"That although this employment scarcely deserves the name of labor, yet, as the children engaged in it are commonly excluded from light, and are always without companions, it would, were it not for the passing and re-passing of the coal carriages, amount to solitary confinement of the worst order.
"That in some districts they remain in solitude and darkness during the whole time they are in the pit, and, according to their own account, many of them never see the light of day for weeks together during the greater part of the winter season, excepting on those days in the week when work is not going on, and on the Sundays.
"That at different ages, from six years old and upwards, the hard work of pushing and dragging the carriages of coal from the workings to the main ways or to the foot of the shaft, begins: a labor which all classes of witnesses concur in stating, requires the unremitting exertion of all the physical power which the young workers possess.
"That, in the districts in which females are taken down into the coal mines, both sexes are employed together in precisely the same kind of labor, and work for the same number of hours; that the girls and boys, and the young men and the young women, and even married women and women with child, commonly work almost naked, and the men, in many mines, quite naked; and that all classes of witnesses bear testimony to the demoralizing influence of the employment of females underground.[32]
"That, in the east of Scotland, a much larger proportion of children and young persons are employed in these mines than in other districts, many of whom are girls; and that the chief part of their labor consists in carrying the coals on their backs up steep ladders.
"That when the work-people are in full employment, the regular hours of work for children and young persons are rarely less than eleven; more often they are twelve; in some districts they are thirteen; and in one district they are generally fourteen and upwards.
"That, in the great majority of these mines night-work is a part of the ordinary system of labor, more or less regularly carried on according to the demand for coals, and one which the whole body of evidence shows to act most injuriously both on the physical and moral condition of the work-people, and more especially on that of the children and young persons.
"That in many cases the children and young persons have little cause of complaint in regard to the treatment they receive, while in many mines the conduct of the adult colliers to them is harsh and cruel; the persons in authority who must be cognizant of this ill usage never interfering to prevent it, and some of them distinctly stating that they do not conceive they have a right to do so. That with some exceptions little interest is taken by the coal-owners in the children employed in their works after the daily labor is over.... That in all the coalfields accidents of a fearful nature are extremely frequent, and of the work-people who perish by such accidents, the proportion of children and young persons sometimes equals, and rarely falls much below that of adults."—(First Report, p. 255-7.)
With respect to the general healthiness of the employment, there is considerable discrepancy in the evidence adduced; many witnesses stating that the colliers generally, especially the adults, are a remarkably healthy race, showing a very small average of sickness,[33] and recovering with unusual rapidity from the severest accidents;—a peculiarity which the medical men reasonably enough attribute to the uniform temperature of the mines, and still more to the abundance of nutritious food which the high wages of the work-people enable them to procure. The great majority of the witnesses, however, give a very different impression. Upwards of two hundred, whose testimony is quoted, or referred to in the Report of the Central Commissioners, testify to the extreme fatigue of the children when they return home at night, and to the injurious effect which this ultimately produces on their constitution.
While the effect of such early and severe labor is, to cause a peculiar and extraordinary degree of muscular development in collier children, it also stunts their growth, and produces a proportionate diminution of stature, as is shown by the following comparison.—(Physical and Moral Condition of Children, p. 55.)