The daily chieftain. [volume] (Vinita, Ind. Ter. [Okla.]) 1898-1902, 1899-05-09
IN A SULPHUR MINE.
Terrible Hardships of tho noys Employed
Therein.

Therein.
There are but few who admire
the collection of beautiful sulphur
crystals in the National museum,
remarked the gentleman who col
lected them from the famed sulphur
mines in Sicily TO Washington
Star reporter, who have any idea
in relation to the same except their
beauty. / don't think he said,
there is another spot on earth
where such abominable treatment,
such fiendish cruelty, is inflicted on
the laborer as in the sulphur mines
of Sicily. They are paid barely
enough 10 provide themselves with
scant supply of the coarsesH
cheapest food, and good portion of
the time they are in state of
chronic starvation. When l was
last there, many of the mines were
closed, and a Sicilian paper stated
that so, 600 people we're starving at
the mines. The work is of the hard
est and most exhausting character.
Very few of the mines have hoisting
apparatus, and the sulphur ore (sul-
phur and limestone combined) is
brought up from the depths below
on the backs of men and boys
Long, sloping. narrow tunnels lead
from the surface down 10 the sui
phur beds 200 to 900 feet or more
below. Miners dig the stuff out.
and it is carried up in stout sacks or
fat baskets. Many of the laborers,
especially the boys, work naked.
On their backs they wear a piece of
mating, or something Of the sort,
held by a string around the neck.
This is TO protect the flesh from be-
ing torn from their bodies by the
jagged corners of the ore they carry.
No one can imagine more heart
rending sight than to see the wretch
ed creatures rolling up the long,
steep slopes in the mine with their
enormous loads Every step they
take wrings groan from their tor
tured frames. Most pitiful 10 me
was the sight of the poor, bent,
broken and emaciated old men, mere
battered wrecks, and the young lads
of 10 and 12 years who have just
begun this life of cruel toll.
Staggering along under loads
full as heavy as a strong man
ought TO carry, the dreadful process
sion winds upward through the mar
row drifts and tunnels TO the sur
face, where the ore is piled up in
rectangular heaps and paid for by
the cubic meter.
"As evidence of the awful severity
of the labor is the fact that very
large percentage of these lads are so
badly crippled by the time they
reach the age for military service
that the conscript officers are forced
TO reject them, and i assure you
that the Italian government is not
overcritical as to the physical con-
dition of the men she sends by the
shipload TO Massana to be butch
cred by the Abyssinians- When the
miserable creatures leave the in
ferno underground and reach the
surface, they find themselves in a
veritable corner of hades. The sui
phur is extracted at the mine by
roasting it in immense heaps slight
" covered with earth, not unlike IN
form to charcoal pit. The air is
so filled with sulphurous vapors and
dust as to almost suffocate one. Not
a green thing is in sight, for the
poisonous vapors kill all vegetation.
The fierce sun beats down upon one
in those verdureless valleys with
great fury. On every side there are
the hot rocks, acres of impalpable,
sitting dust, and the vapors from
the calcining can only be compared
TO blasts from the internal region. "