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two miners and two laborers; each miner calls his partner his butty," the laborers are also "butties" to each other. The miners have a contract with the operator to work the breast at a certain price per car, the miners to furnish tools and powder, and to pay the laborers. It is their business to cut the coal, to direct the opening and advance of the breast, and to prop the roof. No miner can be employed who has not a certificate; in order to obtain which he must have had two

CULM PILE IN PROCESS OF BUILDING.

years' experience as a laborer in the mines of the State, and must be able to answer, before the mine examining board, at least twelve questions in the English language pertaining to the requirements of a practical miner.

A miner's day's work is done when he has cut enough coal to fill the cars assigned him by the mine boss. He may do this in three or four hours, when he goes home to smoke his pipe and talk politics, leaving the laborers to load the cars and clean up the breast ready for the next day's work. The miner likes his job,-his place is cool in summer and warm in winter, the hours are short, the labor light, and the element of danger is never calculated upon. It is upon the mine laborer that the hardest work falls, and he receives little more than half as much as the miner.

Of the employees about one-fourth are boys. The law forbids the employment of boys under the age of fourteen inside or under twelve outside a mine. The boys inside drive and tend the mules which pull the coal cars, and open and shut the many doors in the dark labyrinths. Outside

they work in the breaker as slate pickers. A person of humane instincts cannot contemplate with calmness these children kept out of school and forced to such grim and tedious work. In the great labor parades of 1900 large companies of these children marched through the streets; it was a holiday for them, and, with the exuberance of childhood, which even the hard conditions of their lives could not crush, they were shouting and whistling. They carried banners, on which were inscribed sentiments like these:

"What our fathers were we will be also."

"Give our fathers justice and we can go to school." "We need schooling but must work."

"Abolishment of the young slaves."

"Our mothers are up at 5 P. M. (sic) to get our scanty meals."

Those poor little banners, with their badly-spelled legends, were not ridiculous but touching, for they revealed a state of affairs that even dwellers in the coal regions are not accustomed to consider.

The miner is the unit of the mine-labor question. The wage scale, fixed by the car, is the basis of payment. The other labor of a mine, the opening and timbering of gang. ways, the laying of tracks, the cutting of tunnels through rock,-is known as "dead work," and is paid for on a different basis,-by the day or by the yard. It is not considered mining at all.

NATIONALITY OF EMPLOYEES.

There has been a great change in the personnel of the anthracite mine employees within twenty years. Formerly Ireland, England, and Wales furnished the sinew which produced the coal. Many of the men had worked in mines in their native land, lying upon their backs as they plied their picks in the thin seams of the English and Welsh collieries.

After the great strike of 1877 the coal operators, who looked abroad for relief from the power of the labor unions, found a new race of workmen in the peasants of the Austrian-Hungarian monarchy, and the Poles and Lithuanians of the neighboring Russian provinces. To-day the Irishman, Welshman, and Englishman, if he is in the mines at all, occupies a clerical position

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or that of a boss. Most of them have gone into other businesses. Many of the clergymen, judges, lawyers, and business men of Pennsylvania have come from the coal mines. A candidate for governor at the present time was a slate picker in his boyhood. There is no better chance of promotion anywhere than in the mining business, from slate picker to laborer, to miner, to mine boss, to mining engineer or State inspector, to superintendent of collieries, to operator,all positions are open to intelligence and industry. The miners and laborers of to-day, brutish and uncouth as they appear, with their old-world customs and their unpronounceable names, are already on the upward trend. They have learned English; they have learned mining; they have become naturalized. The city reporters who swarm into the mining region during strikes, taking snap-shot pictures and writing snap-shot opinions, utterly fail to comprehend the conditions of these foreigners. They see rude, unpainted shanties, barefooted women with gay kerchiefs on their heads exchanging greetings with their neighbors in six languages; they see men and women gleaning their coal from the culm piles; or they peep into bare rooms, whose

MINERS IN CARRIAGE DESCENDING A SHAFT.

one adornment is an Icon or pieture of a Russian saint or martyr, and cry, "Behold the poverty of the coal miner! They mistake these mining villages for "slums." Now, in fact, this apparent destitute condition is a thing of choice, for these people live scantily in order to put their wages into the savings banks, and at present hundreds of them are drawing their money from the banks and going to the old country to live in comfort the balance of their lives. In the old times pay day" in a mining town was a synonym for a rush of business in the stores; today the merchants complain that it brings them little increase of trade from the Slav miners. not only the Slav villages, but the thousands of comfortable houses in the coal regions, are miners' homes, and the thousands of well-dressed people who throng the streets are miners' families. The present difficulty about hours and wages arises from the fact that there are too many men in the business, that is, the cost of production is divided among too many employees, and the same is true of the hours necessary to keep up the supply of coal demanded by the market.

But

THE SEPARATION OF THE TITLE OF THE SURFACE FROM THAT OF THE COAL BEDS.

In most of the world a man who buys a piece of land buys from the "top of the sky to the center of the earth." In the coal regions, as a rule, he buys the surface only, the coal is reserved," that is, it has long ago been sold or leased. The exceptions are those lands which have been kept for higher prices. The owner of a small lot has no object in refusing to sell the coal beneath it, for he knows that the coal operator will mine around it, leaving it as a pillar. Not long ago warrants were taken out for the coal beneath the Susquehanna River and the public roads. The city of Wilkesbarre owns a park the coal beneath which is unsold, and there is occasional agitation about selling the coal to improve the surface.

The question will arise, "Is it not unsafe to live above a coal mine,-does not the earth open and swallow up houses and people?" We an swer, Yes and no. On the outcrop, along the foot of the mountains which enclose Wyoming Valley, are many "caves" or "cave holes" 50 or 60 feet in diameter and 20 or 30 feet deep. They have been caused by the break in the roof of a mine in the upper coal bed, when the earth rushed down to fill the hole like sand rushing . out of an hourglass. The upper bed has long ago been worked out, the falls have already taken place, and the surface settled permanently, so that at the present time there is rarely a fall. It is a well-established belief that the land is much safer

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A GROUP OF MINERS.

after a cave than before. There are strange and grewsome tales connected with the time when these caves were made. A boy was riding a mule on a canter from the mine to the stable when the mule stumbled and the boy flew over his head. He picked himself up and turned around to find himself on the brink of a cave which had opened behind him, and into which the mule had fallen and perished in the crumbling, sliding earth. People have fallen into these caves and escaped through mine gangways into which they opened, and not long since a woman going out in the morning to milk the cow found that a section of the pasture had fallen and the cow was quietly chewing her cud at the bottom of a cave hole. Except at the outcrop, the surface is seldom disturbed. The coal beds lie so deep that entire mines might fall in, and long before the surface would be affected the rock strata would have become fixed in new positions.

CONTROLLING THE OUTPUT.

The mines are so vast and the number of employees so great that the possible production of coal is far beyond the demand at the ordinary prices. It is therefore considered necessary to control the output, which is arranged by the presidents of the coal-carrying companies, who own or sell on commission 72 per cent. of the coal and transport it all. They mutually agree to furnish a certain percentage each year as their quota. At the meeting held in January, 1896,

.

The basis of the present combination of operators and carriers is not made known to the public.

The result of this policy is that the mines, instead of working up to their fullest capacity, work on half or three-quarter time. It would

seem to be more business-like to increase the production and reduce the price, especially in view of the competition of the bituminous region, but here arises another consideration.

The

The business of mining coal is peculiar, in that every pound sold reduces the capital of the operator. The coal beds have a limit, which is already in sight. The coal operator resembles a farmer who should first sell the grass from his meadows, then the sod, and finally the soil. The coal operator has already sold the outcrop, which is equivalent to the grass; and has largely exhausted the upper coal beds, which is equivalent to the sod. He is now working the lower beds; and when they are gone, all will be gone. time at which the coal fields will be exhausted is estimated at about fifty years. To carry out the agricultural figure, we may call the utilizing of the culm banks by washeries and the reopening of abandoned mines as a sort of aftermath. The policy of controlling the output results in strikes and other disasters, while mining to the fullest capacity would hasten the exhaustion of the coal. These are the Scylla and Charybdis of the operators. The foundation of the coal trust was laid in the years between 1860 and 1871, when nearly all of the three hundred thousand acres of coal lands were bought or leased by the great companies. Coal land is now worth from two to three thousand dollars an acre. As the price rose the companies leased the coal instead of buy. ing the land. Coal leases are drawn on the basis of a royalty per ton of mined coal, which varies from ten to fifty cents. There is also in every lease a minimum clause, that is, the operators obligate themselves to pay a stated sum per year whether any coal is mined or not. It will thus be seen what an enormous investment the great

corporations have in lands, some of which have lain idle for forty years, and will not be mined for fifty years longer, while the minimum royalty sticks to the lessees like the old man of the sea." A recent decision of the Supreme Court of the State obliges them to pay the minimum as long as they occupy the land, although they pay for the coal many times over. In addition to this great investment is the expense of opening and keeping in repair the mines, the building of breakers and other machinery, the expenses of cars, mules, and the wages of the men. The item of repairs may mean the rebuilding of a burned breaker or the reopening of a flooded mine, either of which will take the earnings of several years. The profits of five years were spent by one company in draining a "drowned mine;" while another spent three years, at an outlay of one hundred thousand dollars, in overcoming a fault."

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The coal monopoly failed in so far as controlling the coal market was concerned on account of the competition of bituminous coal, whose field is practically unlimited, which is more cheaply mined, does not need to be broken, and bears a universal royalty of only ten cents a ton when mined.

The coal-carrying companies look for relief from the burden of their stupendous investments in the mining business to their tolls as carriers, notwithstanding which some of them have been for a long time on the verge of bankruptcy.

To show what the coal-carrying companies earn in their business I annex the following schedule of dividends paid by them for the past ten years:

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The Pennsylvania Coal Company capital stock is only $5,000,000.

THE COAL BARONS.

There are two classes of coal operators, -the coal-carrying companies, which we have just been considering, and the private operators. The latter are at the disadvantage which a small business always meets in competition with a great monopoly. The carrying companies charge them extortionate rates and deny them cars until they are willing to allow them a commission of 65 per cent. of the price at tide for transporting and selling their coal.

In view of all these difficulties in the coal busi

ness, it may be pertinent to inquire, "Who are

the coal barons ?"

The term is one of those mischievous titles which arise nobody knows how and are carelessly applied. The popular image of a coal baron is a lord of the manor who lives in splendor while his serfs dig a miserable living out of the dark and dangerous mines. Such a person does not exist ; he is a creature of the yellow journals. The persons who come nearest to the popular idea of coal barons are the private operators,--whose workmen, however, have the fewest grievances, and many of whom have paternal relations with their men in the way of maintaining hospitals, schools, libraries, and model tenements.

The officials of the coal-carrying companies are so far away, and their stock is distributed so widely both here and abroad,—much of it in the hands of widows and orphans who do not know what a dividend means,-that they can hardly be termed coal barons. There remain only the landlords of the coal lands. These are the true barons. They lie behind and beneath the coal business ; their names are scarcely known to the public; they have no part in the strikes, for whether business is good or bad, the coal royalties go on. Personally they are of the gentlest; widows, children, old men; some of them already straitened in purse by the working out of their coal lands; some of them of great fortune, liberal in public enterprises and in public and private charities. Their benefactions are not limited to their own town or State, and their investments have helped to develop the remote parts of the country.

Acknowledgments are due to A. D. W. Smith, State geologist of the anthracite region, for maps and sections; to Prof. C. O. Thurston, of Wyoming Seminary, for photographs; and to Saward's Coal Journal for statistics.

A GROUP OF MINERS.

after a cave than before. There are strange and grewsome tales connected with the time when these caves were made. A boy was riding a mule on a canter from the mine to the stable when the mule stumbled and the boy flew over his head. He picked himself up and turned around to find him. self on the brink of a cave which had opened behind him, and into which the mule had fallen and perished in the crumbling, sliding earth. People have fallen into these caves and escaped through mine gangways into which they opened, and not long since a woman going out in the morning to milk the cow found that a section of the pasture had fallen and the cow was quietly chewing her cud at the bottom of a cave hole. Except at the outcrop, the surface is seldom disturbed. The coal beds lie so deep that entire mines might fall in, and long before the surface would be affected the rock strata would have become fixed in new positions.

CONTROLLING THE OUTPUT.

The mines are so vast and the number of employees so great that the possible production of coal is far beyond the demand at the ordinary prices. It is therefore considered necessary to control the output, which is arranged by the presidents of the coal-carrying companies, who own or sell on commission 72 per cent. of the coal and transport it all. They mutually agree They mutually agree to furnish a certain percentage each year as their quota. At the meeting held in January, 1896,

.

whereat an agreement was reachea, on the basis of which the output of anthracite was to be divided as per certain allotments, the percentages

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The basis of the present combination of operators and carriers is not made known to the public.

The result of this policy is that the mines, instead of working up to their fullest capacity, work on half or three-quarter time. It would

seem to be more business-like to increase the production and reduce the price, especially in view of the competition of the bituminous region, but here arises another consideration.

The business of mining coal is peculiar, in that every pound sold reduces the capital of the operator. The coal beds have a limit, which is already in sight. The coal operator resembles a farmer who should first sell the grass from his meadows, then the sod, and finally the soil. The coal operator has already sold the outcrop, which is equivalent to the grass; and has largely exhausted the upper coal beds, which is equivalent to the sod. He is now working the lower beds; and when they are gone, all will be gone. The time at which the coal fields will be exhausted is estimated at about fifty years. To carry out the agricultural figure, we may call the utilizing of the culm banks by washeries and the reopening of abandoned mines as a sort of aftermath. The policy of controlling the output results in strikes and other disasters, while mining to the fullest capacity would hasten the exhaustion of the coal. These are the Scylla and Charybdis of the operators. The foundation of the coal trust was laid in the years between 1860 and 1871, when nearly all of the three hundred thousand acres of coal lands were bought or leased by the great companies. Coal land is now worth from two to three thousand dollars an acre. As the price rose the companies leased the coal instead of buying the land. Coal leases are drawn on the basis of a royalty per ton of mined coal, which varies from ten to fifty cents. There is also in every lease a minimum clause,-that is, the operators obligate themselves to pay a stated sum per year whether any coal is mined or not. It will thus be seen what an enormous investment the great

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