ON THE PIT-BROW : AT WORK AGAIN.
SQUARE, black, and solid, with its great chimney vomiting clouds of smoke, our colliery lies in a green valley, amid meadows and wheat-fields. It is the advanced camp of the marching host of labour and capital which is " trekking " westward, following the coal. Like the leaders of merchant- adventurers in a strange, rich land, its owners have made treaties with the native chiefs, the landlords, and traffic with the natives themselves. From the former they have bought by solemn compact the coal, and ironstone, and all things beneath the earth ; with the latter, the farmers, they trade for hay and straw, corn and timber, and all things on the surface. But however hard and unlovely its aspect, the colony is not unwelcome. Far from it. From the half-ruined owner of the old castle on the hill, to the smallest tenant-farmer on his estate, the whole population is benefited by the presence of the busy workers in the mine, and the capitalist their master. The landlord pockets his mineral rents, the farmers find a ready market for their crops, and the shopkeepers of the little country town near thrive on the custom brought by the colliers' wives. But the division of its inhabitants from the rural population is as sharp as the contrast between the black colliery wall and the young wheat in the fields beyond. A few steps from where the teams are sowing spring barley in the "ten-acre" bring us into a different world, from one in which men's lives are regu- lated by the change of the seasons, and their labour by the hours of the rising and the setting sun, to another which refuses to own the difference of night and day, a world which at noon seems to be asleep ! In the rows of ugly cottages which bound the road, the blinds are down and the doors shut ; for half the men are down in the pit, the other half in bed. The children are in school, and only a few women visible, who exchange congratulations that the strike is over, and their " masters" have once more taken up their tools and settled down to work and wages.
It is not until we are inside the main gates of the pit that we come into touch with the strenuous toil below. Even there, there is none of the feverish activity and restless whirr and hum that oppress the brain in a cotton-mill or foundry. Mineral trains are slowly puffing up and down the lines, and from various sheds comes the measured thud of pumping- engines, or the ring of hammers on the forge. Beyond the upcast shaft is the main engine-house, where the enormous drum winds and unwinds its endless rope of steel, bringing each day to the surface five thousand tons of coal.
Beyond this, again, is the " Pit-Brow," a double deck of iron, where the nests of trucks come rushing up from the shaft, the empty corves are thrust into their places, and the contents of the first sent crashing into the screens below amid rolling clouds of dust. That man by the signal-bell is a hero in his way. One Sunday night, the buildings above the shaft caught fire, and the burning timbers, as they fell, formed a blazing heap on the pit-floor, 2,000 ft. below. He, with six others, were the only men in the pit, looking to the ponies. As the burning timbers came crashing down, this man stood by and flung water over them, long after his companions had given up hope, and retreated from the stifling smoke. " Many is the time I have been down Sunday at e'en," he says ; " but I thought, now we are done ! yet I heard the poor horses coughing and choking, and I kept to it till I had gotten t' fire under." But the men on the pit-brow are a different class from those who work below. At 2 o'clock the men of the after- noon shift call for their lamps, six hundred of which, lighted, locked, and numbered, stand ready round the lamp-house walls. As they troop up to the window, shouting their numbers, some idea may be formed of the main element in the community. The first thing which strikes a stranger is that colliers have no youth. There are young boys, with round, merry faces ; but there are no youths. They seem to become men suddenly, with deep lines about the brow and mouth which suggest the idea of nervous overstrain. Their voices, too, are harsh and irritable. No doubt the strained look may be due in part to the long hours of work in a dim, imperfect light ; but the same appearance may be noted on the faces of most of the workmen in Northern industrial com- munities where payment is by piece-work, and not by a weekly wage. If the collier loses his youth, he is not compensated by length of years. Very few old men are to be seen amongst them. They break up when still apparently vigorous. Per-
haps this is fortunate amongst a class which does not save, and gives the weekly contributions which might provide an annuity in old age, to swell the Union funds. But though voice and features show that his work is telling upon him, the collier is far from admitting this to himself. Except in strike times, when it is necessary to appeal to public sympathy, he wants no commiseration for his lot. For the agricultural labourers round him he has a boundless contempt. As a mem- ber of an organised body, he has a good many pleasures to which they are strangers. Work over, after an excellent meal he strolls to his club, there to play bagatelle or billiards, bet on horse-races, or hear the news. On Sunday he can go to the handsome church built by the colliery-owner, or, if he prefers it, spend an agreeable morning in dog-racing or rabbit- coursing. These last are very popular amusements, as they afford plenty of scope for betting and gambling,—the curse of the North-Country industrial villages. Moreover, there is a good cricket-ground, which is much patronised on summer evenings. Occasionally a huge excursion is organised to some distant watering-place, where the men and their wives sit on the parade, or enjoy the novel pleasure of a sail. But mental improvement is difficult in a community where all the members are of one class.
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