ral are making 20_s._ to
30_s._ per week (_sic_) the pitmen here are only making 13_s._ 6_d._ and
from this miserable pittance deductions are made.'[45]

In 1839, during the Chartist disturbances, a Welsh M.P. wrote to the
Home Secretary begging for barracks and troops: 'A more lawless set of
men than the colliers and miners do not exist ... it requires some
courage to live among such a set of savages.'[46] When the miners came
out in 1844, there were thousands of cottages tenantless in
Northumberland and Durham. For the colliery proprietors owned the
cottages, and when the miners struck evicted them. So the miners set up
house in the streets. 'In one lane ... a complete new village was built,
chests-of-drawers, deck beds, etc., formed the walls of the new dwelling;
and the top covered with canvas or bedclothes as the case might be.'[47]
Yet, for all their griminess, they had human hearts and voices. During
the strike they obtained permission to hold a meeting at Newcastle; and
the wealthy citizens who made their fortunes out of the coal trade
trembled before the invasion of black barbarians. But the meeting passed
off in rain and peace. Thirty thousand miners marched in procession,
'for near a mile flags in breeze, men walking in perfect order'; and as
they marched, they sang, as only miners sing, songs and hymns and
topical ditties:

'Stand fast to your Union
Brave sons of the mine,
And we'll conquer the tyrants
Of Tees, Wear, and Tyne!'

Up and down the Durham coalfields tramped a misguided agitator (in after
life the veteran servant of the Durham Miners' Association), by name
Tommy Ramsey. With bills under his arm and crake in hand, he went from
house-row to house-row calling the miners out. He had only one message:

'Lads, unite and better your condition.
When eggs are scarce, eggs are dear;
When men are scarce, men are dear.'[48]

Such blasphemy appalled the Government's Commissioners. But the miners
had a zest for religion as well as for strikes. During the strike of
1844, 'frequent meetings were held in their chapels (in general those of
the Primitive Methodists or Ranters as they are commonly called in that
part of the country), where prayers were publicly offered up for the
successful result of the strike.' They attended their prayer meeting 'to
get their faith strengthened'.[49]

Such ignorance could only be cured by education. Some worthy members of
society had alread