"She has first to descend a nine-ladder pit to the first rest, even to which a shaft is sunk, to draw up the baskets or tubs of coals filled by the bearers; she then takes her creel (a basket formed to the back, not unlike a cockle-shell, flattened toward the back of the neck, so as to allow lumps of coal to rest on the back of the neck and shoulders,) and pursues her journey to the wall-face, or, as it is called here, the room of work. She then lays down her basket, into which the coal is rolled, and it is frequently more than one man can do to lift the burden on her back. The tugs or straps are placed over the forehead, and the body bent in a semicircular form, in order to stiffen the arch. Large lumps of coal are then placed on the neck, and she then commences her journey with her burden to the bottom, first hanging her lamp to the cloth crossing her head. In this girl's case, she has first to travel about fourteen fathoms (eighty-four feet) from wall-face to the first ladder, which is eighteen feet high; leaving the first ladder, she proceeds along the main road, probably three feet six inches to four feet six inches high, to the second ladder, eighteen feet high; so on to the third and fourth ladders, till she reaches the pit-bottom, where she casts her load, varying from one hundred-weight to one hundred-weight and a half, in the tub. This one journey is designated a rake; the height ascended, and the distance along the roads added together, exceed the height of St. Paul's Cathedral; and it not unfrequently happens that the tugs break, and the load falls upon those females who are following. However incredible it may be, yet I have taken the evidence of fathers who have ruptured themselves from straining to lift coal on their children's backs. "Janet Cumming, eleven years old, bears coals: 'I gang with the women at five, and come up with the women at five at night; work _all night_ on Fridays, and come away at twelve in the day. I carry the large bits of coal from the wall-face to the pit-bottom, and the small pieces called chows in a creel. The weight is usually a hundred-weight, does not know how many pounds there are in a hundred-weight, but it is some weight to carry; it takes three journeys to fill a tub of four hundred-weight. The distance varies, as the work is not always on the same wall; sometimes one hundred and fifty fathoms, whiles two hundred and fifty fathoms. The roof is very low; I have to bend my back and legs, and the water comes frequently up to the calves of my legs. Has no liking for the work; father makes me like it. Never got hurt, but often obliged to scramble out of the pit when bad air was in.'