Reports of the Inspectors of Mines of the anthracite coal regions of ...

92 Reports of the Inspectors op Mines. [No. 10,
There is a prevailing idea that these accidents in our coal mines must
occur of a necessity, and I am sorry to say that this idea has been promulgated,
and is held by our court, to palliate and shield mine bosses and
miners from the punishment they richly deserve for neglecting and refusing
to perform their respective duties under the law. I have great respect for
our judiciary in this county, and I would cut off my right hand before I
would indite one word reflecting unfavorably upon it; but our honorable
court must allow me to submit that, from my own personal experience as
a miner for over sixteen years, I know this idea to be erroneous, and that
not one in twenty of the accidents which occur in the coal minCs of this
district are necessary. If I could persuade myself to believe otherwise, I
would never complain of carelessness and negligence on the part of either
mine bosses or workmen ; but knowing, as I do, that nearly all of these
accidents can be averted if men will exercise proper precaution, I cannot
refrain from arraigning those who neglect and refuse to do their utmost
to avert them. I am sometimes asked, what I would advise as a means for
mine bosses to use to induce their miners to timber their working places
properly. My answer is, that whenever a mine boss discovers a prop
wanting, or coal, slate, or rock which needs barring down, he should invariably
stop the miner in charge of such a working place from doing any
other work until he has stood the prop, or drawn down the dangerous coal,
slate, or rock which hangs loose over him. Let this be done during 1878,
generally throughout this district, and my next annual report will have a
much shorter list of deaths and accidents. What I here suggest is not a
hardship. The workmen will lose nothing by it. It will cost them nothing
but a few minutes' work, and many of them will be living a year hence if
they do as I suggest, who, if they neglect or refuse to take this advice,
will be in their graves, the victims of their own inexcusable negligence and
carlessness.
I have no desire to be oversevere on mine bosses. Many of them, and
indeed nearly all of them, are my warm personal friends. I hold them re-
sponsible because the miners are under their charge, and that the propping
is to be done under their direction ; but this does not relieve the miner
from his responsibility under the law by any means. He has duties to
perform as well as the mine boss.
The nineteenth section of the act of March 3, 18*70, says : "Any miner
having charge of a working place in any coal mine or colliery, who shall
neglect or refuse tcTkeep the roof thereof properly propped or timbered, to
prevent the falling of coal, slate, or rock, ever}^ such person shall be deemed
guilty of a misdemeanor, and, upon conviction, shall be punished by im-
prisonment and fine, at the discretion of the court."
Now, this clause is almost entirely a dead letter, as well as the clause
quoted from the eighth section, pertaining to the duties of mine bosses.
The miner is excused from blame, because he sometimes works under the
dangerous overhanging •' loose coal, slate, or rock," himself.