The want of instruction, and the seclusion from the rest of the world, which is common to the colliers, give them a sad pre-eminence over every other class of labourers, in ignorance and callousness; and when they are made masters, what can be expected? In all cases of apprenticeship, the children are bound till they attain the age of twenty-one years. If the master dies before the apprentice attains the age of twenty-one years, the apprentice is equally bound as the servant of his deceased master's heirs, executors, administrators, and assigns. In fact, the apprentice is part of the deceased master's goods and chattels! But, to speak more particularly of the labour of the children:—The employment of the adult collier is almost exclusively in the "getting" of the coal from its natural resting-place, of which there are various methods, according to the nature of the seams and the habits of the several districts. That of the children and young persons consists principally either in tending the air-doors where the coal-carriages must pass through openings, the immediately subsequent stoppage of which is necessary to preserve the ventilation in its proper channels, or in the conveyance of the coal from the bays or recesses in which it is hewn, along the subterranean roadways, to the bottom of the pit-shaft; a distance varying from absolute contiguity even to miles, in the great coal-fields of the North of England, where the depth requires that the same expensive shaft shall serve for the excavation of a large tract of coal. The earliest employment of children in the pits is generally to open and shut the doors, upon the proper custody of which the ventilation and safety of the whole mine depends. These little workmen are called "trappers." Of the manner in which they pass their earlier days, Dr. Mitchell, a distinguished Englishman, has given a very interesting sketch, which deserves to be quoted here entire:—