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of scientific truth. And without attempting to deny the 
varying conditions under which the practice of coal mining 
must necessarily be carried on — thickness of seam, and 
quality of coal as respects its production of gas being always 
taken into consideration — there is a diversity of opinion, even 
amongst mining engineers themselves, which tends greatly 
to strengthen and confirm the accuracy of this sad conclusion. 
In many respects the occupation of a coal miner must be 
regarded as an exceptional one ; and from the peculiar diffi- 
culties and unforeseen dangers attendant upon its grim 
pursuit, it is necessarily beyond the reach of that general 
observation and control, which are applicable to all the other 
departments of labour, in which our industrial population 
are engaged. Hence the omission in mining operations of 
many of those salutary enactments, which have gone far in 
other departments of labour, to promote the mutual interests 
and security alike of employers and employed. 
To the province of what we term accidents, many events 
continue to be assigned, which ignorance or neglect give rise 
to, above-ground as well as below ; and so long as individual 
consequences only are threatened, it may be sufficient to rely 
for protection upon the natural alliance which exists between 
responsibility and danger. It is essentially different, how- 
ever, the moment it is expanded, and individual risk becomes 
the representative, it may be of scores, or, as we have recently 
seen, of hundreds of lives, all liable to immediate extinction, 
without warning or the remotest chance of escape. One after 
another, the catastrophes in this district have revealed the 
increasing force and importance with which the truth of this 
assertion applies to the mining operations of the country on the 
one hand, and the obligation on the other, which rests espe- 
cially with a Society like the present, to stimulate and exert 
every precautionary effort, by which, so far as its influence 
will extend, the misery of human suffering and loss, conse- 
