They took the child--boy or girl--at six years of age; they carried the little thing away from the light of heaven, and lowered it deep down into the black and gloomy pit; they placed it behind a door, and ordered it to pull this open to let the corves, or trucks, come and go, and to keep it shut when they were not passing. The child was set at the door in the dark--at first they gave it a candle, which would burn for an hour or two and then go out. Think of taking a child of six--your child, Madam!--and putting it all alone down the dark mine! They kept the little creature there for twelve interminable hours. If the child cried, or went to sleep, or neglected to pull the door open, they beat that child. The work began at four in the morning, and it was not brought out of the pit until four, or perhaps later, in the evening, so that in the winter the children never saw daylight at all. The evidence given before the Royal Commission showed that the children, when they were brought up to the pit’s mouth, were heavy and stupefied, and cared for little when they had taken their supper but to go to bed. And yet the men who owned these collieries had children of their own! And they would have gone on to this very day starving the children of light and loading them with work, stunting their growth, and suffering them to grow up in ignorance all their days, but for Lord Shaftesbury. This is what is written of the children and their work by one who visited the mines:-- To ascertain the nature of the employment of these children, I went down a pit.... Descending a shaft, 600 feet deep, I went some distance along a subterranean road which, I was told, was three miles in length. To the right and left of one of these roads or ways are low galleries, called workings, in which the hewers are employed, in a state of almost perfect nudity, on account of the great heat, digging out the coal. To these galleries there are traps, or doors, which are kept shut, to guard against the ingress or egress of inflammable air, and to prevent counter-currents disturbing the ventilation. The use of a child, six years of age, is to open and shut one of these doors when the loaded corves, or coal trucks, pass and repass. For this object the child is trained to sit by itself in a dark gallery for the number of hours I have described. The older boys drive horses and load the corves, but the little children are always trap-keepers. When first taken down they have a candle given them, but, gradually getting accustomed to the gloom of the place, they have to do without, and sit therefore literally in the dark the whole time of their imprisonment. [Illustration: CHILDREN WORKING IN A COAL MINE (From a Plate in the _Westminster Review_)]