man, and suffocates
every one who gets into it. The doors which separate the sections of the
mines are meant to prevent the propagation of explosions and the movement
of the gases; but since they are entrusted to small children, who often
fall asleep or neglect them, this means of prevention is illusory. A
proper ventilation of the mines by means of fresh air-shafts could almost
entirely remove the injurious effects of both these gases. But for this
purpose the bourgeoisie has no money to spare, preferring to command the
working-men to use the Davy lamp, which is wholly useless because of its
dull light, and is, therefore, usually replaced by a candle. If an
explosion occurs, the recklessness of the miner is blamed, though the
bourgeois might have made the explosion well-nigh impossible by supplying
good ventilation. Further, every few days the roof of a working falls
in, and buries or mangles the workers employed in it. It is the interest
of the bourgeois to have the seams worked out as completely as possible,
and hence the accidents of this sort. Then, too, the ropes by which the
men descend into the mines are often rotten, and break, so that the
unfortunates fall, and are crushed. All these accidents, and I have no
room for special cases, carry off yearly, according to the _Mining
Journal_, some fourteen hundred human beings. The _Manchester Guardian_
reports at least two or three accidents every week for Lancashire alone.
In nearly all mining districts the people composing the coroner's juries
are, in almost all cases, dependent upon the mine owners, and where this
is not the case, immemorial custom insures that the verdict shall be:
"Accidental Death." Besides, the jury takes very little interest in the
state of the mine, because it does not understand anything about the
matter. But the Children's Employment Commission does not hesitate to
make the mine owners directly responsible for the greater number of these
cases.

As to the education and morals of the mining population, they are,
according to the Children's Employment Commission, pretty good in
Cornwall, and excellent in Alston Moor; in the coal districts, in
general, they are, on the contrary, reported as on an excessively low
plane. The workers live in the country in neglected regions, and if they
do their weary work, no human being outside the police force troubles
himself about them. Hence, and from the tender age at which children are
put to