"William Hunter, mining oversman, Arniston Colliery: 'I have been twenty years in the works of Robert Dundas, Esq., and had much experience in the manner of drawing coal, as well as the habits and practices of the collier people. Until the last eight months, women and lasses were wrought below in these works, when Mr. Alexander Maxton, our manager, issued an order to exclude them from going below, having some months prior given intimation of the same. Women always did the lifting or heavy part of the work, and neither they nor the children were treated like human beings, nor are they where they are employed. Females submit to work in places where no man or even lad could be got to labour in; they work in bad roads, up to their knees in water, in a posture nearly double; they are below till the last hour of pregnancy; they have swelled haunches and ankles, and are prematurely brought to the grave, or, what is worse, lingering existence. Many of the daughters of the miners are now at respectable service. I have two who are in families at Leith, and who are much delighted with the change.' "Robert Bald, Esq., the eminent coal-viewer, states that, 'In surveying the workings of an extensive colliery under ground, a married woman came forward, groaning under an excessive weight of coals, trembling in every nerve, and almost unable to keep her knees from sinking under her. On coming up, she said, in a plaintive and melancholy voice, "Oh, sir, this is sore, sore, sore work. I wish to God that the first woman who tried to bear coals had broke her back, and none would have tried it again." The boxes or carriages employed in putting are of two kinds—the hutchie and the slype; the hutchie being an oblong, square-sided box with four wheels, which usually runs on a rail; and the slype a wood-framed box, curved and shod with iron at the bottom, holding from two and a quarter to five hundred-weight of coal, adapted to the seams through which it is dragged. The lad or lass is harnessed over the shoulders and back with a strong leathern girth, which, behind, is furnished with an iron-hook, which is attached to a chain fastened to the coal-cart or slype. The dresses of these girls are made of coarse hempen stuff, fitting close to the figures; the coverings to their heads are made of the same material. Little or no flannel is used, and their clothing, being of an absorbent nature, frequently gets completely saturated shortly after descending the pit. We quote more of the evidence obtained by the commissioners. It scarcely needs any comment:—