"Now when the nature of this horrible labour is taken into consideration; its extreme severity; its regular duration of from twelve to fourteen hours daily; the damp, heated, and unwholesome atmosphere of a coal-mine, and the tender age and sex of the workers, a picture is presented of deadly physical oppression and systematic slavery, of which I conscientiously believe no one unacquainted with such facts would credit the existence in the British dominions."
The loads of coal carried on the backs of females vary in weight from three-quarters of a hundred-weight to three hundred-weight. In working edge-seams, or highly inclined beds, the load must be borne to the surface, or to the pit-bottom, up winding stairs, or a succession of steep ladders. The disgrace of this peculiar form of oppression is said to be confined to Scotland, "where, until nearly the close of the last century, the colliers remained in a state of legal bondage, and formed a degraded caste, apart from all humanizing influences and sympathy." From all accounts, they are not much improved in condition at the present time.
A sub-commissioner thus describes a female child's labour in a Scottish mine, and gives some of the evidence he obtained:—
"She has first to descend a nine-ladder pit to the first rest, even to which a shaft is sunk, to draw up the baskets or tubs of coals filled by the bearers; she then takes her creel (a basket formed to the back, not unlike a cockle-shell, flattened toward the back of the neck, so as to allow lumps of coal to rest on the back of the neck and shoulders,) and pursues her journey to the wall-face, or, as it is called here, the room of work. She then lays down her basket, into which the coal is rolled, and it is frequently more than one man can do to lift the burden on her back. The tugs or straps are placed over the forehead, and the body bent in a semicircular form, in order to stiffen the arch. Large lumps of coal are then placed on the neck, and she then commences her journey with her burden to the bottom, first hanging her lamp to the cloth crossing her head. In this girl's case, she has first to travel about fourteen fathoms (eighty-four feet) from wall-face to the first ladder, which is eighteen feet high; leaving the first ladder, she proceeds along the main road, probably three feet six inches to four feet six inches high, to the second ladder, eighteen feet high; so on to the third and fourth ladders, till she reaches the pit-bottom, where she casts her load, varying from one hundred-weight to one hundred-weight and a half, in the tub. This one journey is designated a rake; the height ascended, and the distance along the roads added together, exceed the height of St. Paul's Cathedral; and it not unfrequently happens that the tugs break, and the load falls upon those females who are following. However incredible it may be, yet I have taken the evidence of fathers who have ruptured themselves from straining to lift coal on their children's backs.
"Janet Cumming, eleven years old, bears coals: 'I gang with the women at five, and come up with the women at five at night; work all night on Fridays, and come away at twelve in the day. I carry the large bits of coal from the wall-face to the pit-bottom, and the small pieces called chows in a creel. The weight is usually a hundred-weight, does not know how many pounds there are in a hundred-weight, but it is some weight to carry; it takes three journeys to fill a tub of four hundred-weight. The distance varies, as the work is not always on the same wall; sometimes one hundred and fifty fathoms, whiles two hundred and fifty fathoms. The roof is very low; I have to bend my back and legs, and the water comes frequently up to the calves of my legs. Has no liking for the work; father makes me like it. Never got hurt, but often obliged to scramble out of the pit when bad air was in.'
"William Hunter, mining oversman, Arniston Colliery: 'I have been twenty years in the works of Robert Dundas, Esq., and had much experience in the manner of drawing coal, as well as the habits and practices of the collier people. Until the last eight months, women and lasses were wrought below in these works, when Mr. Alexander Maxton, our manager, issued an order to exclude them from going below, having some months prior given intimation of the same. Women always did the lifting or heavy part of the work, and neither they nor the children were treated like human beings, nor are they where they are employed. Females submit to work in places where no man or even lad could be got to labour in; they work in bad roads, up to their knees in water, in a posture nearly double; they are below till the last hour of pregnancy; they have swelled haunches and ankles, and are prematurely brought to the grave, or, what is worse, lingering existence. Many of the daughters of the miners are now at respectable service. I have two who are in families at Leith, and who are much delighted with the change.'
"Robert Bald, Esq., the eminent coal-viewer, states that, 'In surveying the workings of an extensive colliery under ground, a married woman came forward, groaning under an excessive weight of coals, trembling in every nerve, and almost unable to keep her knees from sinking under her. On coming up, she said, in a plaintive and melancholy voice, "Oh, sir, this is sore, sore, sore work. I wish to God that the first woman who tried to bear coals had broke her back, and none would have tried it again."
The boxes or carriages employed in putting are of two kinds—the hutchie and the slype; the hutchie being an oblong, square-sided box with four wheels, which usually runs on a rail; and the slype a wood-framed box, curved and shod with iron at the bottom, holding from two and a quarter to five hundred-weight of coal, adapted to the seams through which it is dragged. The lad or lass is harnessed over the shoulders and back with a strong leathern girth, which, behind, is furnished with an iron-hook, which is attached to a chain fastened to the coal-cart or slype. The dresses of these girls are made of coarse hempen stuff, fitting close to the figures; the coverings to their heads are made of the same material. Little or no flannel is used, and their clothing, being of an absorbent nature, frequently gets completely saturated shortly after descending the pit. We quote more of the evidence obtained by the commissioners. It scarcely needs any comment:—