1898 - Coalmininghistorypa.org

No. 11. BUREAU OF MINES. liiibe permitted to work. We are aware that there exists a duterence ofopinion ou this subject, as well among- lawyers as laymen; and thatin many instances in this coal region, operators, while keeping withinthe limit of 'twenty persons' in working through coal for a secondoutlet, have, in accordance with their own construction of the law,worked sometimes fifteen or eighteen persons in cutting coal formarket, while only five, ofteuer only two, have been employed indriving for the second outlet."Though we do not assume positively that herein lies the explanationwhy so many mines or collieries in the region are yetvsithout a second outlet, still such an explanation is not at all unreasonable,and must stand for what it is worth. At all events,such working, if indeed it is still carried on, had better cease at once.I^ is without even the merit of shrewdness for its authors. On thecontrary, it can be regarded as little better than a stupid attemptat dodging the law; and the earlier, perhaps, a lesson in the painsand penalties of the act is learned therefor, the better it will be foreverybody,"As we have shown before, this working with no more than twentymen for a 'second opening through coal,' constituted the only conditionunder which certain mines or collieries, otherwise closed upb^"^ the i^rovisions of the statute, could be worked at all. It cannotbe claimed, however, that this permissive work can be carried onwith any other view, or for any other purpose than that mentionedin the act. Cutting coal for market, therefore, whether with oneman or twenty men, except in so far as it is a necessary incident ofdriving on through a seam or stratum towards a second outlet,not only not a declared purpose of the statute, but on the contrary,it is in direct and absolute contravention of the expressed terms"thereof."This opinion was followed a year later by Commonwealth ex rel.Williams vs. The Wilkes-Barre Coal Co., 29 Leg. Int. 213, in whichthe views above quoted were re-expressed with emphasis, and it wasdecided that "Where in connection with a mine or colliery a shaft hasbeen sunk to or a slope driven in a seam or stratum of coal which is> III comunmication with a second outlet at the point where the miningis carried on and a field of coal has there been exhausted, yet if fromtliat point a slope be continued on, following the pitch of the seamor stratum down several hundred feet and at the bottom thereof extensivemining be carried on in the same and there is no second outletcommunicating therewith separated from such slope by natural&trata of at least loO feet in breadth, the mine or colliery is withinthe legislative inhibition, and an injunction will be granted to restrainthe owners, lessees or occupiers thereof from thus workingthe same."is