CHAPTER XVII.

LABOR OF THE MINES COMPARED WITH OTHER OCCUPATIONS.

THE standard of wages should be regulated by the kind of employment, and particularly the exposure of life and limb that is incident to such employment. Were the character of all employments alike in this particular, then the reason for a discrimination in the price of wages would cease. But this is not the case, nor can any present or future condition of things make

it so.

The man, therefore, engaged in the pursuit of some trade or handicraft where there is but little or no exposure of life or limb, should receive a less price for his personal service than he whose occupation subjects him to the daily risk of his life, or some great personal injury.

The miner who labors in wet, damp, and exposed chambers, often a thousand feet below the surface of the earth, exposed to foul vapors, and liable at any moment to be crushed to death, or maimed for life, should be more liberally paid than he who does not

incur such risk. There can be no error in this conclusion. It is an absolute, as well as an incontrovertible truth.

Even the road that conducts him to and from the field of his daily employment is beset with dangers. The wire rope which lets him down the slope breaks, and he is dashed to atoms in a moment. The indifferent world may stop to say a man is gone, and the memory of the event passes by forever; but not so with the wife and little ones in the cabin hard by. Terror and desolation stare them in the face. They, too, may say a man is gone; but it was our husband and our father, and a terrible void is created, that separates us from the dearest and closest associations of life. Hope and fear have become their companions now, in the place of the strong right hand of the husband and the father. The mutilated body, enveloped in the coarse and blackened uniform of the mine, is as dear to them as is the dead monarch, laid out in state and covered with the robes and vestments of royalty, to his wife and children. The keen sensibilities of the human heart are not to be measured by social condition. They are alike everywhere, in the bosom of the peasant as well as the prince.

Again, the occupation of the miner is more destructive to health than other occupations above ground. It produces cramps and rheumatism, and the lungs become

diseased by the tepid atmosphere of the dark vaults of the subterranean chambers.

Therefore, in establishing a scale of wages, these matters should be taken into account. Let no man assert that the mining population of this country are an inferior caste, and therefore not entitled to all the privileges and immunities of any other class of men. Endowed with the same mental faculties, and possessed of the same feelings, and governed by the same manly impulses, he is the peer of all who occupy this land and sustain this government. His love and care for the welfare and comfort and respectability of his family are as firmly impressed upon his heart as can be found to exist amongst those upon whom fortune may have been more profuse with her favors.

Because we see him going to and returning from his daily toil in his blackened clothes and glazed cap, with his tin can containing the frugal meal prepared for him by affectionate hands, we are by no means to conclude that he is à moving thing to be avoided, and that he does not possess those faculties which not only make man what he should be, but ennoble the human race.

Infinitely more strongly am I drawn towards the miner thus attired, pursuing his way to his daily toil, respectful in his manner, and unobtrusive in his conduct, than to the poor popinjay with his hat upon one side, Havana in his mouth, behind his two-forty team,

whip in hand, sailing about the world to the benefit of no living creature. Compare the sterling worth and integrity of the miner with the lounger about places of amusement, and who, decorated in frippery, whiles away in idleness the long hours of both day and night, and whose feeble intellect measures the status of man by the quality of the coat upon his back, or the exactness with which he divides the hair upon his brainless head, and tell me which of the two comes nearest to the standard of true manhood?

To the first of these classes I always make it a point to be civil and polite; to the other, if I do not show it by outward tokens, my heart feels the most ineffable and utter contempt. A kind of cattle who never "earned the salt in their porridge," and whose life is of about as much account to the state or human society as the vermin which infest a dead and putrid

carcass.

But the question of wages assumes another phase, with regard to a large majority of the industrial pursuits. And this is the case in that branch of business which furnishes a continuous and unabated demand the year round.

Most of the mechanical trades may be embraced within this division: manufacturing establishments, and the employments upon the sea. These different occupations are not so subject to interruptions as the

labor in the mines. I do not allude to strikes, which are voluntary; but to those causes which cannot be avoided, such as the constant change in the market, in the value of the product of the mines, the frequent accidents in the mines, caused by damps, breaking of machinery, caving in of roofs, and numerous other interruptions, so that in averaging the working days of the year we may put down a fifth of the time as unavoidably lost to the laborer. To this we must add the unusual wear and tear of clothing, shoes, etc., which is very much greater than in the ordinary occupations of working men.

Under this general summary, then, we can but come to the conclusion that the miners should be paid a higher rate of wages than others who are less exposed, and pursue more sure and uninterrupted callings. And I cannot for my life appreciate and understand why it is that our ears are constantly assailed with the clamor against what is termed the "HIGH WAGES" of the mining population. Who are they who are daily making a tumult on the question of "high wages"? It is a complaint that we seldom if ever hear from the lips of consumers. And this class, above all others, are the ones who, if wages are higher than they ought to be, have just cause to complain; because, in the production of any of the great staples of the country, the price in market is always regulated by the cost