another mine, or because he feels the natural ambition of wishing to own a house himself. In order to encourage this very laudable object, mining companies often make it easy for the workman to buy his cottage by small instalments, and they thus gather around their mines a number of small householders, who are less likely to encourage disturbances than men who have no special interest in the preservation of order. To the workman there are advantages FIG. 703.

FIG. 702.

as well as disadvantages; if the cottage belongs to him, he has a feeling of independence, and he does not mind spending money to embellish or improve it, which he would not do if it were the property of somebody else. The purchase may be a wise and profitable one, if he feels pretty sure that he is going to spend all his days in one place; but this fixedness to one district cannot always be assured or advised. Wages may be better in an adjoining county or in some foreign land, mining may decline at home or entirely cease, and a move may become a necessity, with no chance of selling the cottage property. Under such circumstances the earnings spent in buying a cottage will have been badly invested.

It also happens that during a period of high wages, a man is tempted to arrange for the purchase of his house with one of the numerous building societies, and he agrees, for instance, to pay

I per month for ten years, at the end of that time becoming the owner of a house worth £120. If his wages are £7 a month he can manage the monthly instalments without difficulty; but let wages drop to £5, and he will find it far less easy to keep up his payments.

*

As an example of the manner in which workpeople are housed, I will again extract some figures from Taeglichsbeck's report. For the Halle district he gives the following numbers and proportions:

Kind of Dwelling-house and Percentage of the Total Number of Persons.

He further shows that 25 per cent. of the persons employed at the Mansfeld copper mines are living in their own houses, of which nearly one quarter have been purchased with the assistance of the Company.

Before concluding this subject of housing, a word may be said. about the "dries," or changing houses, which have to be provided at mines under the Metalliferous Act, when more than twelve

persons are employed below ground. Such a house is very necessary when the men come up wet and dirty, and often soaked with perspiration from working in hot places or from climbing long runs of ladders. They then change all their clothes, and leave them to be dried ready for use on the following day. One of the best modes of heating a "dry" is by steam; the shell of an old boiler is placed along the centre of the house and is supplied with steam from any convenient source. Owing to the large surface of the shell the room is speedily heated, and the clothes hung about it are quickly dried. The water condensing from the steam may be drawn off by a cock and used for washing purposes. Figs. 706 and 707 represent the changing house erected at Levant Mine in Cornwall by Mr. Eustice, which has the advantage of being put into communication with the man-engine shaft by a passage and staircase, so that the men stand no risk of

* Op. cit. p. 7.

exposure to the fierce breezes coming straight off the Atlantic, which might sometimes be trying after the underground warmth. It is heated by rows of hot-water pipes.

The floor of the "dry" should be made of cement and not of boards, to permit the application of the hose for washing it. Benches and lockers should be removable in order to facilitate the cleaning, which is frequently necessary, considering the amount of dirt which cannot fail to accumulate in such a place. A wooden floor has the disadvantage that the boards are sure to shrink under the constant warmth, and when once full of

gaping chinks it can never be effectually cleaned; besides, there is the danger from fire, either from matches left carelessly about or from the men smoking in a place where the wood gets as dry as tinder. The walls should be whitewashed at regular and frequent intervals, in order to keep the place thoroughly sweet.

It is not difficult to give the miner the luxury of a showerbath at a small cost, and it seems to me far better that the miner should change and perform all necessary ablutions at the mine, than go home in his underground clothes, and depend upon the resources of his cottage for washing himself and drying his working apparel.

At the Anzin collieries, in the North of France, a large number of shower-baths (Fig. 708), are provided at the different shafts, so

that the men have not to wait for their turn. The Anzin arrangements are excellent, and might be copied with advantage at some of our mines.

3. EDUCATION.-The school education may be of two kinds, general and technical. In this and other countries, where the primary education is free, the mine-owner need not concern himself with providing schools and teachers; but where the State does not take this paternal care of the rising generation, a certain responsibility for the young is often felt by the shareholders of the mining companies, and they endeavour to equip the children of their workmen, at all events, with the three R's.

For carrying on mining, it is not sufficient merely to provide strong bones and well-developed muscles; there must also be brains, or, in other words, no matter how good the miners are, their work must be directed by trained engineers and competent foremen. The latter may well be recruited from among the actual working men, who should have some general knowledge of science and some special training in the various branches of their profession.

This scientific and technical training is frequently provided by the large foreign mining companies at their own expense. The best of the young men attend classes out of working hours, and thus manage to carry on their lecture-room teaching hand in hand with the practical instruction which they are acquiring in the mine itself.

In this country the education of the young miner is largely aided by classes held in the evenings, under the auspices of the Science and Art Department, the City and Guilds of London Institute, and some of the County Councils. The energetic and ambitious workman can nowadays obtain instruction in mathematics, mechanics, chemistry, physics, geology, the principles of mining, ore-dressing, assaying and mine-surveying in any large town and often in outlying villages. To those preparing to pass the examination for a certificate under the Coal Mines Act, these classes are very valuable.

The success of local schools and classes depends a good deal upon the attitude assumed by the managers of mines in the neighbourhood. If educational work is pooh-poohed by the masters, the men follow suit and the teaching languishes. On the other hand, if the head-piece of the school is one of the chief mining engineers of the district, pupils flock to the lecture-rooms and laboratories, and success is almost a certainty. By forming and encouraging these local schools or classes, owners and managers of mines are not only promoting the welfare of the rising generation around them, but they are at the same time doing good to mining generally, and are contributing to the introduction of the most improved methods of extracting minerals. Just as the success of an army depends largely upon its trained