6. That in many instances much that skill and capital can effect to render the place of work unoppressive, healthy, and safe, is done, often with complete success, as far as regards the healthfulness and comfort of the mines; but that to render them perfectly safe does not appear to be practicable by any means yet known; while in great numbers of instances their condition in regard both to ventilation and drainage is lamentably defective. 12. 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 labour consists in carrying the coals on their backs up steep ladders. 7. That the nature of the employment which is assigned to the youngest children, generally that of " trapping," requires that they should be in the pit as soon as the work of the day commences, and according to the present system that they should not leave the pit before the work of the day is at an end. 8. That although this employment scarcely deserves the name of labour, 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 repassing of the coal carriages, amount to solitary confinement of the worst order. 9. That in those districts in which the seams of coal are so thick that horses go direct to the workings, or in which the side passages from the workings to the horseways are not of any great length, the lights in the main ways render the situation of these children comparatively less cheerless, dull, and stupifying; but 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. 10. 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 labour which all classes of witnesses concur in stating requires the unremitting exertion of all the physical power which the young workers possess. 11. 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 labour, and work for the same number of hours; that the girls and boys, and the young men and 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. 13. That when the workpeople 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. 14. That in the great majority of these mines night-work is a part of the ordinary system of labour, 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 workpeople, and more especially on that of the children and young persons. 15. That the labour performed daily for this number of hours, though it cannot strictly be said to be continuous, because, from the nature of the employment, intervals of a few minutes necessarily occur during which the muscles are not in active exertion, is nevertheless generally uninterrupted by any regular time set apart for rest and refreshment; what food is taken in the pit being eaten as best it may while the labour continues. 16. That in well-regulated mines, in which in general the hours of work are the shortest, and in some few of which from half an hour to an hour is regularly set apart for meals, little or no fatigue is complained of after an ordinary day's work, when the children are ten years old and upwards; but in other instances great complaint is made of the feeling of fatigue, and the workpeople are never without this feeling, often in an extremely painful degree. 17. That in many cases the children and young persons have little cause to complain in regard to the treatment they receive from the persons in authority in the mine, or from the colliers; but that in general the younger children are roughly used by their older companions; while in many mines the conduct of the adult colliers to the children and young persons who assist them, is harsh and cruel; the persons in authority in these mines, who must be cognizant of this ill-usage, never interfering to prevent it, and some of them distinctly stating that they do not conceive that they have any right to do so. 18. That, with some exceptions, little interest is taken by the coal owners in the children and young persons employed in their works, after the daily labour is over; STATE OF LABOUR IN THE MINES OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. at least little is done to afford them the means of enjoying innocent amusement and healthful recreation. 19. That in all coal-fields accidents of a fearful nature are extremely frequent; and that the returns made to our own queries, as well as the registry tables, prove that of the workpeople who perish by such accidents, the proportion of children and young persons sometimes equals and rarely falls much below that of adults. 20. That one of the most frequent causes of accidents in these mines is the want of superintendence, by overlookers or otherwise, to see to the security of the machinery for letting down and bringing up the workpeople, the restriction of the number of persons that ascend and descend at a time, the state of the mine as to the quantity of noxious gas in it, the efficiency of the ventilation, the exactness with which the air-door keepers perform their duty, the places into which it is safe or unsafe to go with a naked lighted candle, and the security of the proppings to uphold the roof, &c. 21. That another frequent cause of fatal accidents in coal mines is the almost universal practice of intrusting the closing of the air-doors to very young children. 22. That there are many mines in which the most ordinary precautions to guard against accidents are neglected, and in which no money appears to be expended with a view to secure the safety, much less the comfort, of the workpeople. 23. That there are moreover two practices peculiar to a few districts which deserve the highest reprobation; namely, first, the practice, not unknown in some of the smaller mines in Yorkshire, and common in Lancashire, of employing ropes that are unsafe for letting down and drawing up the workpeople; and, second, the practice, occasionally met with in Yorkshire, and common in Derbyshire and Lancashire, of employing boys at the steam-engines for letting down and drawing up the workpeople. 24. That in general the children and young persons who work in these mines have sufficient food, and, when above ground, decent and comfortable clothing, their usually high rate of wages securing to them these advantages; but in many cases, more especially in some parts of Yorkshire, in Derbyshire, in South Gloucestershire, and and very generally in the East of Scotland, the food is poor in quality, and insufficient in quantity; the children themselves say that they have not enough to eat; and the Sub-Commissioners describe them as covered with rags, and state that the common excuse they make for confining themselves to their homes on the Sundays, instead of 429 taking recreation in the fresh air, or attending a place of worship, is that they have no clothes to go in; so that in these cases, notwithstanding the intense labour performed by these children, they do not procure even sufficient food and raiment: in general, however, the children who are in this unhappy case are the children of idle and dissolute parents, who spend the hard-earned wages of their offspring at the public-house. 25. That the employment in these mines commonly produces, in the first instance, an extraordinary degree of muscular development, accompanied by a corresponding degree of muscular strength: this preternatural development and strength being acquired at the expense of the other organs, as is shown by the general stunted growth of the body. 26. That partly by the severity of the labour and the long hours of work, and partly through the unhealthy state of the place of work, this employment, as at present carried on in all the districts, deteriorates the physical constitution; in the thin-seam mines, more especially, the limbs become crippled and the body distorted; and in general the muscular powers give way, and the workpeople are incapable of following their occupation, at an earlier period of life than is common in other branches of industry. 27. That by the same causes the seeds of painful and mortal diseases are very often sown in childhood and youth; these, slowly but steadily developing themselves, assume a formidable character between the ages of thirty and forty; and each generation of this class of the population is commonly extinct soon after fifty. The Commissioners have, notwithstanding the preceding conclusions, felt bound to report upon the whole : First. That the coal mine, when properly ventilated and drained, and when both the main and the side passages are of tolerable height, is not only not unhealthy, but, the temperature being moderate and very uniform, it is, considered as a place of work, more salubrious and even agreeable than that in which many kinds of labour are carried on above ground. Second. That the labour in which children and young persons are chiefly employed in coal mines, namely, in pushing the loaded carriages of coals from the workings to the mainways or to the foot of the shaft, so far from being in itself an unhealthy employment, is a description of exercise which, while it greatly develops the muscles of the arms, shoulders, chest, back, and legs, without confining any part of the body in an unnatural and constrained posture, might, but for the abuse of it, afford an equally healthful excitement to all the other organs; the physical injuries produced by it, as it is at present carried on, independently of those which are caused by imperfect ventilation and drainage, being chiefly attributable to the early age at which it commences, and to the length of time during which it is continued. When we consider the extent of this branch of industry, the vast amount of capital embarked in it, and the intimate connexion in which it stands with almost all the other great branches of our trade and manufacture, these conclusions are of a very consoling and satisfactory character. One intolerable case there is, however, for which the Commissioners seem to admit there is no remedy but entire abolition. By the evidence collected under this Commission, it is proved that there are coal mines at present in work in which these passages are so small, that even the youngest children cannot move along them without crawling on their hands and feet, in which unnatural and constrained posture they drag the loaded carriages after them; and yet, as it is impossible, by any outlay compatible with a profitable return, to render such coal mines, happily not numerous nor of great extent, fit for human beings to work in, they never will be placed in such a condition, and consequently they never can be worked without inflicting great and irreparable injury on the health of the children. IL-IRON MINES AND WORKS. The characteristic differences between the ironstone mines and the coal mines, as far as those differences influence the manner of working the former, are chiefly these : In the ironstone mines the beds are, for the most part, thin, generally from two to three feet, a little more or less. In many of these pits the ore is in thin bands of two or three inches in width, and very often two thin beds lie near each other, with a substratum of indurated clay beneath them. The miners have only the space between the bands to work in; or if they clear away some space more, it is the smallest possible, on account of the expense. The ironstone found in the form of rounded boulders is distributed through strata of clay, or of clay and sand; and in this case more room is usually afforded for work. The Commissioners report with regard to labour in these mines That on account of the greater weight of the material to be removed, the labour in these mines, which are worked on a system similar to that of the coal mines, is still more severe than that in the latter, and renders the employment of older and stronger children a matter of absolute necessity; while the ironstone pits are in general less perfectly ventilated and drained than the coal mines, and are, therefore, still more unhealthy, producing the same physical deterioration and the same diseases, but in a more intense degree. And in regard to the blast furnaces for reducing the ores of iron, they find— That the operations connected with these works involve the absolute necessity of night work; that children and young persons invariably work at night with the adults; that the universal practice is for one set of workpeople to work one week during the day, and the same set to work the following week during the night; and that there is, moreover, in addition to the evil of alternate weeks of night work, a custom bearing with extreme hardship upon children and young persons, namely, that of continuing the work without any interruption whatever during the Sunday, and thus rendering every alternate Sunday the day during which the labour of one set of workpeople is continued for twenty-four hours in succession; a custom which still prevails, notwithstanding that a considerable proportion of the proprietors have dispensed with the attendance of the workpeople during a certain number of hours on the Sunday, without disadvantage to their works. The necessity of Sunday labour to a large extent at the blast furnaces, is thus explained by Mr. Lane, one of the superintendants of the Colebrook Dale Company. For these twelve years past the furnaces have stood six hours on the Sundays, and sometimes a little longer. No injury arises if the furnace be at the time in a good working state; but if not in a good working state, or if it was to stand too long, the iron would be thick and hard, and would fall into the hearth and set; that is, it would congeal and pass from a fluid into a solid state, and, consequently, when the time came for tapping the furnace to let out the melted iron, it would be necessary to make the opening higher up to let out the fluid iron, and it would be, perhaps, three weeks before all the STATE OF LABOUR IN THE MINES OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. congealed iron came off by little and little, and cleared the furnace. If the furnace were to stand for ten or twelve hours, at the end of that time it would not be in so good a state, it would not make so good iron, and it would be at greater expense; there would be more fuel consumed, and there would be more labour and less iron, and that not so good in quality. When an accident happened by which the furnace was stopped twenty-four hours, it was from a week to nine days before the furnace was set right.... Has known a case where, from an accident, the furnace has stopped eight hours, the furnace was not in good working order after it commenced, and it was not right until the third day. He has frequently known the furnaces in worse condition from stopping the usual six hours on Sundays. III. TIN, COPPER, LEAD, AND, ZINK MINES. The employment of children and young persons in the mines of tin, copper, lead, and zink, has little in common with their employment in mines of coal and iron, on account of the different physical circumstances in which the ores of these metals are found, and the peculiar operations required to separate them from the worthless materials with which they are combined. Instead of forming beds more or less horizontal, and in regular alternation with strata of which the material is for the most part readily removed by the tools of the workmen, these ores are found in veins which variously approach a vertical position, in the hard rocks of the primary formations, or in the scarcely less solid lower beds of the carboniferous system. The ores of tin are found only in the Cornish district, in granitic and slaty rocks, of various structure, which are interspersed occasionally with masses of trap, and extend from Dartmoor, in Devonshire, to the Land's End, in Cornwall. This district is also the most productive in copper ores of any in the British Islands, and contains, moreover, mines of manganese, of iron, and of lead, the ores of which latter often contain a portion of silver, which is worth extracting from the baser metal. Of the various mines of this district, those of tin, copper, and lead present the characteristic features of its mining labour, and employ at least nineteen-twentieths of the young people engaged in it. The ores here obtained are smelted chiefly in South Wales, being shipped to Swansea for the convenience of fuel; but in the other principal mining districts the ores are smelted near the place of their excavation. The elevated district of mountain lime 431 stone, intermingled with various strata of gritstone and shale, which occupies the borders of Northumberland, Durham, and Cumberland, and of which Alston Moor may be considered as the capital, is the only other part of England in which metallic veins are now extensively wrought: these are exclusively of lead, containing a proportion of silver, which is commonly worth extracting. The veins in the mountain limestone of Derbyshire are now nearly exhausted. In Wales, the Plinlimmon district, composed of various qualities of slate, was formerly much celebrated for its metallic products, but is now of inferior importance, and has not been subjected to any special investigation under the terms of the present commission. In the neighbourhood of Snowdon the scattered mines are also of inferior importance. But the mines in the mountain limestone of Flintshire present an important group of works, into which the inquiry has been extended. In Scotland the principal metallic veins that have yet been worked are still those in the clay slate mountains in the neighbourhood of Leadhills, on the borders of Lanarkshire and Dumfries-shire, although trials are also making in various parts of Galloway, and one of them, at Carsephairn, is on a considerable scale. In Ireland, in the slate and limestone rocks of the most mountainous districts, and generally near the sea-coast, there are scattered some mines of copper and lead, but chiefly of copper, for the most part in the counties of Wicklow, Wexford, Waterford, Cork, Kerry, Tipperary, Down, and Armagh. Most of the regions in which the metallic veins occur, are thus seen to be hilly or mountainous. The south-western and the Flintshire districts are the least elevated; the loftiest hills in the former rarely exceeding 1,000 feet above the level of the sea, while the greater number of them range from 500 to 700, and the plains at their bases are in general but from 100 to 200 feet above high water. This circumstance materially affects the comfort of the children and young persons employed in working the mines. With respect to the under ground labour in these mines, the Commissioners report— 1. That very few children are employed in any kind of underground work in these mines before they are twelve years old, and that in many cases even the young men do not commence underground work until they are eighteen years of age and upwards. 2. That there is no instance in the whole kingdom of any girl or woman being employed in underground work in these mines. 3. That it is in the Cornish district alone 432 STATE OF LABOUR IN COPPER, LEAD, AND ZINK WORKS OF GREAT BRITAIN. that children and young persons of any age are constantly employed underground in considerable numbers. 4. That, in general, the children and young persons employed in these mines have sufficient food, and decent and comfortable clothing. 5. That employment in these mines, does not, in general, produce any apparent injury to the young worker during the period of boyhood and adolescence, but that his employment is essentially, and in every mode in which it has hitherto been carried on, necessarily injurious in after life. 6. That the very general and early deterioration and failure of the health and strength of those who have followed this occupation from boyhood and youth, is increased by certain circumstances which are not necessarily connected with the nature of the employment; among these may be reckoned the practice, almost universal in these mines, of associating the young persons in partnership with the adult miners, by which the former are stimulated to exertions greatly beyond their age and powers; and though these young people, thus excited, work with spirit, and without apparent injury, for some time, yet in a few years it is proved by experience that they have expended the whole capital of their constitution. 7. That this result is materially hastened by the fatigue of climbing the ladders; these being, with few exceptions, the only means by which the miners can go to and return from their places of work. 8. That these, however, are only the accessory causes of the general and rapid deterioration of the health and strength of the miners; since the primary and ever active agent which principally produces this result is the noxious air of the places in which the work is carried on; the difficulties connected with the purification and renovation of this air, and with the whole subject of ventilation, being incomparably greater in the mines in question than in coal mines. 9. That the ultimate effect of the disadvantageous circumstances under which the miner is obliged to pursue his laborious occupation, is the production of certain diseases (seated chiefly in the organs of respi ration), by which he is rendered incapable of following his work, and by which his existence is terminated at an earlier period than is common in other branches of industry, not excepting even that of the collier. With regard to the surface employments connected with dressing the ores of tin, copper, lead, and zink, the Commissioners find That these employments, though entered into at very early ages, and in the Cornish district by great numbers of girls as well as boys, are wholly free from the evils connected with the underground work; that, with the exception of a very injurious exposure to the inclemency of the weather, which might be obviated by a small expenditure in providing shelter, and with the exception of two or three occupations, such as those of "bucking" and "jigging," for the manual labour of which the substitution of machinery is gradually taking place, there is nothing in this branch of mining industry injurious, oppressive, or incompatible with the maintenance even of robust health, which indeed is described as the general condition of the workpeople; the children and young persons thus employed having commonly sufficient food, and warm and decent clothing, being subjected to no harsh or tyrannical treatment, and enjoying an almost complete immunity from any serious danger. Dr. Barham, one of the Sub-Commissioners, states that an experiment of lowering and raising the miners by machinery has lately been, for the first time, made in Cornwall, at the great copper mine Tresavean, in Gwennap. The method adopted has been very little varied from that long in use in the mines in the Hartz in Germany, being that of two parallel rods, with stages projecting from them at intervals of about 12 feet, of a convenient size for one man to stand upon. One rod being made to descend while the other ascends, the miner steps from his stage or platform on one rod to that which he finds opposite to it on the other rod, and by this alternate change he is conveyed up or down the shaft without any other exertion. The moving power to which the rods are attached is at present a water wheel. This experiment, which has been perfectly successful, has been carried into effect by the spirited and benevolent exertions of the principal lords and adventurers of Tresavean, stimulated and aided by the Royal Polytechnic Society of Cornwall. The Commissioners reserve for a future Report the subject of Tin Works; but report with respect to the others, that in smelting the ores of lead, near the places at which they are raised, no children, and very few young persons, are engaged, but that in the copper works of South Wales, in which the Cornish ores are smelted, and in those of North Wales, which reduce the ores raised in their vicinity, a number of children and young persons are employed, from nine years of age and upwards (in South Wales girls as well as boys), of whom those engaged at the calcining furnaces regularly work with the men twenty-four hours consecutively, or alternate days, without excepting the Sunday; a term of work which is |