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Si .THE BLACK COUNTRY.
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
_ 4 « We Have No Objection To Ours Being...
¦ supply , is yielded to distress with cheerful readiness ; for _thoughts . sp less ending and improvident in animal as gratification are the majorit their y of hardl our y lab earned oring money _poxDiilation , no _^
class are more ready to help and support each other in times of trial and need .
It is not an isolated case to find , as the writer has done , the parents of a large family , who , if a time of bad trade came , would
not know how to get bread for their own little ones , voluntarily taking charge of ' one or two orphans , left to the world ' s mercy by
the desolating ' . typhus " -which locates perpetually in many of the close courts and alleys of the mining townsoras is frequently
the case , deprived of their remaining parent , by , one of the fearful accidents to which their labor renders them daily and hourly liable .
:. The " big" ! house " is dreaded , not only for its restraints and discomfortsbut is considered in some sort as a disgraceful refuge
only to be endured , when life has no other hope left ; and there is , great pride taken in the fact thatso far as possiblethe orphan
children of the colliers are saved , from its grim walls , by their own people .
Yet these same people , with an amount of self-sacrifice , not . perhaps equalled , certainly not surpassed by any other class , have
little or no self-control ; and with _fe _^ _y helps or incentives to other than immediate gratification of the senses and feelingsit is little to
be wondered at , that the miner , exhausted with his hard , work , often for a week together never seeing the blessed light of heaventakes
, no thought for aught beside food , sleep , and labor . : Much has been done of late years for the colliery
districtslectures , mechanics' institutes , night schools , & c , have in many instances sown the seedsand given a taste for better things—but
, been much attempted remains to save be in done one , and or two that inst of ances another . kind than has yet ¦
Four or £ . _yg days out of seven , the collier's home is . a scene of dirtconfusionand disorder ; squalidnoisy childrenan unswept
hearth , and an , untidwifeare little , inducements to , the husband to spend , his evenings y at home , ; and the clear bright fire of the
neighboring tap-room , the spruce barmaid , the cheerful company , and the tempting giassgain greatly by comparisonand are hard
to be resisted . It is , the _ivomen of the black country , who most need the aid of the philanthropist and the thoughtful help of their
better-taught sisters : these , when children , as soon as they can possibly be trusted out aloneare sent to and fro to the pits with
" dinners " for their fathers or , brothers employed there ; one meets them regularly at the same hour each morning , plodding along the
black dusty roads , not daring even to stop to pick the yellow _crow-r foot or some kindly disposed daisy which has ventured to open its eye
• in our murky atmosphere , for " mother " was late in getting the said dinner ready , and unless the little ones are quick they will not
reach the pit-mouth at the proper time . . '
Si .The Black Country.
Si . THE BLACK COUNTRY .
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Oct. 1, 1861, page 84, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01101861/page/12/
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