Jasper Republican, Volume 1, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 August 1875 — The Spanish Miner. [ARTICLE]

The Spanish Miner.

A reviewer, speaking of Hugh James Rose’s “ Untrodden Spain and the Black Country,” says: Decidedly the most characteristic part of Mr. Rose’s book is his account of the “black country,” or mining districts, of which he had considerable experience. The Spanish miner is as rough and reckless as those of his calling generally, but he has many of the most sterling qualities of his country people, with more than ordinary Spanish lightheartedness.- He works exceedingly hard, but he lives tolerably well, although but poorly paid according to English ideas. Mr. Rose gives a vivid account of his day’s occupation from the start at early morning, when he breaks his fast on cakes, coffee and aguardiente bought at the stalls set out along his road, to the more solid supper with his family of an evening, when he relax eS%fter his labor with music and merriment. He is fond of song, and improvises freely as he goes along to his work, choosing the subject of his monotonous refrain from any casual incident that may strike him. Like all Spaniards he insists on religiously celebrating any number of festas, although ius manner of making holiday is apt to degenerate into debauch. For the morality of the mining districts is as low as may be, and the certainty that their lives will be short seems to induce the miners to make the most of them in their own way. Their work is often dangerous, for the native mine-owners pay little attention to the internal economy of the mines, and the strongest constitutions succumb to the unwholesome atmosphere the miners inhale. The quicksilver mines of Almada are, of course the most deadly. In these the salivation is excessive, and it is said to be almost as bad among the copper veins of Rio Tinto. In the lead mines, strange to the action of the mineral is

more gradual; but pulmonary consump tion, fever and “ lead colic” are foe most fatal complaints. The miner seldom lives to a greater age than thirty-four, and it is a common saying with foe girls in foe neighborhood: “It is hard to marry a miner, for he must leave us so soon.” That proper sanitary precautions might do much to prevent this mortality is proved by the experience of foreign companies. Bnt in Spain, as everywhere else, the workmen object to restraint and regimen, although death and painful disease are foe penalties of neglecting them; and the native mine proprietors, with foe national indifference, leave their people to do as they please. Although foe miner takes his copa of strong liquor after his coffee, or corrects with occasional stimulants foe foulness of foe atmosphere he breathes, as a rale he is not addicted to drunkenness. He is content with poor wages and is cheerful on coarse fare; and if he must be called superstitious rather than religious at least he makes life endurable by cultivating a cheerful fatalism. These men of foe “black country" are naturally among foe roughest and least educated classes of foe population yet Mr. Rose pronounces them to he “ Nature’s gentlemen.” He says, talking of the miner: “He could not say or do a rude thing. To walk with the stranger; to relieve him of any load he may be carrying under a burning sun; to offer you—and foe oiler is meant —a share of his simpie'meal, if you chance to come upon him when dining, is simply his habit.”