tea—in some places beer, but it is not common.
It's a grand thing, cause they know it's t'
game the biggest gentlemen play at, and that
there's no call to be ashamed o' playing it. For
it's a great mistak' to suppose you can treat
our men like children, or amuse 'em wi' wot
wouldn't amuse yoursen. That's the fault I've
found wi' o' many t' people. They borrers t' big
school-room of t' owners, and perhaps gives 'em
a lectur' which is made up out o' childer's
books. Shows 'em a magic lanthorn, and tries
to mak 'em laugh at wot they know is rubbish.
Pitmen aren't fools, sir; and they have their
bit of 'cocking,' and their dog-match, at holiday
time, because they like it, and you'll never
get a stop put to it till you get 'em to like
something else better. So any game; I don't keer
whether it's cricket for out-o'-doors, or playing
at markers, or at billiards, or quoits, I'm
glad to see 'em come in, and so is t' owners
when they're wise. For you can't mend t' men's
condition without making it better for t' trade.
T' owners foind our pitmen in a good deal.
He has a hoose rent free; all his coals and
water are led to his door for almost nought
—that is, he only pays a few pence a
fortnight for leading. A school's found for his
children, and when he's working full toime he can
earn as much wages as many a mon who's had a
fair eddication and sits all day at a desk. Hoose-
rent, and coals, and eddication aren't bad things
to hav' for next to nothing; and if a pitman is a
real worker, and sober and clever, he's pretty
certain to rise. Many o' the chief viewers in
these parts hav' been colliers; so hav' some of
t' principal owners. You see oor great point is
to keep oor men's working power at full pitch,
and to waaste none of it; and every pit in
t' north has a regular staff of helpers and
surveyors like, besoides the pitmen. Here, now,
in the very spot you're down in now, we've a
manager who's a first-rate practical coal
engineer (he wer' once a pitman, and has raised
hisself by work). Often, mind you, there's a
head-manager who, besides, looks after several
collieries, and is a scientific mon, who'll have a
salary and commission of a thousand or more a
year. Then comes the under-viewer, whose
nearly allus come up from t' ranks. He goes
down t' pit ivvery day, and reports, generally
in writing, upon t' state of t' workings, whether
t' arches want roofing, whether there's any
escape of gas, state of t' roads, t' quantities
worked, and such like. Under him are overmen,
deppities, and firemen, all helping in superintendence;
and then there's fillers, and pitters, and
getters—the last being those who actually get
the coal. Ivvery thing's done wi' us to keep
t' men to their real work, and not to let 'em
fritter away their time by undertaking hauf-a-
duzzin' things—ower many. Them little ponies
are not much bigger than Newfoundland dogs,
and t'lads with 'em are not ovver large. That's
to keep down t' size of t' headways and t' workings.
You see each working, or what I dare
say you'd ca' each passage, mun' be as high as
the biggest thing that hes tu gang through it.
That's reason, aren't it? And if we were to use
horses and men instead of ponies and lads, it
would just mak' a difference of thousands
o' pounds to t' owners. Not so much in
the six- foot workings you've been through
to-day. T' seam o' coal reaches as deep as
that, and it pays well enoo' to get it oot.
But weer there's stone above and stone below
perhaps, and t' coal's only perhaps three or
four feet high, to mak' a spot big enough for
a horse wo'd be just madness. Ponies do t'
work ivvery bit as well too, for we've t' trams
made in proportion and quickly filled. We
work double shifts here too, that is, hauf our
getters work for eight hours, an' the rest for
another eight; t' remaining eight of t' twenty-
fower bein' takken up wi' inspection and firemen
work. Then we've three men at a face, so
as to work it out, and go on to another as quick
as possible. I'm certain it's best. You'll find
a different method in Waales, weer you say
you're going; but our plan of hewing ivverything
brought down to t' smallest compass, and
compressing t' men's work as much as possible,
ansers roight weel, and we dinna seek to mend
it. For small parts weer t' seam runs varry
narrow, we've small 'corbs,' wi' sharp kiels at
t' bottom, which t' men can shove before 'em;
and t' workings are theer only big enough for
a mon to creep alang shoving his corb in
front of him. We sometimes lose t' seam for
a bit, and find it fallen or risen for sivveral
yards. Look here now (tapping a stratum at the
side of the dark passage with his divining-rod),
these marks show us weer we sho'd foind it
again: if they run up, t' coal will be above us;
it' they run down, t' seam will be below. (Turning
round quickly to what was a distant and
flickering glowworm a moment ago, but is now
a grimy man dangling a lantern.) Weel, Tom
lad, thoo'se come to work, hes thee? Good lad,
good lad!" From this time the lights and
voices become frequent, and "the second shift,"
or reserve army, come in for their eight hours'
work. Our guide's accent became broader and
deeper as he addressed them, and the tone and
manner of their replies were highly suggestive
of a sturdy, free-and-easy independence.
When, too, we have squatted on the cage for
the ascent, four miners, whose turn of work is
over, jump on with us after the bell has rung
for starting. Of course they'd more right there
than we had, and we prudently held our tongues;
but for all that I couldn't help feeling injured
when one black mass of animated coal-dust
plumped down upon my knee, and another
familiarly held on with a naked, blackened, and
recently perspiring arm about my neck.

Three days later I am in South Wales—in
a fertile valley surrounded by lofty hiils which
rise and fall in graceful undulations against an
horizon murky with coal smoke. Pits are everywhere.
Coal is apparently at every corner, and
iron to be had for the working, which has been
discontinued latterly as unremunerative. The
pilasters supporting the balcony which stretch
from end to end of the mansion I am staying
at are of iron extracted from the soil around;