The Recklessness of Miners.

Cromwell Argus, Volume IV, Issue 175, 18 March 1873, Page 7

The Recklessness of Miners.

(Daylesford Mercury.) I Why are the oldest miners often the most incautious 1 Evidently because familiarity with the numerous and various perils of their vocation renders them insensible to them. It is one of the misfortunes of the occupation that it has a tendency to make men regardless of theft safety to a perfectly astonishing degree. Let us take, for instance, the case , 0 { poor Bennetts, who was killed on Monday in a shaft of the Argus Company. The evidence showed that the shaft was about 100 feet deep, but that there was a ladder-way extending to within 20 feet of the surface. To reach the first rung the unfortunate man seized an . old piece of rope that, had been lying for some time under a heap of firewood. Had the rope been new or sound, it would have been amply strong enough to have supported his weight. But, whether lie knew it or not, the rope had been tied round a steampipe, and, being thoroughly rotten, had been cast aside as only fit for fuel. Now, any other person, before venturing to suspend himself over a yawning abyss of 100 feet, would have taken some pains to test the rope on which his existence depended. Especially would he have done this if, as in the instance under consideration, the hemp had been exposed for an indefinite time to the action of damp. Yet the deceased, though even warned hy his mate that he would not trust himself to such a rope, hastily tied it to the poppet legs, and threw himself off—as it unhappily moved—into eternity. And, on examination, it was found that the material was so rotten that the rope had snapped clean across, like a thread. Now, there can be no doubt that he courted his own fate by an entire disregard fof the - most obvious precautions. Thus a widow and a large family have been deprived of their natural protector, and forced to struggle as they can with the world.