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

Ex. Doc] Reports of the Inspectors of Mines. 21
In justice to a large majority of the inside foremen, I will here say that
the duties imposed upon them are too great,. and require some alteration,
particularly in mines which do not generate explosive gas. On them
alone generally depends both mining and transportation through all of its
various branches, and, as a matter of course, the getting of coal out, is
considered one of the first duties. The security of the working places,
and the safety of the workingmen, seem to be a second consideration.
Of course, this state of things does not exonerate these officials from
seeing that all working places are carefully' secured. The law of this
Commonwealth imposes those duties on all inside foremen, and it is im-
perative that they should do so. As I before remarked, in a number of
instances the men's attention had been directed to the dangerous condi-
tion of the places which they were working under, but these warnings
were not given by those in authority whose duty it is to see that the places
are property secured, but by their fellow workmen, hence no notice was
taken of such admonitions.
In one of these cases, accident No. 21, it was proven at the inquest that
the inside foreman had not visited the working place for four days previ-
ous to the accident. This mine does not generate explosive gas.
Nevertheless, we know the number of accidents occurring from falls of
coal and roof far exceeds the number occurring from fire-damp explosions.
On these grounds, I have been trying to impress upon the minds of the
officials the grave importance of careful examinations being made of all
working places.
There seems to be a doubt existing in the minds of most of the mine of-
ficials as to how often these examinations should be made where fire-damp
is not generated. There is no doubt whatever in my mind, that it is
the intention of the law that these places should be examined at least
once every day, or as much oftener as circumstances require. On these
grounds, I determined to bring this case before court, with the hope that
all doubts would be removed from the minds of all parties interested.
Hence, the inside foreman and the miner, who escaped, were put under
$3,000 bonds for their appearance at court. I failed in my effort to bring
this matter to a successful issue, not through any fault of mine, but owing
to the grand jury ignoring the bills, which might appear to be through a
want of knowledge of the requirements of the law which impose these
duties on the mine officials. I explained this matter to them, and referred
them to eighth section of the mine law.
Although I did not accomplish the desired object, I am pleased to state
that it was not without a good efiect. I will furthermore state that the
case was not in any way aimed (personally) at the foreman, but at the evil
which existed.
By examining the accompanying sketch, it will be readily seen how
many accidents occur, and the causes thereof, to which I have referred
briefly in this report. By looking at sketch No. l,line A B, marked thus