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I have so repeatedly and minutely studied must furnish 
materials for study to those inspectors. 
Again, it is on every account most desirable that the 
Inspectors should operate on proprietors rather through per- 
suasion and representations than through the gross machinery 
of compulsion, fines, and prohibitions. On the Continent it 
is so.* In this country Government or official interference 
is viewed with more jealousy. We are less accustomed to it. 
Recommendations from authority are null unless supported 
by public opinion, and public opinion does not express itself, 
is not even formed, unless a strong interest is felt by a large 
portion of the community. All who consume coal, indeed, 
ought to have a deep, though it must be a melancholy, interest 
in these occurrences. Manv a time when 
" Shadows from the fitful firelight 
Dance upon the darken'd wall;" 
many a time when 
" We stir the fire, and close the shutters fast, 
And calmly welcome sober evening in ;" 
may we revert to the thought that, in obtaining the means of 
domestic cheerfulness for us, numbers from time to time have 
met with death in horrid forms, and widowhood and misery 
have been suddenly spread among other hearths. When 
such recollections obtrude, no feeling heart, no thoughtful 
mind, but must bid good speed to every inquiry calculated to 
diminish this source of human woe. 
One of the first circumstances evident on comparing these 
accounts is, that few as they are, they embrace coal fields 
widely scattered, and very different in many respects. Seven 
explosions reported on comprehend Durham, Yorkshire, 
* In the " Darley Report," at p. 6, Mr. Tremenheere says, " In France, 
Belgium, and Germany, very nearly all the alterations thought right by the 
Inspectors, in order to the safety of the people, are obtained by frank and friendly 
representations alone. To use their own expressions, ' they act by persuasion 
and the force of conviction far more than by force of law.' " Similar statements 
are to be found in many other passages of his reports. 
