Britain at Work
A Pictorial Description of Our National Industries

28 BRITAIN AT WORK. women are show- ing a disposition to quit the fireside to compete with men in various profes- sions and trades, that in the ’forties the English and Scotch pits con- tained girl and women workers. They were in the main an ignorant set, and their toil debased them. The conditions of life in the pit were so barbarous that the attention of the Government was directed to the scandalous incid- ents of the mine. is given to pillar working, narrow ways being cut this way and that in the seam, leaving solid blocks of coal to be worked out. The long-wall system, in vogue in most other pits, consists of the making of tram roads to the face, and working out the coal along its whole length of the seam, or so much of it as has been roofed and propped to facilitate excavation. The “ iron man ”—the collier’s name for the coal - cutting machine — is gradually coming into more extensive use in some pits. It is in the pit what the “Tearing Devil,” or steam navvy, is in railway cutting. It works without comment about pay and hours of labour, and has been found useful wherever tried. In the Scotch pits the coal- cutting machine has become a valuable adjunct in production, and it will, as time elapses and the thick seams get worked out, prove of the greatest utility in cutting thin seams, not only in Great Britain but in many other parts of the world. The collier is better paid than formerly for his day’s toil, which lasts from six o’clock in the morning, with his interval for “ snap,” till about two o’clock in the afternoon. He also works under more improved and safer con- ditions than he did sixty years ago. Then the ventilation was bad and the tone of the mine depraved. It is singular to note to-day, when Women were, immediately after the Govern- ment inquiry, prohibited from working in coal-pits ; but they were permitted to continue their toil as “ pit-brow lassies ” in unloading, screening, and sorting the coal on the pit banks. They have, to use the language of the Legislature, become a “ noble and fine class of women ”; and there is no more striking picture in English industrial life than a Wigan pit-brow lass, clad in close- fitting pitman’s cap, rough jacket, short skirt, well-patched moleskin trousers, and Lancashire clogs, twirling a laden corve. The miner has, by organisation and labour leader, made himself heard not only in the conference of coal-owners but in Par- liament, and he consequently works under superior conditions as to pay and environ- ment. The ventilation is as perfect as known system of up-cast and down-cast shaft, and pumping, fanning, and the sprinkling of coal-dust can make it. The main road and the working place are maintained in better repair, and special attention is about to be given to timbering, with the object of pre- venting, as far as possible, the falls of bind that the miner dreads almost as much as the more disastrous but rarer explosion. There has been improvement in safety- lamp, in pit lighting by electricity, and in