of alteration. The native overlookers won't
do it, because, for reasons of their own, they
wish matters to remain as they are. Their own
advisers and orators won't do it, because they
are, on principle, opposed to anything that
conduces to their clients' comfort without elevating
themselves. In 1865, an average year, the
deaths underground from explosion in the whole
of England, Wales, and Scotland were but one
hundred and sixty-eight, while those from other
causes underground were, in round numbers,
nine hundred. The deaths from falls of the
coal and the roof in the same period amounted
to three hundred and eighty-one, or two hundred
and thirteen more than from all the explosions
of the year put together. Deaths from
explosion are rare, considering the numbers
employed and the nature of the work; and as
raising a false issue and directing agitation to
the points which need amendment least, is
a favourite device of conservatives and
obstructives, " I wish," said the friend whom I
questioned upon the two accidents of that one
day, "I wish all who are, like yourself,
interested in the welfare and safety of the
pitmen, to understand what their real dangers and
hardships are, and how easily some of them
might be avoided.

"The second man you saw carried home had
been knocked down by one of the large
unwieldy trams or waggons in use here, which
weigh nine hundredweight when empty and
about a ton and a half when filled with coal.
These are especially dangerous when they come
down ' a heavy dip'— that is, when the coal lies
at a steep inclination, as was the case when
the man was injured this morning. There was
no means of stopping the tram after he fell, so,
as it passed over his legs, it cracked them like
sticks of sealing-wax. But the atmospheric
engine you saw at work when you were down
yesterday will do more to stop this kind of
accident than even the small tubs we hope to
introduce in place of the trams. That little
engine actually does the work of fourteen horses,
fourteen men, and fourteen boys, in bringing
the coal from the working places to the bottom
of the shaft; and it will, we hope, gradually
supersede human and animal labour in that
branch of pit-work. You see, after the coal has
been hewn out by the colliers, the trams (filled
with it are brought to the shaft by another set
of men, called ' hauliers;' and it was to this
class that the victim you saw last belonged."

There seemed to be some unhappy fatality
connected with my visit to Wales, for the day after
the foregoing conversation, while riding over
an adjacent mountain, we came upon another
wounded collier. We were a considerable distant
from any dwelling, and had just cantered across
one of the expansive prairie-like sheep-walks
with which the mountains hereabouts abound
when we overtook a party of five men engaged
in supporting and encouraging a sixth, who
bestrode a rough pit-horse, which, in its working
gear and harness, plodded slowly along the path.
The injured man's eyes and head were bound up
in a coloured handkerchief, but the lower part of
his face was visible, aud was swollen and
discoloured as that of a corpse which has been long
drowned. I trace a dreadful resemblance in it to
a figure I once saw lying blackened and shapeless
in the Morgue at Paris, and hastily, and
not without a feeling of sudden sickness, ask
his companions what has happened. " Blasting
the coal, master, when the charge went off
before hur were wanted and blowed hur eyes
out," is given in reply. His companions hold
him on the horse, walking on each side and
behind him, propping and balancing his body
much as if it were a heavy sack set endways
on the clumsy steed. Though so fearfully
disfigured, this man is not insensible, and drinks
freely from the bottle put to his mouth by the
man at the horse's head. These colliers have been
digging out from a " level" near— a place in the
nountain where the coal crops up to the surface—
and are now wending their way to the injured
man's home in the valley below. We have the
satisfaction of learning, later, that his sight is saved
and his injuries not so severe as they seemed;
but we learn, at the same time, that his
accident is no uncommon one, and that, though
seldom fatal, it injures many pitmen every year.
It too often proceeds from carelessness in
the men. This collier, for instance, only
had his own imprudence to thank for his
misfortune. He was engaged, in blasting down
the coal with gunpowder, when the charge
exploded unexpectedly. Now, the operation of
blasting is performed thus: The man drills a
hole in the " face " of the coal an inch in
diameter and about three feet deep. In this hole
he places a cartridge filled with gunpowder,
attached to the end of a thin iron rod, called
a " pricker." He then fills the hole round the
"pricker " with coal-dust, which he rams home
so as to make it solid and compact. The
"pricker " is next withdrawn, leaving a small
hole, into which a fuze is inserted, and this, after
it is ignited, gives the man sufficient time to get
out of the way before the explosion takes place.
This man, it was said, went back too soon
His instructions were not to go back at all; but
they will do it, nearly all of them, only to save
themselves the trouble of drilling another hole.
This kind of accident, moreover, is almost
always caused by indiscretion in putting in
too "quick" or too "slow" a fuze, so that
in the one instance the miner has not time
to retire out of danger, and in the other the
fuze takes such a long time to ignite the charge
that the man, thinking it has missed fire, returns
for the purpose of putting in a fresh fuze, when
the explosion suddenly takes place.

The three casualties described occurred
within twenty-four hours, two of the most
seriovts close to and within a short time of each
other. The victims seen by the writer all
belonged to the same valley, and their injuries
were attributed by the people interested to
defects in the system which it would be easy
to remove. Is it unreasonable to infer that,