Wales, 1910s

Sunderland Daily Echo and Shipping Gazette, 27th May 1911.
Miner's superstition.

Women, like rabbits, are held to be ill-omened creatures to have about a mine. So strong is this superstition that in some districts that the miners would refuse to descend if a woman crossed their path on the way to the mine. A curious instance occurred a few years since in Wales, where a woman was employed as a pit-head messenger. She was continually meeting the miners going to their work, and so strong was their superstition, says the "Daily Chronicle," that after a day or two a deputation of them waited on the manager and declared that they would all stop work unless the woman was dismissed.