The daily chieftain. [volume] (Vinita, Ind. Ter. [Okla.]) 1898-1902, 1899-04-21

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 a 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 to provide themselves with
scant supply of the coarsest,
cheapest food, and good portion Of
the time they are in state of
chronic starvation. When I was
last there, many of the mines were
closed, and Sicilian paper stated
that $4,000 people were starving at
the mines. The work is of the hard
est and most exhausting character.
Very few of the mines have hosting
apparatus, and the sulphur ore (snl-
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 to the sui
phur beds 200 to 900 feet or more
below. Miners dig the stuff ont, i
and it is carried up in stout sacks or
fat baskets. Many of the laborers, 4
especially the boys, work naked.
On their backs they wear piece of
or something of the sort,
held by 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
ending sight than to see the wretch
ID creatures rolling up the long,
'teep slopes in the mine with their
enormous loads. Every step they
AXE wrings groan from their tor
ured frames. Most pitiful to me
vas the sight of the poor, bent,
,roken and emaciated old men, mere
'attered wrecks, and the young lads
# 10 and IL years who have just
'egun this life of cruel toll.
Staggering along under loads
ull as heavy as strong man
ught to carry, the dreadful process
ion winds upward through the mar
ow drifts and tunnels to the sur
ace, where the ore is piled up in
ectangular heaps and paid for by
he cubic meter.
" As evidence of the awful severity J
the labor is the fact that a very
lrge percentage of these lads are SO
adly crippled by the time they
zach the age for military service 7
lat the conscript officers are forced a
} reject them, and ! assure you g
lat the Italian government Is not "
vercritical as to the physical con- $
ton of the men she sends by the :
lipload to Massana to be butch
ed by the Abyssinians. When the
iserable creatures leave the in
rno underground and reach the
rface, they find themselves in a
corner of hades. The sui
lur is extracted at the mine by
asting it in immense heaps slight
covered with earth, not unlike in
rm to charcoal pit. The air is
filled with sulphurous vapors and
list as to almost suffocate one. Not
green thing is in sight, for the
isonous vapors kill all vegetation.
le fierce sun beats down upon one
those verdureless valleys with
eat fury. On every side there are
hot rocks, acres of impalpable,
fling dust. and the yapors from
, calcining can only be compared
blasts from the internal region" A
The Pyramidal Blunders.