DURHAM AND NORTHUMBERLAND. 143

late the sympathy and feelings of a portion ofthe public has been raised by the lamentedlosses of lives that have occurred. Althoughon one hand the rights of private property,and the respect due to characters of the first re-spectability, who are owners and lessors ofcoal works, to the professional talents and tothe private characters of the agents, over-lookers, and men employed, call for and re-quire the utmost delicacy in speaking or wri-ting for the public eye, on their individualconcerns or proceedings ; yet on the otherhand, in a matter of so much importance asthe preventing of the distressing catastropheswhich have of late years wrung the hearts ofthe inhabitants of Northumberland and'Dur-ham, it may appear little short of criminalapathy in those who may happen to seemuch of the management of colleries in thisor other districts, not to endeavour, by asplain and intelligible description as possible,to make the true circumstances of the unfor-tunate case fully known to the public ; and intemperate and proper terms to describe thedefects of system or management that theymay perceive themselves, in order that the in-fluence and weight of opinion of persons con-versant with the subject, and of the intel-