"Strikes caused by ghosts"

Quite recently the whole of the miners belonging to the Glyncorrwg Colliery, near Port Talbot, Glamorganshire, went out on strike through fear of a ghost. Deep down in the nethermost workings, they assert, a white-clothed female figure appears at frequent but irregular intervals, waves her arms thrice above her head, mutters certain words in an unknown tongue, and then vanishes.

This, of course, is no new thing. Miners are proverbially superstitious, and it is only natural that they should decline to go down into a mine that they believe to be haunted; but it is rather hard lines for the mine-owners especially as these ghost-induced strikes often prove exceedingly expensive.

Thus, in 1873, several hundred Warwickshire colliers ceased work, owing to the alleged appearance, in a disused drift, of a "luminous boy." This strike lasted for the better part of a year, and cost £30,000; and after all the so-called "luminous boy" turned out to be nothing more supernatural than a collection of decaying fungi.

Bell-ringing apparitions have haunted the Cornish tin-mines from time immemorial. The miners assert that the bells are rung by kindly-disposed ghosts, themselves miners when in the flesh, as a warning of impending calamity; and no amount of persuasion will induce them to venture below ground at such times.

One of these curious strikes lasted five months; and another which threatened to continue indefinitely, was only brought to a close by the plucky action of one of the proprietors, who, in order to reassure his men, descended himself into the particular working which was supposed to be haunted, and stayed there quite alone for three days and nights.

Very tragic was the termination of the spook-bred strike which, in 1887, occurred iat Mons Colliery, in Belgium. Late in April the men came out because, so they averred, a strange shaggy man, who vanished when approached, had been heard in the workings foretelling disaster and muttering imprecations against those who disregarded his warnings. for several days the mine lay idle, but on the morning of the 5th of MArch the manager had so far succeeded in allaying the fears of the men that a goodly proportion of them returned to work. Two or three hours later a terrific explosion occurred, causing the death of eighty-seven of them.

Northants Evening Telegraph, 16th August 1902.