202 DR. WILSON ON THE COAL MINERS 
principal apartment, the size being about six yards square; a 
pantry is attached behind, and there is a half story or garret 
above. There is a front door and a back door, and the windows, 
one in each apartment, are made to open by drawing the one 
half in front of the other. The houses in the double rows are 
about twice the size of those in the single ones; they are divided 
into two principal apartments by a partition running length- 
ways, with a communicating door in the centre of the partition. 
When a scarcity of houses exists in a colliery the communi- 
cating door is built up, and as in the single houses, there being 
a front door and a back door; the double house is thus easily 
converted into two single ones, and is occupied by two families 
instead of one. ‘This, although a convenient, is by no means g 
salutary arrangement, the single houses built end to end being 
much more healthy than those built back to back. The double 
houses are occupied by men who have grown-up sons at work in 
the colliery; the single houses are occupied by men who have 
young families. Married men with no children can scarcely be 
said to exist amongst them. The floors are laid with a compo-— 
sition of lime, small coal, and gravel. The fire range is large, 
and fitted with an oven and a boiler for a constant supply of hot 
water. They have a plentiful supply of small coal, and the fire 
is never allowed to go out from one end of the year to the other. 
Generally the houses are clean and comfortably furnished; a 
four-post bedstead, an eight-day clock, and a mahogany chest of 
drawers, have always been and are still considered the essentials 
of a well fitted-up house. The ornaments hung on their walls 
might form a rich field for psychological study. From them 
we can easily perceive the tendency of the mind of the owner. 
You find in one, Tom Sayers, Bob Brettle, and the Manchester 
Chicken; in another, the Primitive Methodists, New Con- 
nexion, or Wesleyan Methodists’ preachers’ plan; in another, 
the ‘Madonna and Child,” decidedly after Rubens; in another, 
numbers of home-made cages, containing every variety of the 
finch tribe; in another, a trombone, cornet, or violin; and in all 
but the skip-jack’s, you find the emblem of either the “ Forest- 
ers,” “Odd Fellows,” or ‘Free Gardeners” benefit society. And 
