The Alaska citizen., 1910-09-05

' l become loosened. and when il may | be expected to fall.
 l No more experience is required f to demand that the miners who be. | gin taking out those thaws should | first clear the roof above their heads | of all loose stone. gravel and sand. | before beginning to take down the | pay dirt.
 That such duty was imposed up on the plaintiff and his co-employes at the defendants mine. is shown | by fair preponderance of evi- | dence. and that it was and is req
 sonable duty deyolving upon the | miners so engaged in such work.
 as matter of law. have no doubt The conditions of danger that i'm posed the duty of careful inspection upon the owner of or operator Of | mines in this country. also imposes a corresponding duty of care upon the miner. The owner has the right to suppose that the servant will be alert and observing. and employ diligence to detect and avoid the dangers which a man of ordinary prudence would do for his prOtec-
 ton, under like conditions. He must.
 to protect himself from injury use
 diligence commensurate with the
 dangers known by him to be incl
 dent to the character and place of
 his work.
 What, under the circumstances.
 should have been expected of this
 plaintiff? He was far from an in
 experienced miner. considering the
 character of the work he was em-
 ployed to do. He had been em-
 ployed daily for six months previ-
 ous in the identical work he was
 doing when injured; where the con
 ditiOns had been practically the
 same for the entire time While
 there is no positive evidence that
 he was informed of the dangers in
 connection with his work. il is not
 unreasonable to conclude that six
 months labor digging out pay dirt
 and gravel in the face of an under
 ground drift had given him many
 forceful and practical demon
 stratiOn of the dangers of permitting the loose ground, stone and gravel
 10 remain in the roof of his work.
 when it could be made secure by
 picking it down to the frozen part
 There is testimony to show that the plaintiff did not know of the dangerous condition of the roof al the place where he was working. but the testimony of several wit nesses conveys the fact that il could easily have been detected. that it was easily discernable and obvious.
 It may here be remarked that the defendants mine underground was lighted by means of electricity. | It C. D. lights being placed on shovels, which were distributed and set upright in the waste piles in | the rear of the lateral tracks. thus | throwing light upon the faces thaW- | ed in which the men were working, that these lights were placed about | six feet apart, and naturally made | the mine much lighter than if the | ordinary tallow or paraftine candles i were employed, as is the usual | custom ill this district.
 The witness Anderson says. in his | deposition: That he plainly dis | cerned the previous evening. when | ordered by the foreman, Weitzel, to go with the plaintiff to the spot | to work, a crack in the roof be 1 tween the previous thaw and the | new one. That it extended in the | roof from th@ side of tbe tunnel | out into the drift some 10 or l. feet, and that at the time he re fused to shovel into the car on the side nearest the tunnel. and | protested to the foreman, in the | presence of this plaintiff, and for that reason the plaintiff took that | particular place and shoveled some | three carloads of dirt into the car on the evening previous to the ac- cident The witness Nandersluice. | though on top the day of the acci- | dent, was on the previous day work | ing in the end of the mine in 1 which the accident happened, as | he said; in the same place, and | testified, when asked the question | as to the condition of the tunnel and | faces, that: They were in pretty | bad shape. There was lot of | thaWed dirt in the roof, you know. | but l always picked it down." The | witness krim testified that on the | morning of the accident, a few | minutes before the occurrence. he | came out of the same drift with a loaded car and stopped where the | plaintiff and Anderson were work i ing and entered into conversation | with them concerning the condition | of the roof under which they were | working, and said to them: It | should be picked down.
 It is true that the witness is not | positive that the plaintiff either en- tered into the conversation, or even | heard it, but it is reasonable to | suppose that on one of the two | occasions Anderson took the oppor- tunity to talk about this roof in | plaintiffs presence, the plaintiff | would have heard some of the con versation and interested himself at least to some extent.
 Anderson's testimony plainly indi- cates that the ground in question | was whiter than the thawed ground. and that crack in the roof be- tween it and the new thaw was plainly visible. The fact that the ground thawed in the roof of the previous thaw was white, is be- cause of the fact that the water had drained from it readily, there being no ground underneath it. That indication alone, in the color of the ground and roof, was sufli- cient to put the miner of ordinary experience and ability on notice that it was thawed and should be picked down. Whether the plaintiff heard the warning given him by his co-laborers or actually saw the dan ger is mathematical to a certain de