The miner’s luxuries are those of other poor men,—his pipe and glass of ale or beer,—though I must acknowledge that the Irishman has not dispensed with whiskey. “I do not think,” says Father ⸺, “that he drinks more than the Welshman, but perhaps he is more frequently seen intoxicated in public.” The Welshman, it has been said, does not drink so much here as at home, for he has bidden his native land farewell with the intention of making money. The use of malt liquors is very common in this region, and beer is abundant in the hardest times.
The Irish are fond of singing, dancing, and carousing. The saloons on Lackawanna Avenue have two rooms, the front one for drinking, the back for dancing and general amusement. On the contrary, dancing is generally considered a heinous sin among the Welsh. Says a friend, “The ministers denounce balls and dancing parties as they would manslaughter or murder.”
The German is fond of hunting. He has a gun and dog, and on a Sunday or other holiday, or when there is a breakdown in the mine, he goes hunting on the mountain, and brings home partridges, rabbits, or perchance a deer. Nor does he have to go far to find his hunting-ground. The valley of the Lackawanna is only about two miles wide, and lies in the Moosic Mountains, a part of the Alleghanies. The Germans are fond, too, of fishing. Their picnics and musical festivals generally begin on Saturday afternoon and conclude on Sunday evening. About two-thirds of the Germans go to church on Sunday morning, and many visit the beer gardens in the afternoon with their wives and children. They observe the church holidays, Good-Friday and Easter-Monday.
No Irish miners will work on St. Patrick’s Day. They generally go to church in the morning, and immediately after service, or about half-past nine, organize and form processions composed of their various beneficial societies,—the Father Mathew, St. Mary’s, St. Joseph’s, Young Men’s Beneficial, etc. They do not have a ball on St. Patrick’s Day, considering it to be somewhat a desecration. On the parade day of the Miners’ Union the different branches frequently have balls in the evening, and often with a charitable object, as for the relief of a poor woman whose husband or son has been killed in the mine. But since the unsatisfactory termination of the great strike in 1871 the parade day of the Miners’ Union, August 1, is not generally observed.
Our national holiday, July 4, is kept with great zeal by the Irish. It is an outlet for the expression of their animosity to England. In 1874 there was a great parade of several thousand persons, about two-thirds of whom were foreigners.
The Welsh have only one national holiday,—St. David’s Day, March 1. On this day, in Wales, they form processions and carry the leek, the national emblem. I saw it growing at Scranton, very much like the onion when standing. On this day in Wales they also have meetings for literary pursuits and for vocal music, being a great singing nation. St. David’s Day is still observed in some American cities, but among the people at large the celebration has died out here. Christmas is a great day among the Welsh, and is observed by meetings of the Eisteddfod, a very ancient national gathering, which can be traced back for nine hundred years. The word means an assembly, and is pronounced Ice-teth-vod, the dd being like th in thee.
These gatherings are literary and musical. At Hyde Park it is announced in the Welsh paper, in the spring of the year, that the Philosophical Society will, at the ensuing Christmas, give prizes for the best essay or the best poem on given subjects, and the best piece of original music for given words, also for singing and recitation. But although, as I have stated, these meetings are generally held on Christmas, yet sometimes a neighboring town may prefer to fix upon New Year, thus enabling parties to attend both; and St. David’s Day is sometimes celebrated by an eisteddfod. From the exercises of these gatherings women are not excluded. The eisteddfods are very generally attended by the Welsh, and are held in some large public hall, the greater part of the performances being in the Welsh language. Some of the observances are described to me in simple language by one who has been a miner. He says that church choirs attend the eisteddfods, and some very difficult piece is selected for them to sing, the prize being about sixty to eighty dollars. Then there are singers alone, and in parties of three. “They get their poets there; they meet on Christmas morning about ten, and adjourn about twelve, and then give out subjects for the poets,—likely the Lackawanna River, or some subject they had never thought of before. At two o’clock these poets will be called upon to recite their verses,—two, perhaps,—and a small prize is given (about a dollar), principally for amusement. Again, they call for compositions in music on some given subject. They must be sent in beforehand, about two weeks before the eisteddfod, with the proper name under a seal, the judges being allowed only to see the fictitious name. Also they read, and the best reader gets a small prize, the piece being given out at the meeting where it is read. Another thing causes a good deal of laughter,—they ask who will volunteer to sing a musical composition from the notes; some half-dozen will throw in their names (fictitious), and then one will be called out,—perhaps ‘Greenhorn;’ the other five will retire from the room, while he picks up the difficult piece, and begins to clear his throat and show his embarrassment, which is a subject of amusement to the spectators; then the second comes on, perhaps equally unskilful; and when all have finished, the remarks of the judge upon each performance are also very amusing, the prize being only about fifty cents. In order to avoid the singers being previously acquainted with the piece, sometimes a person may be sent out half an hour beforehand to compose one. The piece chosen is generally one very difficult to sing. They hold these eisteddfods in Wales. The Welsh bards have for centuries back been accustomed to poetry, and so forth. In London they invited, I think, nearly all the musicians in Europe to sing on a certain day, all nationalities, for a prize of one thousand pounds,—a silver cup. There came a choir of singers from Wales to compete with the best talent they had in England. The lords and members of Parliament were there. The English selected some of their most cultivated people, and the Welsh singers were miners and men of very little education, and they had to go from their own country; but they won the prize by a great distance, and then sang through different towns and cities in England. There was money raised here in Hyde Park to support them while they were training, and to take them up to London.”
A minister at the Welsh Congregational Church in Hyde Park gave me some explanation of this subject. He said that a company of musical persons connected with the Crystal Palace offered a prize for competition for vocal choirs, the reward being a silver cup worth one thousand pounds. In 1872 a choir of five hundred persons from South Wales, called the South Wales Choral Union, men, women, and children, principally miners and their children, appeared, and took the prize without competition. The next year, 1873, a trained band of English musicians, three hundred and fifty in number, appeared to compete for the prize, but without success, for the Welsh won it again. The English were from London, and were called the Tonic Sol Fa Association.
I heard nothing at Scranton, however, of the harp, once thought indispensable to the bards, two men on the street at Hyde Park, with pipe and bagpipe, being the only peculiar instrumental performers that I remember.
It might be supposed that so dangerous a pursuit as mining, with the horror of beholding accidents sometimes mortal, the uncertainty of obtaining regular employment, and, more than any of these, the working so far from the excellent light of the sun, would repress the buoyant spirits of the Irishman; but, says my Connaught acquaintance, “Working in the mines does not dull an Irishman’s spirits,—not a bit of it.”