he lodes of metal
for a per-centage which varies with the varying value of the mineral
raised. It is, however, necessary to add here, that, although men who
labour on this latter plan, occasionally make as much as six or ten
pounds each, in a month, they are on the other hand liable to heavy
losses from the speculative character of the work in which they engage.
The lode may, for instance, be poor when they begin to work it, and may
continue poor as they proceed farther and farther. Under these
circumstances, the low value of the mineral they have raised, realizes a
correspondingly low rate of per-centage; and when this happens, the best
workmen cannot make more than twenty shillings a month.

Another system on which the men are employed, is the system of
"contract." A certain quantity of ore in the rock is mapped out by the
captain of the mine; and put up to auction among the miners thus:--One
man mentions a sum for which he is willing to undertake excavating the
ore, upon the understanding that he is himself to pay for the
assistance, candles, &c., out of the price he asks. Another man, who is
also anxious to get the contract, then offers to accept it on lower
terms; a third man's demand is smaller still; and so they proceed until
the piece of work is knocked down to the lowest bidder. By this sort of
labour the contracting workman--after he has paid his expenses for
assistance--seldom clears more than twelve shillings a week.

Upon the whole, setting his successful and his disastrous speculations
fairly against each other, the Cornish miner's average gains, year by
year, may be fairly estimated at about ten shillings a week. "It's hard
work we have to do, sir," said my informant, summing up, when we parted,
the proportions of good and evil in the social positions of his brethren
and himself--"harder work than people think, down in the heat and
darkness under ground. We may get a good deal at one time, but we get
little enough at another; sometimes mines are shut up, and then we are
thrown out altogether--but, good work or bad work, or no work at all,
what with our bits of ground for potatoes and greens, and what with
cheap living, somehow we and our families make it do. We contrive to
keep our good cloth coat for Sundays, and go to chapel in the
morning--for we're most of us Wesleyans--and then to church in the
afternoon; so as to give 'em both their turn like! We never go near the
mine on Sundays, except to look af