[81] The products of ordinary combustion are sufficiently poisonous. The gases produced by the decomposition of the dead are partially soluble in water; and a fatty pellicle is instantly formed in large quantities. The wood, saturated with these dissolved gases, and used as fuel (a frequent occurrence in poor neighbourhoods, and in the vicinity of metropolitan grave-yards), must diffuse, in addition to the exhalations constantly given off from bodies in vaults, and on the earth's surface, vast volumes of gaseous poison. Hence many of those maladies whose source, symptoms, and principles defy medical experience either to explain or cure.
[82] In case the reader should doubt the accuracy of any of the statements relative to the employment of the youth of both sexes in the English coal-mines, which he may find in this chapter, we beg to refer him to the "Report and Appendix to the Report, of the Children's Employment Commission, presented to Both Houses of Parliament by command of Her Majesty, in 1842."
[83] "Explosions of carbonated hydrogen gas, which is usually called by the miners 'sulphur,' sometimes prove very destructive, not only by scorching to death, but by the suffocation of foul air after the explosion is over, and also by the violence by which persons are driven before it, or are smothered by the ruins thrown down upon them."—Appendix to First Report.
[84] "Amongst the children and young persons I remarked that some of the muscles were developed to a degree amounting to a deformity; for example, the muscles of the back and loins stood from the body, and appeared almost like a rope passing under the skin."—Report.
[85] See Report, page 43, section 194.
[86] Secured the money.
[87] Informer—spy.
[88] In prison.
[89] St. Giles's.
[90] Coal-mine.