their motto is more, “Come day, go day.” On a long strike they have
generally nothing laid by for the emergency. A Catholic clergyman
says, “The Irish are not fit for _bossing_; they are kept in too much
subjection at home.” But the rule is not without exceptions. I visited a
mine of which the inside foreman was an Irishman, and from Connaught too,
that wild western district. Besides having attained to this position,
he was a landed proprietor, the owner of a farm. He was more interested
in politics than my Welsh acquaintances, saying that a friend of his, a
miner, could speak as well as any politician.
* * * * *
The Irish are inclined to superstition. An Irishman tells me that some
years ago a man having been killed in a mine by the falling of the roof,
the story afterward got round that if persons would go on a moonlight
night to a certain spot—a back road at Scranton—the fairies might be
met there, and the lost man with them; then by throwing something, his
friends could get him back all right. Some went there in fun, and some in
earnest.
This is like the idea in “the old country” when a child dies, that the
fairies have changed him, leaving another in his place, and that he might
by some means be recovered. “Some tell it for a fact that they used to do
so in Ireland.”
A Scotchman tells me that if a child, a cow, or a pig suddenly begins
to decline in health, or a cow in milk, the Irish accuse some one of
“looking over it.” They say that such persons do not know when they do
it. This is doubtless “the evil-eye.”
An Irishwoman was telling us of her son’s losing a leg, the result of an
accident when mule-driving in a mine. When she learned that the person
hurt was her “Jamesey,” “Oh!” said she, “it was to be. I dreamed it a
year ago.” She told us her dream, but it was very unlike the circumstance.
Germans, especially Catholics, are said to retain some of the
superstitions of their native country, and to find “spooks” or spirits. A
harmless superstition, if there be any such, is mentioned of them. They
generally have gardens, and plant things “by the signs.” Beans planted in
the decline of the moon they do not think will take to the poles.
A German foreman says, “I have sat and listened to the miners of
different nations telling of spooks and ghosts seen in the mines and
other places, but, if one questions them closely, it is a brother or an
uncle who saw it, and not the man himself.”
The Welsh were formerly very superstitious, but they are not so now.
Says one, “We do not believe in signs or omens, or that any flesh can
see spirits.” Another tells me that the belief in hobgoblins, ghosts,
witches, fairies, and all kinds of signs and omens prevailed in Wales
in his childhood, until about thirty years ago a very eminent Baptist
minister, Robert Ellis, brought out a work called _Ofergoelion y Cymry_
(or Superstitions of the Welsh), which attracted a great deal of
attention, and had great effect upon the minds of the people in banishing
all these ideas.
In spite of the efforts of their clergy the Irish still keep up wakes
at funerals, watching the body of the dead. I am told that the friends
of the family do not feel like sleeping, being sorrowful. In the old
country neighbors would gather whether invited or not, and games would be
introduced to keep them awake, but this custom is not followed here.
A Scotchman says that he thinks the Irish attend “buryings” better than
any other nationality. At Scranton they impoverish themselves by the
train of carriages hired to attend funerals. “It was a funeral of fifty
carriages;” thus they estimate the honor and glory of the occasion. But
that number was exceeded at the funeral of a poor Irishwoman at Scranton,
when there were about one hundred and forty “rigs,”—the name given here
to turnouts.
The Welsh do not make such display. A prominent Welsh citizen, a man of
means, apparently wishing to set an example, hired only one carriage when
burying his son, and walked himself in the funeral procession.
* * * * *
The chief hardship of the miner is the insecurity of his life. He is
liable to accidents at any moment, either in blasting the coal, or from
the falling of the roof in the passages and chambers of the mine, or
from the explosion of fire-damp,—carburetted hydrogen gas,—an extremely
explosive substance generated in the mine.
By an awful accident which occurred in the Avondale mine, more than one
hundred men were suffocated below. At Scranton are interred the remains
of about sixty of these sufferers. The fatal accident is supposed to have
occurred thus. Over each of the mining shafts is erected a breaker or
cracker,—an immense wooden structure,—to the top of which the loaded cars
are drawn up and then “dumped,” the coal in its gradual downward progress
being sorted, the greater part of it broken, sifted, and delivered
into the cars beneath. The mine at Avondale was ventilated by means of
a furnace or great fire, causing a draught. From this it is generally
supposed that the breaker took fire, and this in turn set to burning a
great body of coal; and as there was at the Avondale mine only one way of
egress,—that is, up the shaft,—the men perished below.
At Scranton I saw a sad though simple ballad upon this disaster:
“But all in vain. There was no hope
One single life to save,
For there is no second outlet
From the subterraneous cave.
No pen can write the awful fright
And horror that did prevail
Among those dying victims
In the mines of Avondale.”
The Ventilation Act passed by the Legislature of Pennsylvania after
this great disaster forbids the working of any mine without two outlets.
In one that I visited, instead of a furnace for ventilation, there was
employed an immense fan, worked by a steam-engine, and supplying sixty
thousand feet of pure air per minute.
Great precautions are also taken to prevent the explosion of fire-damp.
Nevertheless, accidents do still occur from this cause, and, as we have
said, from the falling of the roof, and this although one-third of the
coal is left in for support for the rock above. Some companies will not
insure the lives of miners, and when they do insure they demand a very
high rate,—about like that charged for those engaged in the manufacture
of gunpowder.
Besides the more fearful sufferings to which the miner is liable, it is
not uncommon to see him working in water, perhaps up to his knees, and at
the same time water may be dropping upon him from above. Sometimes, on
account of powder-smoke from blasting, he must feel his way rather than
see it. Yet it is a general impression that the miner’s health is good.
It must be accounted one of his hardships that he has not regular
employment. At the time of my visit more than half the mines were not
working at all, and the rest only on half time.
* * * * *
The miner’s luxuries are those of other poor men,—his pipe and glass
of ale or beer,—though I must acknowledge that the Irishman has not
dispensed with whiskey. “I do not think,” says Father ⸺, “that he
drinks more than the Welshman, but perhaps he is more frequently seen
intoxicated in public.” The Welshman, it has been said, does not drink so
much here as at home, for he has bidden his native land farewell with
the intention of making money. The use of malt liquors is very common in
this region, and beer is abundant in the hardest times.
The Irish are fond of singing, dancing, and carousing. The saloons on
Lackawanna Avenue have two rooms, the front one for drinking, the back
for dancing and general amusement. On the contrary, dancing is generally
considered a heinous sin among the Welsh. Says a friend, “The ministers
denounce balls and dancing parties as they would manslaughter or murder.”
The German is fond of hunting. He has a gun and dog, and on a Sunday or
other holiday, or when there is a breakdown in the mine, he goes hunting
on the mountain, and brings home partridges, rabbits, or perchance a
deer. Nor does he have to go far to find his hunting-ground. The valley
of the Lackawanna is only about two miles wide, and lies in the Moosic
Mountains, a part of the Alleghanies. The Germans are fond, too, of
fishing. Their picnics and musical festivals generally begin on Saturday
afternoon and conclude on Sunday evening. About two-thirds of the
Germans go to church on Sunday morning, and many visit the beer gardens
in the afternoon with their wives and children. They observe the church
holidays, Good-Friday and Easter-Monday.
No Irish miners will work on St. Patrick’s Day. They generally go
to church in the morning, and immediately after service, or about
half-past nine, organize and form processions composed of their various
beneficial societies,—the Father Mathew, St. Mary’s, St. Joseph’s,
Young Men’s Beneficial, etc. They do not have a ball on St. Patrick’s
Day, considering it to be somewhat a desecration. On the parade day of
the Miners’ Union the different branches frequently have balls in the
evening, and often with a charitable object, as for the relief of a poor
woman whose husband or son has been killed in the mine. But since the
unsatisfactory termination of the great strike in 1871 the parade day of
the Miners’ Union, August 1, is not generally observed.
Our national holiday, July 4, is kept with great zeal by the Irish. It is
an outlet for the expression of their animosity to England. In 1874 there
was a great parade of several thousand persons, about two-thirds of whom
were foreigners.
The Welsh have only one national holiday,—St. David’s Day, March 1.
On this day, in Wales, they form processions and carry the leek, the
national emblem. I saw it growing at Scranton, very much like the onion
when standing. On this day in Wales they also have meetings for literary
pursuits and for vocal music, being a great singing nation. St. David’s
Day is still observed in some American cities, but among the people at
large the celebration has died out here. Christmas is a great day among
the Welsh, and is observed by meetings of the _Eisteddfod_, a very
ancient national gathering, which can be traced back for nine hundred
years. The word means an assembly, and is pronounced _Ice-teth-vod_, the
_dd_ being like _th_ in _thee_.
These gatherings are literary and musical. At Hyde Park it is announced
in the Welsh paper, in the spring of the year, that the Philosophical
Society will, at the ensuing Christmas, give prizes for the best essay
or the best poem on given subjects, and the best piece of original
music for given words, also for singing and recitation. But although,
as I have stated, these meetings are generally held on Christmas, yet
sometimes a neighboring town may prefer to fix upon New Year, thus
enabling parties to attend both; and St. David’s Day is sometimes
celebrated by an eisteddfod. From the exercises of these gatherings
women are not excluded. The eisteddfods are very generally attended by
the Welsh, and are held in some large public hall, the greater part of
the performances being in the Welsh language. Some of the observances
are described to me in simple language by one who has been a miner. He
says that church choirs attend the eisteddfods, and some very difficult
piece is selected for them to sing, the prize being about sixty to eighty
dollars. Then there are singers alone, and in parties of three. “They get
their poets there; they meet on Christmas morning about ten, and adjourn
about twelve, and then give out subjects for the poets,—likely the
Lackawanna River, or some subject they had never thought of before. At
two o’clock these poets will be called upon to recite their verses,—two,
perhaps,—and a small prize is given (about a dollar), principally for
amusement. Again, they call for compositions in music on some given
subject. They must be sent in beforehand, about two weeks before the
eisteddfod, with the proper name under a seal, the judges being allowed
only to see the fictitious name. Also they read, and the best reader
gets a small prize, the piece being given out at the meeting where it is
read. Another thing causes a good deal of laughter,—they ask who will
volunteer to sing a musical composition from the notes; some half-dozen
will throw in their names (fictitious), and then one will be called
out,—perhaps ‘Greenhorn;’ the other five will retire from the room, while
he picks up the difficult piece, and begins to clear his throat and show
his embarrassment, which is a subject of amusement to the spectators;
then the second comes on, perhaps equally unskilful; and when all have
finished, the remarks of the judge upon each performance are also very
amusing, the prize being only about fifty cents. In order to avoid the
singers being previously acquainted with the piece, sometimes a person
may be sent out half an hour beforehand to compose one. The piece chosen
is generally one very difficult to sing. They hold these eisteddfods in
Wales. The Welsh bards have for centuries back been accustomed to poetry,
and so forth. In London they invited, I think, nearly all the musicians
in Europe to sing on a certain day, all nationalities, for a prize of
one thousand pounds,—a silver cup. There came a choir of singers from
Wales to compete with the best talent they had in England. The lords and
members of Parliament were there. The English selected some of their most
cultivated people, and the Welsh singers were miners and men of very
little education, and they had to go from their own country; but they won
the prize by a great distance, and then sang through different towns and
cities in England. There was money raised here in Hyde Park to support
them while they were training, and to take them up to London.”
A minister at the Welsh Congregational Church in Hyde Park gave me some
explanation of this subject. He said that a company of musical persons
connected with the Crystal Palace offered a prize for competition for
vocal choirs, the reward being a silver cup worth one thousand pounds.
In 1872 a choir of five hundred persons from South Wales, called the
South Wales Choral Union, men, women, and children, principally miners
and their children, appeared, and took the prize without competition. The
next year, 1873, a trained band of English musicians, three hundred and
fifty in number, appeared to compete for the prize, but without success,
for the Welsh won it again. The English were from London, and were called
the Tonic Sol Fa Association.
I heard nothing at Scranton, however, of the harp, once thought
indispensable to the bards, two men on the street at Hyde Park, with
pipe and bagpipe, being the only peculiar instrumental performers that I
remember.
It might be supposed that so dangerous a pursuit as mining, with the
horror of beholding accidents sometimes mortal, the uncertainty of
obtaining regular employment, and, more than any of these, the working
so far from the excellent light of the sun, would repress the buoyant
spirits of the Irishman; but, says my Connaught acquaintance, “Working in
the mines does not dull an Irishman’s spirits,—not a bit of it.”
A German also says that he does not think that working in the mines makes
the Irish and others less fond of jokes, for they get together more. The
mine is cool in summer and warm in winter, and if there is a lull, from
want of cars or other cause, the men will squat down, miner fashion, and
tell stories and crack jokes.
On a like occasion the little blackened slate-pickers swarm out of the
cracker, like children let loose from school or like bees from the hive,
and play at boyish games. Sometimes they get hold of an empty truck car,
and ride down grade full speed, having the labor afterward of getting the
car up again. When a loaded car is coming up the shaft, they can hear the
warning whistle of the steam-engine, for soon the coal will be running
down the chutes, and their labors recommence.
When the circus comes to town there is danger of a stampede among the
boys who drive mules and perform like labors. They will come to the
mine in the morning and gather together, and unless the “boss” is on
the watch, they may be off in a body, and all work be at an end for the
day, as the men cannot get on without them. On the contrary, if they are
separated and started at their work, they will stay. But even the little
fellows lately spoken of, “the boys in the cracker,” who pick the slaty
refuse from the coal, have been known thus to stop mining operations.
The Welsh are not a humorous and jocose people like the Irish, though I
am told that they are inclined to mirth when speaking together in their
own language. A faint smile was caused at the Congregational church by a
remark of the preacher. Translated, it amounts to this: “Some men drink a
quantity of beer, which does not affect the brain, as they have so little
brains;” and the application seems to have been that in a like manner the
trials and vicissitudes of life affect some men little, as they have but
little sensibility.
I am told that among the works of the Welsh poets are many epigrammatic
stanzas. Of one of these, an epitaph, I received the following prose
version: “In this life she told all the untruth that she could. Be
careful not to wake her: if you do, she will say that she has been to
heaven.”
The late hours which have been kept by our “Pennsylvania Dutch” when
_Fanny has a beau once_ do not prevail among the Welsh at Scranton.
A gentleman who leads a large church choir, of which all the men are
miners, and not half of these church members, tells me that the young men
wait upon the young women home before nine, chat a while on the front
porch or steps, and generally leave at ten.
A physician says that most of the courtship of the Welsh is begun, and
often finished, while walking the streets after church. “This street
is thronged,” says he, “on Sunday nights in summer. At first the young
men walk behind, but after a while one step is quickened or the other
slackened, or both, and they come together, and form lively parties,
until ten or after. Courtships are brief, and the marriages early and
happy.”
I asked a Welsh acquaintance whether his son married young. “No, he
didn’t marry young; he was twenty-three.” Says another, “Young women
among the Welsh miners marry from eighteen to twenty-two. At the latter
age they are joked about being old maids.”
* * * * *
Miners’ wives generally hold the purse. As soon as he gets his pay and
his fill of beer, the miner hands his wages to his wife, who acts as
treasurer with much discretion, making all the purchases of the house
and transacting the business of the family. A miner’s wife said to me,
“My husband is a good workman. He never lost any time by drinking or
anything like that. I nearly supported the family by my own sewing and
by taking boarders. Ever since I have been married I tried to keep our
own table, and could generally do it unless I was sick. I ’most always
had a good deal of my own way, but I always consulted him. He always
gave me his wages. I think when a man gives his wife his wages she feels
more interest. I’d kick up a big fuss if he did not give me his wages.
Whenever he was going away, I’d remind him, ‘Charley, haven’t you got any
money in your pocket?’ He knew where the money was, you know? We always
had one purse. My purse was his, and his was mine. We have always lived
in good unity together.
“This is not always the way with miners. We have a neighbor who must
always go to the office on pay-day to get her husband’s money. He’ll go
and take the pay, and hand it over to her. She says he always gives it to
her. If she did not go and get it, he’d go to the saloon and spend it. It
looks to me as if a man was so weak-minded, to do the like of that!”
The Welsh boys, too, hand their wages over to their mother. Germans, on
the contrary, do not give their pay to the feminine head of the family;
and, alas! a physician says that Germans are the best pay.
The Welsh woman is ambitious for her husband’s shoes to shine, and on
every Saturday evening she blacks the shoes of the family (all set in a
row), until the girls are old enough to relieve her. Another corrects
this statement, saying that by the old Welsh rule Monday is the day for
cleaning and putting away the Sunday’s shoes.
Mrs. ⸺ says that she sets a tub of warm water for her son when he comes
home from picking slate at the mine, and gives him soap and a woollen
cloth, that he may “wash all over.” To bathe in this manner is almost a
universal rule with the men on leaving the mine, and a physician says
that he considers the daily bath beneficial to their health. Says an
acquaintance, “Many think, ‘I would not have miners to sleep in my beds,
they look so black and dirty.’ But there is scarcely one in five hundred
that does not wash all over when he comes home from his work; the general
rule is, before he eats his supper. He washes his head, and puts on his
clean clothes, and looks more like a clerk in a store than a miner.”
When first I attended a Welsh church at Scranton, I was surprised at the
nice appearance of the congregation, and I afterward inquired whether
there were any miners there. But on my late visit I learned an almost
invariable means of discovering who have worked in the coal mines. On
the back of my host’s hands were many blue spots, looking like faint
tattooing. These were marks where he had been cut by the coal. Miners
frequently have one or more of these blue scars upon the face. The
coal-dust doubtless remains in the wounded place, like Indian ink in
tattooing; and by these marks you can perceive that men have been miners,
though their occupation now be quite different.
The Welsh have three suits of clothes, one for work, one for evening, and
another for Sunday. Their children look very neat when going to church or
Sunday-school. The Irish mother, too, loves to see her children look fine
on these occasions, but she does not show so much taste. Both are much
attached to their churches and Sunday-schools. The Germans are not so
devotional.
The education of miners’ sons is often much neglected. The law does
not permit them to enter the public schools before the age of six; and
although the Ventilation Act prevents children from working within
the mines under twelve, yet no such prohibition exists as regards the
breaker, or “cracker,” above the mine. A superintendent says, “I have had
them to come at six, and their mothers with them, to get them taken on.”
Most of the recent Welsh emigrants, and those who are still poor and have
large families, send their boys to work at the mine. But very few that
have been in this country ten years are so poor as to be obliged to send
them at an early age. We except those of dissipated habits, who spend
their money in the saloons.
A German tells me that the children of German miners are generally
sent to school, but so great is the demand for boys to pick slate in
the breaker, that they generally go there at about eight or ten. Boys’
wages in the breaker begin at thirty-five cents per day, and go up to
seventy-five or eighty-five. A mule-driver gets from seventy-five cents
to a dollar. Even the little boys in the breakers are proud to receive
their month’s wages, not to spend themselves, but to take home.
A friend says that as soon as the boy earns fifty cents at the mine, his
sole ambition is to earn seventy-five, and then to be a driver. From
driving one mule his desire is to drive a team, then to become a laborer,
and then a full miner. To be a “boss,” or superintendent, is a distant
object of ambition, like being President—
“Alps on Alps arise.”
Almost every one has to work for some time as a laborer, loading coal,
before he becomes a full miner. The sons of miners generally follow in
their fathers’ footsteps; but those who have been here many years often
look higher for their boys, and give them trades. I met a lawyer, an
intelligent young man, whose father is a miner.