West Virginia argus. [volume] (Kingwood, W. Va.) 1877-1946, 1909-06-10
DEATH RATE HEAVY
Over Three thousand Killed and In
jursd In Mines.
TERRIBLE TOLL OF lSEXPERlEECE
Less Than 1sr the Miner. Are Amer,-
esns-courts Need Some
Probing.

Miners having the least experience will,
the dangers lurking beneath the earth's
surface suffer most in the number of acct
dents in thecoal mines of West Vin,inin
according TO the annual report of the De
partment OF Mines.
The report which has just been printed
and made public shows that from 1901 to
nos, inclusive, there were killed and i'm.
jurcd ;, IS2 persons in the mine. of the
state, and that of this number | lOi had
one year or less Of experience in the min
ing industry, while |, no had only from
two To five years experience.
Ii Is also shown in the report that less
than half of the miners employed i'm the
state are Americans. Ofthc total of 40. Isi
miners, 23,979 are Americans, II ,270 ne
grocs, 0,oi6 Italians, SECS Hungarians.
1901 Poles, LOIS Austians, while the re-
mainder is divided among twenty other
nationalties.
The American miner Is the most careful
and sustains the least number OF injuries.
according TO figures gathered by Chief
Paul before his retirement from office
While there were four times the number
OF Americans AZ Italians employed in the
mines of the state, of the total of 625 IA
tai accidents, POO were suffered by the
Italian miners, while only l7G Americans
wcr killed. The combined number of
fatal and noniatal accidents among the
Italian
cecded that of the Americans. Ol the
total number of fatal and nonfatal acct
dents, 075, or almost half, were sustained
by miners between the ages of 20 and 20
years.
The report OF Chief Paul shows a total
decrease in the coal production for the
fiscal year of 1908 of 673, 1901 tons, the
production being 80, 1907 ,Ol0 tons, 30. % per
cent of the production being mined by
machines, an increase of nearly million
tons over last year. The total value of
the coal produced was Sal ,53S, 230. 60.
While the total output Of the state dur
ing the fiscal year showed decrease the
report shows that an acreage Of 5,0I5
acres was mined last year, while only
5,77O acres were mined during the pre-
vious year, and the mines OF the state
averaged only 2ll working days during
the last year as compared with 23I work
ing days for the previous year.
The Fairmont Coal Company, Of Ma
ron and Harrison counties, led the pro-
ducers during the year with total tom
mage OF 3,79i,077 tons, while the New
River Company, Of Faycttc county, was
second with a production of 1,77I, 75I
tons. The Davis Coal d Coke Company
ranked third with a production of ,532, .
Si7 tons. Pocahontas Consolidated Col
lierics Company fourth with ,4OO, 313
tons. and the United States Coal Com
pany fifth with l,29l $50 tons. Thirty
nine producing companies are in the list
of operations producing more than 200. .
600 tons OF coal during the year.
Chief Paul in his final report makes q
veiied thrust at some of the courts in the
state when lac states: "For the proper
execution of the law il appears 10 need
some strengthening, at least in some
counties, where efforts TO prosecute the
miners have been successful, but not sue
cessiul when the operators or officials are
the subjects OF prosecution. Through some
process not clear 10 this department the
courts have not disposed of the prosecu-
tions pending against mine officials"