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Show PAPERMAKIN IN INDO-CHIN 2 W Native coolies, withstoopingand bending bodies, labou in the tropical sun, their grime and sweat covered back glisten as if they had been greased. The drab blackene huts of the workerssurroun the mine, aliving, breathin f community of houses, shops, roads, and paths formed o coal. For miles there are no trees,not a flower,a shrub, o ablade of grass could live, only the depressed, emaciate brown bodies of the coolies show life. The workers ar b keptin constantmotion by thecries of the overlords wh insist that a given amount of coal be removed every day More than twenty thousand labourers work in this min and here they live with their women, their children, an their dogs. The blistering moist heat of the tropics s forever present, theatmosphere thickened with the grime o coal and every hour of the day and night the miners an their wives and babies breathe the foul black air, even th sky is entirely obliterated by the rising black dust. Ha Gustave Doré visited this locality previous to depictin the scenes of the Inferno for Dante's Divina Commedi he would have received endless inspiration The miners begin their toil at early sunrise and thei day is not finished until the darkness of the night make further work impossible. When it was asked if the miner werewell compensated for thislife of perpetualstrifean deplorable living conditions, we were informed that th philanthropic white owners generously allow each mine the equivalent of twelve cents a day. To discourage th workers from secking less trying employment elsewher il r Digital Image © 2005 Marriott Library University of Utah, All rights reserved |