Part 17

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.

For the benefit of the boys in the mines here, the Catholic Church has organized night schools, open during the six colder months of the year. The boys, if able, pay from twenty-five to fifty cents a month. A Catholic clergyman estimates that over two-thirds of the boys attend these schools. As a general thing, the use of the public school buildings has been granted them, but the rooms are often overcrowded. Though principally organized by the Catholic Church, none are refused on account of their belief. But after working all day, the boy cannot bring so much animation to the night-school as if he were not fatigued. The girls have better opportunities, but they are often put out to domestic service at twelve or fourteen.

* * * * *

The fare of the miner is from necessity simple, not luxurious. He breakfasts at about five or six o’clock on bread, butter, and tea. In a little tin can he carries his dinner of bread and cheese, perhaps with the addition of a bit of pie or cake, and in a tin bottle cold tea without milk. Even this simple luxury is sometimes discarded, and water taken in its place. The miner proper finishes his work about four o’clock, and finds his best meal at home, often a “good cooked meal” of meat, potatoes, etc. We may call this dinner, and the former meal lunch. A miner tells me, however, that he has often brought his food uneaten out of the mine from want of time; for he must have his car loaded when the driver comes for it, or lose one of the seven car-loads which form his daily work.

It is the Welshman who eats bread and cheese. His companion or laborer is generally Irish. He is detained longer in the mine, and wants meat for his noonday meal. Late in the fall, if the Irishman has not a pig, he generally buys from the country farmer a part of a beef, which he salts. Fresh meat from the stalls is too dear for him. When his beef runs out, he buys mess pork from the store; but I fear that he is not always able to take his bit of meat to the mine. Rather than cheese, he will take a couple of boiled eggs, for he is very fond of what he calls “a fresh egg.” He carries milk in preference to tea, and he loves to own a cow. Cows are often seen pasturing upon the commons or the unfenced land belonging to the companies, the surface of which is not yet sold for building-lots. The Irishman is very fond of keeping geese and ducks. When he has a lot, he raises potatoes and cabbage, for here, or at home, he dearly loves cabbage with his boiled bacon.

The German takes for his lunch bread and butter, and perhaps a “chunk of sausage,” and piece of pie or cake. His tin bottle holds coffee. The miner’s dinner-kettle and bottle are slung on a rope over one shoulder, and on entering the passages of the mine are hung on one of the props that support the roof. The men often play jokes on each other by stealing pie or cake. Of course, the German makes sauer-kraut. He keeps pigs, and sometimes buys a quarter of beef, which he smokes.

Great simplicity in food seems to exist among the mining people in Wales, where it is said that they never think of eating butter and cheese at once; they would think it sinful. Mr. E⸺, of Scranton, says that he offered cold meat to an old Welsh lady who was visiting him, and she thanked him, but she had bread and butter. And Mr. J⸺, of Welsh birth, a miner from fourteen years to forty-six, tells me that if the streets were lined with meat, he could not eat it oftener than once a day, though he admits that he sometimes takes an egg or two for breakfast.

The Welsh miners who come to this country almost invariably bring one or two feather-beds. The German who can afford it sleeps in cold weather on one feather-bed and under another; if he cannot, he sleeps on straw and under feathers.

At his work the miner generally wears a woollen shirt, pantaloons of bed-ticking or stout linen, and heavy boots. I have seen the sole studded with iron lest the coal should cut the leather.

As to the number of miners who own their houses, I have heard various estimates for Scranton, as from one-third upward, the highest estimate being in one district seven out of ten of the married.

The German’s house is a good one, painted or whitewashed. Germans cultivate flowers and vegetable gardens, principally worked by the women, who carry produce in baskets for sale. The Welshman, too, when he has a home, has a comfortable one, looking quite pretty with its surroundings. But though the Irish often own their homes, these are of a ruder kind.

* * * * *

Has the miner aspirations? This question has been put, and I have been tempted to reply by another, Is he a man? Mr. L⸺, of Scranton, came to this country when about twenty. He worked a few months at Carbondale, in this Lackawanna region, and afterward in Ohio, mining bituminous coal by the bushel,—one hundred and twenty bushels a day, at two cents each. Here he laid by one hundred and thirty dollars, which he sent to Wales to bring his parents over. “I was,” said he, “the only son they ever ’ad.” At twenty-five he married, and soon after took a contract in a mine in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania. Here the failure of his employer threw him into debt, from which he was not clear until about thirty. He took contracts on coal slopes, working always as a miner himself, but hiring hands to help him. For twenty years he was a foreman, a foreman’s salary averaging twelve hundred dollars. He also went to California, and mined gold to profit. He bought, too, a farm in Pennsylvania for three thousand five hundred dollars, and tried farming himself for two years, but found it harder work than mining.

“Some eight of us,” he says, “all miners, bought some years ago about five and a half acres of ground here for eight thousand and fifty dollars. We sold it out in building-lots, in about two months, for nearly the cost, and retained the mineral, which we value at twenty thousand dollars.” By mineral is meant, of course, the coal, of which several valuable veins underlie Scranton at the point alluded to.

Mr. L⸺ continues: “Another company of us, all miners and all poor men originally, have bought a tract of four thousand acres of coal lands near the centre of Alabama. I have been down twice to see it.” He has now retired from active business, and lives in a neat house surrounded by a large garden, which he cultivates with pleasure and profit.

Another instance of success in a more intellectual field is Mr. ⸺, editor of a Welsh paper. When he was eight years old his mother was left a widow, with nine children, from three years of age to sixteen, and with nothing but a few household goods. By putting her children to work early at the mines she kept her family together. She herself spoke nothing but Welsh. Mr. ⸺ was a precocious laborer, if I may use the expression, he being well grown, and becoming a driver at ten years, and a miner at sixteen. He never had but thirty-two days’ schooling; but having great delight in books, he got a Daboll’s Arithmetic, and went through it twice, and found some one to set him copies for writing, making use afterward of copper-plates. One great advantage which he had was the leisure which the miner often enjoys. He says, “When I was working at Carbondale two years, I could generally get my day’s work done by noon. When a miner, I wrote essays three times for the eisteddfod, and two of them drew prizes. These were each twenty-five dollars; but the pecuniary reward was not what we aimed at,—it was the honor. I gave up mining in 1869, and have been connected with a newspaper ever since.”

The miner occasionally attains to great wealth. Such, at least, was the case of Richard Care, of Minersville, of whom I hear that he came to this country a poor man, and died worth a million and a half.

* * * * *

But all these cases are exceptional. The chief ambition of the miners in general is plenty of work and good wages. “They’re death on the wages,” says one, “as the last suspension showed.” As to their desiring to improve their condition, a German tells me that there is always such a desire among his people. “I can take you up,” says he, “to Elmira, New York, and show you, I guess, a whole township of farmers who have been miners. The Germans who work here are very rarely from the mining districts of Germany, but from the agricultural. The German will take his boys into the mine to lay up a little capital, and having done this, he will buy a farm, or go into merchandise, or open a saloon.”

What provision has the miner for times when he is out of work?

I might answer after the manner of another,—credit, credit, credit. The miner is paid monthly, but by the smaller companies not always so often. Could he once tide over the first month, and enter upon the cash system, he might be pecuniarily benefited by the change, but he seems wedded to the credit system. Should any trader advertise that he would sell goods for cash twenty per cent. lower, I am told that the other store-keepers would throw their influence against him, and also that several cash stores have been tried in Scranton that did not succeed in the long-run. One of the main provisions against misfortune is the Beneficial Society. The miners do not, however, often join the Freemasons. Many of the Welsh belong to the following societies: Odd-Fellows, Foresters (a secret society of foreign origin), Ivorites (named for Ivor Hael, the Welsh founder), Red Men, and the “Philanthropic Institution.” There are other societies, Irish and German. As for the miner who does not belong to any of these, and who has no other means, if he meets with a serious accident or a protracted illness, he must go to the poor-house; but if I may credit good authority, he very rarely goes there.