worker of necessity is obliged to work in a constrained position, often
lying on his side; and you can fancy the labour of using a pick in such
a position. To get an idea of the position, just place yourself under a
table, and then try to use a pick, and it will give you a pretty clear
idea of the comfortable way in which a great part of our coal is got,
and this also at a temperature of 86° in bad air. The object, of
course, of the worker is to take nothing but coal, as all labour is lost
that is spent in taking any other material away. The man after a time
gets twisted in his form, from being constantly in this constrained
position, and, in fact, to sit upright like other men is at last
painful. Then an amount of danger is always before him, even in the best
regulated and ventilated pits. This danger proceeds from fire-damp, as
one unlucky stroke of the pick may bring forth a stream of carbureted
hydrogen gas, inexplosive of itself, but if mixed with eight times its
bulk of air, more dangerous than gunpowder, and which, if by chance it
comes in contact with the flame of a candle, is sure to explode, and
certain death is the result--not always from the explosion itself, but
from the after-damp or carbonic acid gas which follows it.

Upwards of 1500 lives are yearly lost from these causes, and not less
than 10,000 accidents in the same period show the constant danger that
the miner is exposed to. It would appear that England has more deaths
from mining accidents than foreign countries, as Mr. Mackworth's table
will show:--

Prussia 1.89 per 1000
Belgium 2.8 "
England 4.5 "
Staffordshire 7.3 "