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44 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.
CHILD LABOR LAW IN PENNSYLVANIA.
Representative Alfred B. Gamer, father of the
Gamer child labor law. now in effect in Pennsyl­
vania, has given out an explanatory statement so
that those affected by the measure may thoroughly
understand its provisions. It includes the follow­
ing:
The bill goes into effect at once so far as the
granting of certificates is concerned, though the
penalties against the coal companies do not begin
until October 15. This is done so that all can get
certificates before then. The parent should not
wait until then as the examinations will take some
time. No boy under 16 years can work inside a
coal mine, nor under 14 years, around the breaker.
All boys under 21 years of age must secure a
certificate, whether they work inside the mines
or outside, around the breaker.
The certificate is granted by the superintendent
of the public schools in the place in which the
boy lives, or, if residence is in a township and
there is no superintendent the certificate must be
secured from the principal teacher. To secure
an employment certificate the law provides (if
you have a birth certificate or other legal paper
showing your age), take your parent, guardian or
custodian to the common school superintendent
and exhibit your birth certificate. He will then
examine you and see whether you can read, write
and spell simple sentences in the English language.
If you can do so, he will measure your
height, take the color of your eyes, hair and complexion,
and will enter the whole on the certificate.
He will then swear your parents as to the correctness
of the statement therein, and will give you
the certificate, keeping a copy himself. If you
cannot produce a birth certificate or other legal
paper showing your age, then you must take to
the superintendent or principal teacher, where
there is no superintendent, a certificate from the
teacher of the last school you attended, showing
that you have received instruction in reading,
spelling, writing, English grammar and geography
and that you are familiar with the fundamental
operations of arithmetic, up to and including fractions.
Show this certificate and you will then be
examined in reading, writing and spelling, your
parents sworn and the certificate granted.
The superintendent, or principal teacher, as the
case may be. must issue the certificate and swear
the parents free of charge. The justice of the
peace has nothing to do with these certificates.
Do not pay anyone any money. File the employment
certificate granted you, with the company
employing you. They will return it when you
quit their employ.
The local coal trade at Nashville, Tenn.. is probably
lost to the rest of the world. A local newspaper
correspondent has discovered that "there is
a vein several feet square which lies at the bottom
of a creek about two miles from town."
—o—
This is the season when the average city dweller
would be mighty glad to exchange the superheated
air he is compelled to breathe for the cool, moist
atmosphere in which the miner does his daily
stunt. Verily, we are never satisfied.
—o—
If J. Pluvius continues to give the river shippers
of the Pittsburgh district a coal boat stage
every time a million bushels or so are gathered together,
the Monongahela valley miners will all be
coal magnates before the year is out.
—o—
The merry retailer has had his fling. It's back
from the mines for him and if he is wise he will
stock up anent higher prices and worse transportation
conditions, the liKelihood of which he should
have learned during his outing.
—o—
Members of the mining institute are likely to
regret the absence of "papers" if the day be hot
and the committee fails to supply palm leaf fans.
|| COAL TRADE CASUALTIES. >
An explosion of fire damp in No. 2 pit of the
United Colliery Co. at Wattstown in the Rhondda
valley, the center of the Welsh coal fields, on
July 11. resulted in the loss of at least 126 lives.
The majority of the bodies have been taken out.
The torce of the explosion wrecked the machinery
at the mouth of the pit, which cut off all communication
with the entombed men. The disaster is
the worst that has taken place in South Wales
since 1894.
—x—
A coal chute at Riehl's Mills, near Frederick
Junction. Md., owned by the Baltimore & Ohio
Railroad Co., was burned recently entailing a loss
of $10,000.
—x—
A fire which started in the Borussia coal mine
at Dortmund, Germany, on July 10, cut off 39
miners all of whom, at last accounts, were believed
to be dead.
—x—
A gas explosion in one of the mines of the Taylor
Coal & Coke Co.. near Uniontown, Pa., on July
6, badly wrecked the shaft and caused the deaths
of six men.