Dismissiveness. Foreign beetles implicated.

"Anti-Humbug" is a miner of sense without fear of superstition, and hails from Tonypandy. I welcome his sensible letter, though he comes down on "your Rhondda correspondent" with a heavy heel. "I accept his Treherbert dove story for what it is worth." There is decision about "Anti-Humbug." "But," he goes on, "the interesting story related by Captain Lewis, of Ynysfeio Colliery, is too good to be passed. He says that whilst examining a certain part of the workings by himself he heard tapping as though some person was striking the timbers some yards away with a hammer. Having listened and heard the sound more distinctly he advanced towards the spot whence the sound came ('plucky Captain Lewis'); going still further on and close to a pile of timber, he lifted one of themthem, and discovered immediately a large Norwegian black beetle, about two inches long, boring into the wood. He was positive that superstitious and timid miners would have quitted the place at once, declaring they had heard a ghost. Nonsense, the sound heard by Captain Lewis is frequently heard underground, and every man and boy knows the cause of it, and I believe even colliery horses for that matter.

The Norwegian beetle referred to is generally known among miners as a jasper or a Russian bug. The insect can be heard yards away boring into timber. I do not believe that the average Welsh miner is any more timid and superstitious than Captain Lewis, and certainly not half as fussy about the sound of an insect. What has been passed off in your columns lately as superstition is often a miner's fear for his safety, owing to the conditions of certain parts of the workings in the various collieries."

And then follows a vigorous protest against the silly reflections which have been cast "on us miners generally." A good deal of nonsense has been written and much more talked about the superstitious beliefs and fears of the Welsh miner, he says. Much more has been talked. Even "Anti-Humbug" will admit, I think, that the Morfa incident was a sufficient justification for a little plain speaking. I have laughed at the ghostly ideas in the same way that my corresponsdent disdains them. The dove stories, the singing in the glen, the mysterious forms "seen" in the mines and on the mountain sides are the thinnest of fictions, and as fragile as a dew spangled cobweb. To describe them in cold blood is to destroy the fictions; it is quite unnecessary to place them under the microscope of inquiry.

I have held all along that the "warnings," "tappings," and "noises" heard in the Morfa Pit were not unusual or strange. They are familiar to every miner throughout the country, only the miners at other collieries than the Morfa find the cause for the noises in quite ordinary and everyday phenomnea. My Rhondda correspondent declares that one form of "tapping" is well understood by the colliery horses, and I believe his assertion. I do not think the Welsh miner generally has been given credit for this silly belief in ghosts in the mine. The public laugh at the Morfa "spirits" and ask whether that mine is specially favoured by apparitions and message bearers, by doves and visitors who follow the miners from their work home and waylay them as they pass from their cottages to the mine. The men in the Morfa Pit hug their childish superstitions; in the Rhondda the colliery horses see through them!

South Wales Echo, 19th December 1895.

Morfa Colliery

The Morfa Colliery, six years ago the scene of an explosion, been deserted in superstitious terror by the miners, and for some days past they have been gathered about the pit bank, deaf to all persuasions to resume work. Some of them heard, or think they have heard strange sounds in the workings, cries, groans and a "twittering music"; a heavy door in the roadway has been seen to open and shut of its own accord, and direst sign of all, a dove was found perched on a coal truck in the weighing house.

It is conceivable that a seismic tremor, or a settling of strata over the older workings, caused the sounds and movements thus described, and in either case there might be danger. Such sounds were heard just before the disaster of 1889. But the Welshmen will not have it so; they say that at such times the pit is haunted, and in proof of this they tell a gruesome story.

Before the last explosion an apparition, dressed in black oilskin suit descended from the shaft by the side of train of coal on the cage, and walked across the yard to a building that was to be afterwards used as a dead-house; and immediately after the explosion one of the officials of the colliery, dressed in the same manner did exactly as the apparition had done.

By the way of reassuring them, Mr. Robson, the Government inspector; Mr. Grey, the chief manager; and a small party of men went into the mine to make a strict examination; but as they found nothing changed, the scare continues.

Rhyl Record and Advertiser, 21st December 1895.