The animal’s eyes and ears became more frightfully expressive, as with restless anticipatory limbs and quivering flesh he swung round in his descending approach to the earth. When his hoofs touched, he made a plunge. But though the band and chain confined him, he appeared yet more restrained by the appalling blackness. He made a second plunge, but with the same result. He then stood stock-still, glared round at the black walls and the black faces and figures that surrounded him, and instantly fainted. The body of the horse was speedily dragged off on a sort of sledge, by a tackle. The business of the mine could not wait for his recovery. He was taken to be ‘fanned.’ Flashley of course understood this as a mine joke; but it was not entirely so. A great iron wheel, with broad fans, was often worked rapidly in a certain place, to create a current of air and to drive it on towards the fire in the up-cast shaft, assisting by this means the ventilation of the mine; and thither, or at all events, in that direction, the poor horse was dragged, amidst the laughter and jokes of the miners and the shouts and whistles of the boys. How silent the place became after they were gone! Flashley stepped forwards towards the spot immediately beneath the shaft. It was much nearer to the surface than any of the other shafts, and the daylight from above ground just managed to reach the bottom. Under the shaft was a very faint circle of sad-coloured and uncertain light. The palest ghost might have stood in the middle of it and felt ‘at home.’ The ‘streets’ of the mine appeared to be composed of a series of horse-ways having square entrances to ‘workings’ at intervals on either side, and leading to narrow side-lane workings. Up one of these his guide now compelled Flashley to advance; in order to do which they were both obliged to stoop very low; and, before long, to kneel down and crawl on all-fours. While moving forward in this way upon the coal-dust slush, where no horse could draw a waggon, a poor beast of another kind was descried approaching with his load. It was in the shape of a human being, but not in the natural position—in fact, it was a boy degraded to a beast, who with a girdle and chain was dragging a small coal-waggon after him. A strap was round his forehead, in front of which, in a tin socket, a lighted candle was stuck. His face was close to the ground. He never looked up as he passed.[2] Footnote 2: Young women and girls were also used in this way till the Report of the Children’s Employment Commission caused it to be forbidden by Act of Parliament.