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252 The Leader and Saturday Atialyst. [M...
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THE CAUSES AND PREVENTION OF COAL-PIT EX...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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The Qkeat Domestic Ml Milt V. W Ill Ther...
Ladies , we think , would do well to remember that human nature at the best is made of poor , weak stuff , and that » t is foolish , nay worse cruel and wicked , to make that hard life more ase « tic and unnatural than it need'fairly be . Yott hired a servant for service , and here you are enforcing slavery , not quite in the Brownkigge way , ifc is true , for that way has its penalties-, but still often harshly , capriciously , unfeelingly , hardly , tyrannously ; and then , forsooth , you wonder that the creature is so . ' ruthless , -unprincipled , and selfish as to crack a tumbler , burn a muffin , send the beef up raw , or boil the fish to a rag . Master
The remedy for this social evil is not easily to be found . and servant get further apart than they used to dp . A great- social Atlantic rolls between ' the parlour and 'kitchen doors , and kindness is the only spell that can be found to dry it up . When , servants were treated as foster-children of the house , they loved as children ; now that they are treated like enemies , they act like enemies . It is sad to see the city man snubbing the poor tradesman , and the '' swell" snubbing- both , sowing- the -seeds for a thorny . erop _ of hatreds and social jealousies ; but the suspicion and dislike" growingup daily between master and servant is more dangerous and painful- ' still . There must be confidence and mutual forbearance , m- our servants will grow still more like Arabs , both as to their love fur change and plunder , than they are even now . laints servants isthat
One of the most frequent comp against , they are generally found incapable of discharging- the duties they have undertaken to perform ; that , iu fact , they are mere uneducated labourers , not worth their wages . Weil , indeed , if they are not also , -in ' addition .,-idle , vicious , ' bad tempered , or . drunken . . If there is . any mure truth in this complaint now than there was thirty years ago , we imagine'it-arises ' from . the simple law of markets . An insufficient supply has- forced inadequate campetitovS to obtain situations , who , years ago , would have married labourers and staged at home in their villages . There is such a . demand for servants that / there is . nothing to hinder , the capricious frOin changing at their own wild will their line of employment . The good cook , misled by a ' miserable" ambition caricaturing that of our race and age ,, becomes a clumsy lady ' s-maid ; the neat nurse girl becomes a slovenly cook ; and , so ' abundant are situations , that such foolish ambitions often escape their natural retributions ..
Much ' more ' might be done to secure the efficiency of servants . Every national school in England should have a class of intended servants , who should be trained-specially for . domestic , duties '; and there is no rjasoii why the kitchens'of w " or kho . us . es should not be a training school for the more stead y ¦ and . 'lnfe'lligenfc of the pauper g-irls , who , on leaving , might be presented with testimonials of efficiency , which might be useful in obtaining-them situations ; There is also great room for an elementary training school for servants of all kinds , who , on passing * successfully through certain examinations , might be regwtered as A . 1 . for any applicant who sought for them ; and to obtain these- certificates , which would ensure good and lasting employment and high wages , there might be a system of short apprenticeship with families ,, who for low wages would consent to the arrangements on condition of raising the pay to
the ordinary level , when the girl could take her B . A .- . or ma . degree m domestic labour . What we want is some proof less puinful and expensive than experience , that the servant we are engaging to cook can really oook , has been taught to cook , and understands the why and wherefore , just as we are able to find out that swaggering- Captain 13 ouncer i . s really in the army , or that our Family Doctor has passed the College of Surgeons and is a lawful practitioner ., If we can get i \ Uo a proof . of . skill and worth all the better ; as for the present system of characters they are worse than useless . A girl branded as bad , as ii t } iietf , and a drunkard , goes on obtainingexcellent places ^ —one every three mouths- —^ by either a forged ohariioter or a testimonial obtained from her first place . What we \ v * nt is a servants' training school ; for we htive all found by this , time to our cost , that the duties of domestic service are not to be learnt by mere instinct .
252 The Leader And Saturday Atialyst. [M...
252 The Leader and Saturday Atialyst . [ March 17 , 186 a
The Causes And Prevention Of Coal-Pit Ex...
THE CAUSES AND PREVENTION OF COAL-PIT EXPLOSIONS . rriJIE terriblp explosion in Bnrrudon pit has occasioned greater JL interest than . most preceding explosions , and a very influential meeting has been hold at Newcastle , during which Mr . Pattinson , a gentleman of' high chemical reputation , has attributed this and similar catastrophes to tho inadequate provisions of the c ' quI-owners and managers . This ohnrg-o has boon on many occasions boldly mude and strongly denied . The public cannot judgo nb all upon ihis matter , as they know nothing of the causes of these fearful catastrophes . Wo shall endeavour , in a brief apaco , to put our readers in the possession of such facts as may enable thorn to form an iinnartiul opinion on the subject . It may bo as well to obaorvo
in starting , that wo speak from local knowledge of tho Northern coal-ficlda ; and from personal examination of the coal-pits , while we are bo ciroumHtanood as to bo entirely uninfluenced by any motive bomdos that of unxiety to inufce known the truth . We ^ ni ghb apeak in technical and scientific language , but wo prefer to adopt the moat popular stylo of which tho topic admits . A largo north of England coal-pit is n very onerous charge . Its financial muntijjomont is somewhat laborious ; its soientifid management still more so ; and tho moral responsibility of onsuring its safety is of more mom on t than both finance find science . All this rests primarily upon the viowor , as tho hoad man of tho management is looally termed . Tho hoad-viowor is generally a man of much mining oxporionqo , and some scientific acquaintance with whatever concerns n qoal-pit . If very experienced , and . therefore
eminent , he may have the charge of two , three , or . four collieries ^ and it is evident that , in suchcases , he must perform much of his work by deputy . His chief deputy is his underyiewer , who should reside " at the niine of which he is in charge ; and nearly every mine has such a resident officer , who is in fact , though not in Maine , the manager of the mine . Under him are overmen , deputies , wastemen , lamp-keepers ^ and several subordinates , all of whom have to report to and take orders from the resident viewer , or under viewer , who is to them all that the colonel is to his regiment in 'the- army . The financial department is commonly in charge of another person , who has clerks at his bidding in an adjacent office .
. A viewer ' s or underviewer ' s business is not difficult in some mines % very arduous in others . This arises from the circumstance that some mines are " fiery , " and others less or scarcely at all so . In the latter cases the management is mere routine work ; in the former it has to deal with far more unmanageable things than stone and coal beds , or than even crotchety and discontented workpeopleviz ., the dangerous gases which exude from the coal . A man who has to keep a perpetual watch for " fire damp" must always sleep , as the saying is . with one eye open ; for his enemy is never totally destroyed , but only defeated , and kept back by the constant agency of superior force . In fact , fire damp in a fiery pit is much iiv the condition of the Roman people at Rome—kept down by the French troops , but ever ready to spring- up in ruthless attack nt t"he moand
ment when the - French soldiers march away , llpine Naples are the Italian counterparts of Newcastle fiery pits . Unceasing vigilance-and ' -unfailing counterforces -alone can prevent an explosion in all . Chemically , 'the fire damp is light carbureted hydrpg-en gas , and is akin to the heavier gas of the same nature which is distilled from coal in bur gasometers , and burnt in . our streets and public places . The explosions , which sometimes happen in-shops ,.. cellars , and confined places , in consequence of an escape of gas , are not far different'from : those of which we . are now speaking . Very much the same insidious enemy has to be dealt with in . the shop orcellar as in the coal pit . The latter is a natural gasometer , in which nature is herself perpetually distilling fiery gas ; so that in a very short space of time the long- arid . numerous , passages of an extensive pit become charged "With , fire damp , and' as the pitman says , "fouled " throughout .
Notwithstanding- researches into the natural condition of tins gas ( they have not been ' many or extended ) in the coal strata , it is impossible to say in what form it really exists there . Certain it is , that some seams of coal are filled with it- 'to excess , and we ourselves have stood by portions of coal whence it . was heard to issue with a low hissing or seething noise . It is probable that it exists in these seams in a high state of tension , and that the operations of-the coal hewer , by diminishing the pressure upon it , and removing- the strata that cover it give it a freedom which oftentimes proves fatal to himself or his fellows . The old story in the " Arabian Nights , " respecting the fisherman who set at liberty the r / oii , or spirit of the sealed casket , is realized in the mines of the north . Unhappily , the spirits of the coal pjt are always noxious and malevolent .
One of the most striking proofs of the power of this gas , apart from an explosion , is , that on certain occasions and in certain pits , it cornea forth in . the form of " blowers . " A blower seems to be occasioned by the sudden escape of carburetted hydrogen in a larger quantity than usual , in consequence of its liberation by falls of root' or removal of matter ; What the blowing-off steam from a locomotive is at a railway station , a gas blower seems to bo in a pit . It is a turn of the natural valve-handle in the shape of the movement of a mass of stone or coal . Such is tho tension of tho gas in its original reservoir , and aueh its force in issue , that ' great , blocks of stone or shale htivo sometimes been thrown off violently to a distance j and in one instance two or threo tons of matter were thus hurled forth into the gallery of tho mine . The outburst of a blower is one of the moat dangerous of all pit changes , as the issue of gas iy fur too rapid and too ample for 'dilution in tho ordinary manner . To this cause inany of the fatal explosions in the northern pits are attributed . A fall from tho roof U named at Burradon pit .
Thp amount of . fire damp exuding by ordinary processes is generally capablo of being nou (; ralizod by u duo admixture , with ntmosphorio air . Curtain proportions of fire dump and common aiir are ONplQHivo upon tho contact of | lame , and oovtajm othors are not . These proportions are known , a * id the aim of managers is to secure these commixtures by an onioienfc system of' ventilation . Nowhere has ventilation been so syntomutioally practised us in tho Nowcastle coail pits . Though formerly very niuch nogleoted-and ill understood , itjhas , within the last twonty or thirty years , hoan grcatjy improved .
The system proceeds upon the simple principle of tho dilfrironco between two columns of air in two separate shafts of a mine , on « of which columns is at its ordinary temperature , and tho othor at a higher tompernture . Manifestly , tho warmer of tho two columns , or Bhafts , wjll draw to itself tho colder air , and thus cause ventilation , just as tlie chimney of our parlours being hotter thnn the doorway , draws to itHt'lf air from tho latter . ' Tho larger our parlour live , tho greater the ainoxmt of air it sucks in towards Hsu If , mid tho creator tho draft of tho chimney . So in the coal pit , to incroaso is ianuiott b tno ooicorn uia
tho upward druf b an immonsu nre « ur upward ( called tlio " upcast" ) shufb , and tho interior of that shaft bocomofi so raveliod that it acts m a large chimney to tho whole Interior , while tine other ( called " tho downonst" ) shaft (\ cto as the doorway to lot in , air . It tho tonaporature in the upoiihv nhni't b & from forty to oifcrhty degrees , wo can toll what the amount t > f tho descending and iiseondiny current of air will bo . So far all is eiinplo , nnd , tho pjits nxi { yhb bo easily veutilatod .,
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), March 17, 1860, page 8, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_17031860/page/8/
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