Charles Dickens,
A Coal Miner's Evidence
(1850)
“ As for accidents from the explosion of gas, I say there's no help for them, and never can be, so far as the men themselves are concerned. I have been oftentime very careless myself, as I've told you, and so are all miners, and always will be. You may cure the mine of gas, perhaps, but you'll never cure the men. ”
Charles Dickens,
A Coal Miner's Evidence
(1850)
“ We're not a drunken set o' people; only on Mondays there's a many drunk, and not very handsome-like on Tuesdays. We mostly lie in bed and sleep half Sundays. Some of us are tee-totallers - but a werry, werry few. The Marquis o' Hastings, who's a great coal-owner, once told a collier that he knew a miner who had never drank a quart of beer in all his life, put together, yet he had lived to the age of ninety, - if he had but ha' drunk a quart of ale a day, he'd have lived for ever! ”
Charles Dickens,
A Coal Miner's Evidence
(1850)
“ Nor, I don't well see how you're to cure the gas, at all times, neither. When a heading [the working at the end of an excavation] is made up a slant, the gas collects in the upper end, and to disturb this gas, as you must do, and distribute it, and drive it away, a'nt so safe and easy a matter, without a chance of a bit of an explosion or two. The worst time of all is when an up-hill heading is united to another heading, for then you're almost certain to have a rush down of the gas, and if there's an uncovered light in the way, you're sure of an explosion. ”
