157 
in several of the cases that they have strong objection to 
lamps, on account of their giving less light than candles.* 
Mr. Green, at Risca, says, 6 i I have much trouble with 
the men respecting the use of the lamp. I have frequently 
been obliged to make them an allowance, either by putting 
a boy with them, or by giving them an extra price, when 
they were asked to use the lamp. / have many times seen 
colliers with the safety lamp hung up by them burning, and 
they working with a naked candle, also burning, close to 
each other."\ Nowhere did the workmen complain that 
they could not readily obtain lamps, but wherever the sub- 
ject is mentioned, we find unwillingness to use them ; and 
this, although, as the evidence implies, the cost of lamps, 
oil, and wick was borne by the masters, but that of candles 
by the men themselves.J 
Mr. Smyth says, " Men have been known to dash to 
pieces Upton and Roberts's lamp, on account of its weight.§ 
As candles could always be smuggled into the pits, there 
appears little prospect of effecting, by compulsion, the 
general use of any safety lamp. Unhappily, the case of 
a coal mine, so far as explosions are concerned, differs 
from that of a ship, and from many other dangerous occu- 
pations, in that the care of the most prudent does not 
secure even themselves, while the carelessness of one may 
at any time involve the whole in destruction. At Jarrow, 
and at the Oaks, the immediate cause of explosion seems 
to have been, in each instance, a man going with a candle 
into a part of the waste notoriously unsafe ; at the Oaks, 
too, after being repeatedly warned against it. The story 
is familiar to many, of Dr. Faraday, during his inspection 
of the Haswell mine, after the accident there, asking of 
the group of smokers among whom he was resting, " Where 
* John Bainbridge, p. 20, at Jarrow. 
t Report, 1847. f P. 54. § P. 47. 
VOL. III. L 
