Scenes And Incidents From The Life Of A Practical Miner
With A Treatise On The Ventilation Of Coal Mines

40 pect of profit; I was insufficiently remunerated, even for the actual labour, without the industrious contrivance and responsibility. For who do you think planned, constructed, directed, and completed all this vast variety of work but myself. The cl lief agent never saw the operations, neither did he devise or suggest anything beyond formal orders. I am induced to insert these truths, from the fact, that practical miners, how- ever intelligent, or however skilful in experimental knowledge, are ex- cluded from governmental consideration, as being fit and proper persons for the inspection of the coal mines; I also wish to show that they are the most suitable for the Government to rely on, as they are those in whom the miners have most confidence. A suggestion of this kind, however, like all other reforms and improvements, is viewed with a pre- judicial eye, and cannot be admitted. The time has not yet come for the acceptance of clever, intelligent, practical miners into the service of the Government and the country. Yet come that time when it will, and when it does come it will be to the unanimous satisfaction of the miners. After enumerating these particular incidents as a small fractional por- tion of my own practical experience in the coal mine, in which I myself bore the most prominent part, it may perhaps be the wish of some to doubt the veracity of my statements on one or each of those accidents or events. If so, I wish him to particularise the how and where through the public press, where he will find them corroborated by living witnesses, and if necessary a further explanation from myself will be forthcoming Or it may be the author’s lot to find that some may scrutinise and criti- cise on the absence of education, and hold his imperfections up to public view. In this I humbly beg a lenient forbearance, as I assure them T have done the best I could to make the subject by them properly understood. And I know the generous mind will respond to my appeal, particularly when I tell them that in my youth there were none, or few, colliery vil- lages that had schools in them. Consequently many a brave miner’s boy was put into the pit without any knowledge of letters. The little they knew they had learned by rote, or acquired by instinct; and you who are bom under a more favourable state of things ought to look upon the exertions of your forefathers with admiration and gratitude, and be thankful for the wonderful advance of science and civilisation, those beautiful products of the march of intellect. Permit me to relate to yon circumstantially an occurrence from the history of my early life in the way of an anecdote. It relates to a period when I was ten years old. It cannot be interesting, but it may be amusing and excite your sympathy. Pleasure-seekers who frequent the banks of Tynemouth in the summer season of the year will, 1 have no doubt, often regale themselves with a draught of that hydro -sulphuretted stream, or supposed spring, issuing from the bank side a little to the north of Tynemouth. Little do they know the cost of toil that brought it there. In 1812 the owners of Whitley Colliery, then working in the top seam to the south and west of the colliery village, deemed it neces- sary to drive a drift east by south from the then working places, for the purpose of freeing tlie mine of a portion of its water. After duly examin- ing the locality, and an accurate survey having been made on the sur-