no truer conclusion than that men and women
are good fellows in the main. The bond of
fellowship clips all society together, and is a
law of nature much more powerful than all
the laws of all the lands.

A recognition of this truth should lie at
the base of all discussion about men. Thus
it is possible to blame—and I do, for my own
part, blame heavily—the supineness of many
pit-owners in adopting measures of precaution
for the safety of the men. This, however
arises, not from carelessness of life, but from
that habit of doing to-day what was done
yesterday, out of which it is usually so very
difficult to force an Englishman. The relations
between pit-owner and pit-men I have
always seen to be very much more cordial
than those between a farmer and his labourers.
The pit-men, as being a more independent
race, are more likely to strike than the farm
labourers; but, they are, as a rule, infinitely
less disposed to be dissatisfied with their
employers. When they are sick, they send
to them not in vain for wine and little sick-
room luxuries; they also confide in them
often, when they require help in private
trouble. Attending as surgeon at the sick-
bed of the ill-paid agricultural labourer, I
have found him languishing unaided in his
poverty. The law of settlement has perhaps
driven him to lodge far away from his master's
farm; but, far or near, sickness has
thrown him on the parish for relief, and for
comfort he looks out of his own little
poverty-stricken circle rarely beyond the
clergyman and union surgeon. Among the miners,
on the contrary, I have found that, in time
of sickness, the master gave more than a
good word to the sufferers. Their sick funds
usually kept them from the parish; and, for
the supply of any little want that was beyond
their means, they trusted safely in the master's
liberality. A note to him from the
doctor was as good as a bank-note for any
necessary. His sympathy, too, was direct;
and he was not the only friend and helper.
I have never seen anywhere so distinctly as
among the mines, the rich helping the poor,
knowing them all personally, visiting them
when sick, and sorry without ostentation or
intrusion—looked upon by them as helpers
and friends without any mean or cringing
flattery. From a west country Paradise
—where every man in a round frock, stranger
or not stranger, bowed to my hat and black
coat as to an idol—I went to a middle or
north country Pandemonium; where my first
day's ride was in company with an
unpopular man, (though nobody heaved half a brick
at me) yet, certainly, irreverent boys hooted
as I passed. Experience, however, proved
that the people in the Pandemonium paid
respect when it was earned, and only then;
whereas, the people in the Paradise were
ready with their outward worship whether
goodwill had been earned or not.

They were the same men in each case. I
mean to say no more than that, according to
my own experience, the collier lives under
conditions by which he is developed better,
as a man, than the farm labourer. That the
better state is much below what ought to be
the worst, it will be only too easy to show.

The first advantage that the miner gains
over the agricultural labourer is, that he is
three times better paid—and then is not too
highly paid, considering the peril of his
occupation—that his work is constant, and
that, if it please him to go from one mining
district to another, he can have no difficulty
in changing his employer. He has the
disadvantage of close underground work, that
tempts strongly to the taking of a Monday's
as well as a Sunday's holiday in the sun; a
complete deprival, during a great part of life,
of the humanising influence exerted by the
sights and sounds of nature; and therefore a
more than ordinary temptation to break the
monotony of life with sensual indulgence.
In the galleries of a mine, monotony of life and
occupation is complete; but there can be little
or no monotony to a man labouring above
ground under the sun. The aspect of the sky
changes incessantly, the winds make every
kind of music, birds come and go, trees blossom,
bear fruit, and shed their leaves, and
the labourer on the earth changes his own
work with the changes of the season. Very
different is the work of the man always shut
up in the same black cavern, dealing the
same dull blows with the pick in the same
heavy atmosphere, hearing the same come
and go of trucks all the year round; the
deadly monotony only broken by seeing, every
now and then, a companion burnt, or maimed,
or killed, in the pursuit of his cheerless
vocation.

We cannot wonder, then, if we find
men who have not been reasonably well
educated, seeking change from such a life
in sensual indulgence. This fault in their
character would be more evident and painful
than it is, if it were not to a considerable
degree checked by the opportunity afforded
them of forming families. The women do
not labour in the mines. The husbands and
sons earn enough for the wants of the house:
even the young girls earn money on the pit-bank.
Thus the mother is free to stay in the
house, to maintain cleanliness, to market, to
bake the week's bread of the household, to
wash, and to mend. The father and sons go
home from their work, wash off the coal-dirt,
and find ready prepared for them a hot meal,
both more necessary and more attractive
than anything they would be likely to find in
the public-house. They come home tired;
and, after eating, they are lazy. They go early
to bed, because they are obliged to be up at
four or five in the morning for their work,
Here is obviously a very great natural check
upon undue indulgence; and, although in the
pit-country, public-houses are numerous,
and much frequented at night, yet, as a rule