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

Ex. Doc] Reports of the Inspectors of Mines. 129
Hudson Canal Company, at Carbondale ; Jermyn's shaft and slope, at
Jermj-n; White Oak mines, D. & H. C. Co., and Jones, Simpson &
Co.'s mines, at Archbald ; Grassy Island shaft and part of Eddy Creek
shaft, D. & H. C. Co., Olyphant ; Fair Lawn slope, Hosie, Archbald &
Hosie, Scranton; Park Coal Company's slope, Hyde Park; Sibley shaft,
Penn. Anthracite Coal Company, Old Forge township ; Greenwood mines,
belonging to the same company, Lackawanna township ; Columbia mines.
Groves Brothers; Rock Hill tunnel, Bowkley & Sons; Beaver mines, Wa-
tei-man & Beaver; Seneca slope and Ravine shaft, Pittston Coal Comijan}?-,
all of Pittston ; Everhart colliery, Hon. Thomas Waddell, Jenkins township,
and several of the Pennsylvania Coal Company's mines in tlie same
township and elsewhere. All of the above named collieries could have
been closed by injunction, for the want of the amount of air the law re-
quires. But, had I proceeded against them according to a rigid construc-
tion of the law, the majority of them would have remained idle during the
greater part of the year, and hundreds of poor workmen, who, witii their
families were already nearly in a starving condition, would have been
thrown out of employment, and would have suffered tenfold more priva-
tion and want than they have suffered. I could not enforce the law with
severe exactness, with these painful facts staring me in tlie face, though
my desires were intense to force and hurry up the improvements which
were so sorely needed. If I have erred in being too lenient under a strict
construction of the law, my conscience does not reprove me, and I believe
that all good men will commend, the course I have pursued, and tliat the
workingmen will do me the justice of admitting that I have tried to do
what was for their best good. Of two evils I have undoubtedly chosen
the least. The companies have complained that I have been too severe
with them, as most of them do when they are asked to do an3'thing for the
good of their employes, especially if it requires the expenditure of a sum
of money ; but they have no cause to complain of my dealing too severely
with them. They ought rather to thank me for not visiting punishment
upon them for their persistent disregard of the law, for long 3'ears after it
was enacted. It is true that I have given them no peace, and I do not in-
tend that they shall have peace until they comply with the law in every
particular.
It would have been much easier for me to take the course laid down in
the fifth section of the mine ventilation act, but, under all the circum-
stances, I firmly believe that I have accomplished more good, though at
the expense of much greater labor, by the course I have pursued.
AVhat ha§ been Accomplished.
The Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad Companj^'s mines
were in excellent condition, as to ventilation, at the date of my last re-
port, and nothing was left to be desired. They have, however, put in a
new fan at the Taylor shaft, and they now have three fans there, one of
them being an extra fan to be used only in case of accident to one of the
9 Mine Rep.