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Updated: May 2, 2025
There are different cranes on the rolley-ways, near the side cuttings, and each is under charge of a lad, called a crane-hoister, whose business is to hoist the baskets brought to him by the putters on to the rolleys, and to chalk down the number he cranes on a board.
Such a dreadful place, too, full of dark passages and pits and worked-out panels; and then there is the bad gas, which kills so many; and then there are the rolleys, and many a poor lad has got run over with them. Oh dear, oh dear!" "Well, mother, I hope the lad will be found," said the young stranger. "I didn't think the place was like that; may be you'll tell me something more about it."
In a short time a gang of putters with a supply of rolleys came down to carry away the coal and earth and rock as it was hewn out, but five men could only labour at a time. They worked, therefore, in relays.
The door near which Dick sat was called a trap, and Dick was called a "trapper." His business was to open the trap when the little wagons loaded with coal came by; pushed, or put, by boys who are therefore called "putters." They bring the coal from the place where the hewers are at work to the main line, where it is hoisted up on the rolleys, or wagons, to be carried to the foot of the shaft.
Some of the main passages run on straight ahead for two miles from the foot of the shaft, and the coal has to be brought all this distance on the rolleys, dragged by ponies or horses sometimes. It might puzzle some people to say how the animals are got down and up again. They are let down in a strong net of ropes, and once down, they do not after see daylight.
Leaving their tools, they unhooked the lamps, which hung on nails above their heads, and hastened to the drink place, an open space to which their dinners were brought from the shaft on rolleys, chiefly in basins done up in handkerchiefs, each having his proper mark. Some had the first letters of their names, others bits of different coloured cloth, others buttons.
He did not like the work a bit more than before. He could not help thinking of the green fields he remembered playing in when he was a little boy, and he ofttimes sighed for them; but his parents wanted him to work in the mines, and so it was his duty to stay on where he was. At last he was made a putter, and had, with two other boys, to push and pull along the rolleys.
His uncle acknowledged that the rolleys, corves, picks, and spades were wonderfully exact, indeed, was so well pleased that he allowed him a lantern and a supply of candles, so that instead of sitting in the dark, he could pass his time in reading and cutting out his models, the materials for which he carried down with him.
"I kept awake, opened the door when the rolleys came by, and shut it again after they had passed!" answered Mark. "That's what I had to do!" said Simon. "I only wish that I had a candle, and had brought a book down to read. I should not have minded it much then, although it was a hard matter to keep awake!" "You were not afraid, then?" asked another man.
When the train of rolleys reaches the shaft, the full corves are hoisted up, and empty ones let down, which are placed on the rolleys, and carried back for the hewers to fill. No spirits are allowed in mines, but as the heat and the work makes the people thirsty, tubs of water are placed at intervals, at which they can drink.
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