bad
characters. At the age Of fifty they
were usually worn ont. In Scotland
young women were employed to carry
the coal on their backs out of the
mines. They dragged the coal to the
foot Of the ladders and then loaded it
on their backs, holding it there by
strap around the forehead while they
climbed up the ladders to get it to the
surface. They worked from twelve to
fourteen hours day, and would do
work, it is said, which the men would
not do. tramping through the water
with their loads of coal. According to
law women cannot be employed in our
mines.
Boys, however, have been largely
used. They drive the mules, and in
the anthracite regions they pick over
the coal, taking the slate and refuse
out of it. They get from fifty to sixty
cents day for bending over the dusty
coal, roasting in the summer and al
most freezing in the winter. They
are frequently hurt, though it is by no
means rs bad with our children as
with those of Europe few years ago,
when in one Investigation it was
stated: "That they seldom slept with
q whole skin, and that their backs
were cut with knocking against the
roof and sides of the tunnels, and that
the walking in the water covered their
feet with fostering sores"
Have you ever been down in a coal
mine? If so, you can appreciate some
of the dangers Of mining. A coal mine
is like great catacomb. 1t is city
underground, the walls of which in
many cases are upheld by timbers.
Now and then you come to rooms out
of which the coal has been cut. The
coal is taken down with blasting pow
der, and there is danger of the wall
falling and of the miners being
crushed.
There is also danger from fire damp,
OF the union OF the gases of the mine
brought together by the light from
q lamp or candle. This causes great
explosion. 1t comes like stroke Of
and with n clap of thunder.
As the explosion occurs q roaring
whirlwind of flame goes through the
tunnels, pulling down the timbers and
caYipg in the walls 1t burns every