1873 - Old Forge Coal Mines

216 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE
employed in coal mines should understand it. There is quite an improvement
in the qualifications of the mining bosses in the last few
}T
ears, which
shows that we will have in a few years more an educated class of persons
who will be competent to superintend the ventilation and management
of mines.
There have not been as many persons seriously burned by carelessly
handling powder, or Ijv premature blasts, in 1873 as there were in the year
previous. I am of the opinion that a more general use of Mr. H. M. Boies'
safety powder cartridge and Messrs. Daddow and Beadle's safety squib
would reduce the number of this class of accidents.
Respectfully submitted,
PATRICK BLEWITT,
Inspector of Coal Mines, &c.
Scranton, February 7, 1874.
COMMON PLEAS OF LUZERNE
CIAL DISTRICT.
COUNTY, ELEVENTH JUDI-
Commonwealth, ex relatione vs. Connell & Co.
1st. Acts of Assembly are to be construed according to their terms, not
according to their titles ; particularly where the former point out the extent
of their application on the one hand, and their limit on the other.
2d. A coal mine operated through a tunnel and having no second outlet
connected with it, is not within the prohibition of the ''Mine Ventilation
Law."
3d. Casus, omissus in a statute, can never be supplied by the court.
Opinion by Harding, P. J.
Bill for an injunction, &c.
The parties to this bill have agreed to the following statement of facts
for the opinion of the court, namely : The defendants are working the
mine by a tunnel or drift, which runs from an opening in the side of a hill,
at a giade to the mine so as to discharge the water by gravity. There is
no second opening other than said tunnel, either by shaft, or slope or outlet,
by which persons engaged in the mine have ingress or egress. If the
court are of the opinion that a decree should be made in favor of the
plaintiff an injunction to be granted ;
if the court, however, shall be of
opinion that the defendants are not violating the law, then bill to be dismissed.
We have already passed upon several features of the act, known as the
•'Mine Ventilation Law." My brother Dana has also decided an important
question arising under it ; but the present bill raises a new phase altogether.
It levels a blow at mining operations, which are carried on through a tunnel
where no second outlet exists, affording a safe and convenient means of
ingress and egress to the persons employed in the mine.
We can very readily conceive as great and appalling disasters might
occur in operating a mine through a tunnel with which no second outlet
was connected as have occurred already, where a mine has been worked
through a shaft without a second outlet, or as might occur in working a
slope without a second outlet.
If the mouth of a tunnel should become sudden^* closed up by a fell of
over-hanging slate, rock and earth, or still worse, if the mine itself should
be, as it were hermetically sealed up by a fall extending from the mouth
of the tunnel to the inner workings, resulting either from insufficient prop-