that it must be at least next Monday before there would be a possibility of reaching them, and by that time foul air, combined with hunger and thirst, would in all probability destroy them. Well, the miracle that I saw was twelve out of thirteen of these same miners— men and lads-brought up out of the bowels of the earth after more than a hundred and thirty hours' dismal and hungry imprisonment there, and one and all of them not so far gone but that the best of nursing and medical skill could set them up again.

Pit scenery does not alter much with time and season. There was the "hovel," or lamp shed, where I had seen the appalling figures lying on mattresses arranged on hastily brick-built banks, and warmly wrapped in sheets and blankets so brand new out of the draper's shop that the tradesman's "private ticket" was still attached to them. There never were sheets that looked so snowy white, because there never were sheets that gained so much by contrast with that which they enveloped. Sooty-black was but cream colour in comparison with the ingrained jet of the poor gaunt wretches in whose emaciated frames life feebly fluttered. But the black was more merciful than the white-the awful dead white round about their mouths, where tender hands had moistened pocket-handkerchiefs, and wiped them so that they might not swallow coal grit along with the driblets of water and weak tea that at present was all that the doctor dare administer to them. The hovel was restored to its legitimate purpose now; but as the door opened, it seemed to me that I could again see the beds, the great fire at the end, the miner nurses-all the nurses were miners-with the one who so jealously guarded the latchless door by sticking a pickaxe deep into the earth, just against the inside, every time any

one was compelled to leave or enter, and that other fellow-long life to him!-the wooden-legged nurse who, so that he might not make over-much noise in getting about his special patient, had muffled the end of his stump in an old woollen stocking. There were the pit's mouth, too, and the enormous pumping-engine with its beam thick as a man's body, and long enough to reach from roof to roof across any back street in Bethnal Green, and which, when it is on its mettle, can raise, from a depth that three Fish Street monuments piled on each other would do little more than fathom, 550 gallons of water per minute. It was not on its mettle now, thank Heaven! It was doing its work at the leisurely rate of about six strokes per minute, which, considering I was presently to make acquaintance with the bottommost recesses of the gulf where lurk the watery deposits it is its constant duty to keep in check, I was thankful to see.

I think that the majority of persons who never saw a coal-pit would at first view be somewhat disappointed at its external aspect. There is very little bustle at the shaft's mouth, and no more excitement or noise than one man and one horse can create. All that can be seen is a round hole in the earth of about twice the diameter of a large "loo" table, and above it is a great windlass, from which a thick wire rope depends taut into the black chasm. A smoke, evidently from burnt coal, comes up the pit in a faint cloud, and the hole is surrounded by a square wooden railing, about three feet in height. From the hole there is a line of narrow railway running down the slight decline to where the coal, as it is raised, is shot, and on these rails run the dumpy iron wheels that are affixed to the bottom of the cage or corfe, which is filled in the mine and raised to the sur

of relief.

face bodily. When I saw the corfe-full of coals make its appearances out of the black hole, I breathed a sigh I wanted to know how we were to get down, and I saw plainly enough now. We should all-there were five of us-get into this commodious wooden box; and I quite fell in love with it on account of its tall protecting sides, and secretly "spotted" the part of the box in which I intended to stand, which was not the side where the rotten plank was and the hole through which came up protruding a fine piece of coal, just about the size of a man's boot. The banksman drew the load off a flat grating, like an ordinary area grating, of about six feet square, and suspended by a chain at each corner, connected with a bar overhead; and crossing again from bar to bar, at a height of about five feet, was another chain. When the banksman brought the empty coal-tub back, and was about to slide it on the grating, the person in authority said, "Never mind that; we are going down this turn."

Then my eyes were opened. We were not to go down in the box, but on the naked, sideless grating, "holding on" by a chain that crossed about the level of my chin. True, there was not much smoke coming up out of the fathomless gulf; but a little goes a great way with some folks; and since I had had no experience either up a chimney or down a pit-shaft, it was not improbable that I might find the objectionable fumes potent enough to set me sneezing and gasping. One thing was certain-if I sneezed till I was in danger of dislocating the small bones of my neck, I dare not for my life's sake spare a hand for my pocket-handkerchief; and in this desperate frame of mind I took my stand with the rest, and next instant felt myself sinking.

I should have mentioned that the square railing of

wood fixed round the pit's mouth was moveable; indeed, when the great coal-tub ascended, the machinery caught hold of the railing and lifted it up out of the way. When the perilous-looking little stage on which we crowded had sunk a yard or so, the railing, on selfadjusting principles, came down with a sounding noise that, to the untutored ear, was not a little alarming. Down, down, easy as sinking through water, with no particular inconvenience on account of the smoke, after one had inhaled a few mouthfuls of it; down, down, steady and noiseless, and in such pitchy darkness that for all that could be seen of the sides of the hole they might have been a mile apart, until the full distance of nearly two hundred yards was accomplished, and the machine slackened in its swiftness and gently touched the floor. My first impression was that the place was insufferably hot; but this was accounted for by the fact of the pit's furnace being only a few feet from the "pit's eye" '—a devouring dragon of a fire-place that consumes I am afraid to say how much coal, but is well worth its food on account of its invaluable assistance in ventilating the pit. Still pitchy dark-for the back of the furnace was to us-and the "Butty" called out for lights. They came in the rough, for company was not expected. Something small and white, and about. waist-high, was seen to approach us from out of the impenetrable gloom; and then there was the sound of striking a match, and the "something" turned out to be a bunch of tallow-candles that a man was carrying. Besides the "dips," he had a lump of moist clay, and by means of it he provided each of us with a "candlestick". a ball of about the size of a hen's egg, with a candle stuck in it; for the Lock Lane pit is accounted so free from inflammable gases, that a hundred and

twenty men and lads who work it use naked lights, "Davy's" being used only by the "Butty" (manager) or his deputy in going into a working that has been lying idle, to test it.

This was

But we were not in any working yet. merely a "gate road"-a way by which the great coal tubs were dragged by the horse from the place where coal is got to the bottom of the shaft up which they are to ascend. The gate road is about twelve feet wide, with an arched roof about seven feet overhead. At distances about as far apart as street lamp-posts, "dips" of the same feeble capacity as those we carried were stuck against the wall with dabs of clay, yielding almost as much light from the red noses of their unsnuffed wicks as from the thin half-inch of flame that surmounted them. The floor of the "way" was carpeted with thick, moist-feeling coal dust, and the walls were shiny enough to reflect the light. It was not blackness everywhere. Clinging to the roof in countless places, and hanging from it in fantastic fashion, were masses of fungus, snowy white as sheep's fleece, but which turned to a disagreeable brown paste as soon as it was handled. I know this because I plucked a nice-looking piece and, to keep it clean, placed it in my cap; but a tickling at my ears soon gave me notice of its dissolution. After a walk of a hundred yards or so we came to a place where men were at work, and I got my first insight into the art and mystery of "coal-winning."

It is necessary of course. My coal cellar and yours, dear reader, cannot be replenished without men invade the appalling depths where only this useful mineral is to be obtained; the demands of civilisation and progress, from the roasting of a goose to the fuelling of an ironclad, cannot be accomplished without it; but from a