The Baker's Tale

by Thomas Hauser

  All the while, Albert Diamond and Julian White were gathering evidence for what lay ahead.

  Alexander Murd was a man who favored cunning over decency. He practiced trickery within the bounds of the law and more trickery when the law looked the other way. Aided by clever practitioners, he made hard use of his power. Now he was readying for the coroner’s inquest.

  The duty of the coroner after a mine disaster is to inquire into the causes of the accident and to ascertain whether the pit was worked in a manner that endangered human life.

  “We had best get it done quickly,” Diamond told Julian White. “Before there is time for misunderstanding to spread.”

  The inquest began before the last bodies had been raised from the pit. The inquest room was on the ground floor of the courthouse. The furniture was solid with an official look. Several dozen miners were in the spectator pews.

  Albert Diamond sat at a table with a bundle of papers consisting of legal documents and notes that he had compiled during the previous week. Julian White and Jonathan Hunt were beside him.

  A representative designated by the miners sat at an adjacent table.

  Edwin chose to sit in the spectator pews with the miners. “The Queen’s gentlemen came here once and said that they would mend things,” one of the miners told him. “But they have not. We think that the Queen was not told.”

  The coroner was a man about forty years of age named Samuel Shaw. He had a fat sallow face and false teeth. Unsightly hair sprouted from his ears. His slovenly attire warranted the inference that personal appearance was low on his list of priorities. Most of us have derived an impression of a man from his manner of doing some little thing. The way he smiles or nods his head or greets another man. Edwin disliked and did not trust Shaw.

  The coroner selected twelve jurors for the inquest and stated the case to them.

  “Gentlemen; you are impaneled here to inquire into deaths that occurred as a consequence of an event in the Lancashire mine. Evidence will be given to you regarding the circumstances attending that event. After hearing the evidence, you will give a verdict regarding the cause of the event based solely on the evidence heard by you and not according to anything else.”

  The coroner then read aloud a list of the dead, making a short pause after each name.

  The giving of testimony began.

  Jonathan Hunt was sworn and examined by the coroner. As the overseer spoke, Edwin put his forefingers together pointing upward and rested his chin on the point.

  “Are you the overseer of the mine where the event happened?” Shaw asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Please describe the conditions in the shaft and tunnels.”

  “We have worked there for about two years, and I always considered it a safe place to work. There was good air. I had no idea of any danger. All ordinary caution was used to prevent any accident.”

  “So to the best of your knowledge, was the pit clean of inflammable air?”

  “Yes, sir. I considered it in perfect safety. The ventilation was good. Fresh air was going round as usual. The misfortune appears to have arisen from the sudden appearance of gas that touched a careless man’s open lamp.”

  “Were the men working with the tops of their lamps on or off?”

  “They are ordered to always work with them on. But some men do not listen to what they are told.”

  The miner’s representative rose to cross-examine the witness.

  “Is it not true, Mr. Hunt, that, if the colliers do not mine a certain amount of coal each week, they are fined a given amount per basket? And that this penalty, as you are aware, encourages them to work with the tops of their lamps off?”

  Albert Diamond rose to his feet.

  “I object, Your Honour. The purpose of this coroner’s inquest is to determine when and how the deceased met their death, not to instruct an ill-prepared questioner on the workings of the mines.”

  “The question is foolish,” Shaw concurred. “I will not allow it.”

  The coroner addressed the miner’s representative.

  “It is not necessary to ascertain how the colliery worked. All that this inquest is charged to determine is how, when, and where the miners died. You are precluded from asking any questions of the witness that do not address these issues. Mr. Hunt has testified that the deaths were ascribable to accident. Pure accident. It is unnecessary for you to imply by your questions that there was some other nefarious cause.”

  It was clear that the coroner intended to belittle any evidence that did not support a verdict of acquittal. The inquest was a sham, making a pretense of justice as players on a stage might act out, while knowing full well that an unwholesome hand had corrupted the proceedings.

  The miners were then allowed to call a witness, a young man named Jermaine Truitt, who had been at work in an adjacent tunnel when the explosion occurred.

  “We were at work about two hours,” Truitt told the jurors. “Then a rush of wind cut by us and there was a rumbling noise. We put out our lamps and ran toward the shaft. Others came rushing out upon us from the side workings, and all of us ran in the dark in the direction of the shaft. Then we got a sudden giddiness and gasping, and knew we had met the choke-damp. It is a sleepy sickness you feel and sinking at the knees, only it is not the breath of sleep. You are breathing death. I called to those ahead of us to stop. Some of them went on, and down they went. The rest of us hurried back until we came to a place where the air could be breathed. The older ones among us tried to keep order by telling us that our friends on the surface would come soon to help us. But all of us feared another explosion or the advance of the choke-damp that would bring us death. Every minute was torment. After the first hour, I gave up hope and was as bad as the others. I knowed our friends would help us if they could. But could they? I sat there praying and making my last peace with God. And God spared us. Part of the roof of the tunnel we were in fell after the explosion. This shut off the fire and the advance of the choke-damp from us. On the next day, our friends made their way through the ruin and saved us.”

  “A heartrending story,” Shaw declared when Truitt concluded his testimony. “But it is not dispositive in any way with regard to the cause of the incident.”

  The miner’s representative asked to call his next witness.

  “How many more do you have?” the coroner demanded.

  “Quite a few, Your Honour.”

  “Mr. Truitt was in the pit. He has spoken for all.”

  “Your Honour, if you please—”

  Shaw cut him off. “I will allow for the testimony of one more miner. That is all.”

  Ethan Crowl took the witness stand.

  “I have sat here and listened to Mr. Hunt tell the jury that the ventilation in the pit was good,” Crowl began. “By this, I suppose he means that it was as well ventilated as the rest of Alexander Murd’s pits, which is good enough to enable him to get his coal out of the ground but not so well ventilated as to enable us to mine the coal with a tolerable degree of safety.”

  Albert Diamond objected to the witness’s remark. The coroner ordered it stricken from the record.

  Crowl went on.

  “On the day of the explosion, we were ordered by Mr. Hunt under penalty of losing our employment to work with the tops of our lamps off. We heard a fall of stones in the pit and put the tops back on. Sometimes, we blow out our lamps all together when we hear stones fall. At the very least, when we have concerns, our lamps are locked and made safe. But soon after we heard the fall, we were ordered—”

  “Your Honour,” Diamond interrupted. “I have endeavored throughout this proceeding to treat the miners with the respect due to them because of their grievous loss. But my patience is being sorely tested by irrational testimony such as this.”

  “Mr. Crowl,” the coroner admonished. “The full, fair, and impartial testimony of Jonathan Hunt has made it clear that . . .”

  Ethan Crowl slammed his fist down upon the witness table wit
h full force.

  “Keep a watch on your conduct, Mr. Crowl.”

  “I shall not,” Crowl shouted. “I have been dragged over burning coals for twenty years. I was a good enough tempered man once. Some people say they remember me that way. But these bloody mines have forced a change.”

  “You do not understand me,” Shaw warned.

  “To the contrary, sir. I understand your kind perfectly well. You hatch nice little plots and hold nice little councils and receive nice little favors from those who represent wealth and power. That is all you do.”

  “Hold your tongue, sir. There is no fouler imputation against a man than to say that he swore to do justice without fear or favor and then exercised his authority to benefit interests other than the impartial administration of the law. I am of the law. I am styled a gentleman by Act of Parliament and the payment of twelve pounds sterling for a certificate each year. I take pride in the purity of my motives and the correctness of my conduct.”

  Throughout the inquest, Shaw had been writing his findings on a long sheet of paper. Now he charged the jurors with the instruction that they had heard all of the evidence necessary for them to come to a conclusion.

  “Death is as much a part of doing business in the mines as it is in the rest of life,” the coroner told them. “Providence has been unwatchful of many individuals who have gained their bread in this perilous employment. This unhappy occurrence might have taken place on any day at any instant of time. For reasons of God’s infinite wisdom, inscrutable to the human mind, it was suffered to occur in this place and at this time. No one can suppose that the pit was set fire on purpose. The credible evidence is clear that conditions in the mine were in accord with reasonable standards of safety. I cannot conceive how any person might entertain the slightest doubt upon this case.”

  He then read to the jurors the findings that he had prepared for them.

  “The deceased died tragically in the Lancashire pit. We find the cause of this tragedy to be Accidental Death arising from the explosion of inflammable air, which could not be controlled by human means. It has been made clear by testimony heard to the most ordinary understanding that no human means could have been devised to save the deceased. Clearly, there was no design on the part of anyone to cause the explosion or fire in the pit. We, the jury, express full conviction that there was no want of due care and no bad management on the part of those who oversaw the direction and management of the Lancashire mine.”

  Shaw directed the twelve jurors to sign the inquest report. Seven members of the jury signed the document with an “X.” It is unknown which of the others could do more than sign their name.

  “Verdict accordingly,” the coroner announced. “Accidental death. Gentlemen of the jury, you are discharged. Thank you for your service.”

  In the aftermath of the inquest, miners milled about angrily in front of the courthouse.

  “The coroner himself chose the jurors,” Crowl fumed. “No other verdict could have been expected.”

  “I would have him branded on the face, dressed in rags, and cast out on the streets to starve,” another miner declaimed.

  “I would shoot him through the heart if he had one,” a third miner offered. “Death has no right to leave him standing while it takes our people down.”

  “The problem is not Shaw,” Crowl told the others. “He is only a tool for those in power. If he died today, he would be replaced tomorrow by another just as bad as he is.”

  Edwin left Lancashire by train the following morning. Crowl was at the train stop to bid him farewell.

  “If we lay dead at the bottom of the deepest hole in the earth, rotting in a giant coffin, we would not be less heeded than we are here,” he told Edwin. “And there is no way out. If one of our men has an angry word with those who oppress us, to jail with him. If a boy comes of age and tries to live elsewhere, he is a vagabond. To jail with him. If we refuse to work, crowds of young boys and girls growing up in this town would come forward, anxious to take our place and toil in the mines at Murd’s pleasure. He need not be afraid of losing his fortune.”

  Albert Diamond had chosen to remain in Lancashire for another day to finalize some dealings with Julian White. Edwin was alone with his thoughts on the train ride home.

  When men commit an injustice, it is not uncommon for them to express pity for the object of their misdeed and to feel virtuous and morally superior to those who express no pity at all. To give Alexander Murd and his conniving instruments their due, they eschewed that sort of dissimulation.

  It was easy for Albert Diamond and Julian White to excuse their conduct. “We are men of business. We have a fiduciary obligation to Alexander Murd and a business obligation to fulfill.” Jonathan Hunt and Samuel Shaw had their own self-justifying rationale.

  As for Murd, his hopes, joys, and affections all melted down to gold. Wealth, and only wealth, was the source of his happiness. Wealth was to be acquired by any and all means. He had no pity for others and no passion but love of coin.

  Crafty avarice grows rich. Honest labour remains poor.

  “I am uncomfortable when people have power over me,” Edwin thought to himself. “I can only begin to imagine what the miners feel.”

  He knew now what he had to do.

  On his first day back in London, Edwin readied his courage to confront Alexander Murd. He would not raise the issue of what he had learned by surreptitiously studying Murd’s ledgers. That was for another time. For now, conditions in Lancashire were enough.

  In mid-morning, Edwin knocked on the door to Murd’s private room.

  Murd looked up from his desk when Edwin entered.

  “I must speak with you, sir.”

  “I am busy now. We will talk later in the day.”

  There was boldness in Edwin’s manner.

  “Later will not do. I must trouble you to speak with me now.”

  A look of aggravation crossed Murd’s face.

  “You are to do as I say, not the other way round. That is my right as your employer and a reasonable return for the advancement that I have given to you.”

  Edwin did not shrink from Murd’s glare. He stood with the strength of a man who had sufficient reply in reserve and was about to deliver it. Then he spoke, looking Murd straight in the eye.

  “The plainness of my purpose empowers me to speak. I would like to begin with conditions in Lancashire.”

  Edwin then spoke from the heart about the mine disaster. A responsible member of human society would likely have listened with horror. At the very least, there would have been an expression of sympathy for the sufferers.

  Murd’s face showed only indifference and the absence of guilt, as if there were no more spots upon his soul than on his pure white linen shirt.

  “Do not talk of disaster in that way. We have nothing to do with disasters in this office.”

  “A tragedy, perhaps?”

  “There are hazards in all occupations. Ships sink to the bottom of the sea, and scores of men are lost.”

  “In Lancashire, women and children are among the dead.”

  “What of it?”

  “That is illegal, sir.”

  “The coroner’s inquest found no impropriety in the operation of the mine.”

  “Women and children, sir.”

  A look of contempt flared in Murd’s eyes.

  “Is the death of a mother any worse than the death of a father? Is the death of a child half so bad as the death of the grown man who provides for all of the children?”

  “It is not just that they die, sir. It is the way they live. There are thousands of miners breathing heavily now, who live in the most degrading poverty and have no chance at a better life. They live lives of unremitting toil—”

  “What else are they made for?” Murd interrupted. “Without their toil, their lives are of little worth.”

  “Not to you, perhaps. But they are precious to those who live them.”

  Murd looked at Edwin with a cold car
eless smile.

  “You assume a tone of high-mindedness that is most unbecoming.”

  “I take my position on principle.”

  “As do I. The people you speak of so lovingly are little better than savages.”

  “I do not understand your meaning, sir.”

  “That surprises me because you are usually quick of mind. But I will be plainer. The miners and their families live like beasts. They are crude. They wallow in filth. They procreate without thought.”

  “The conditions in which they live are not of their choosing. Perhaps those you disparage would be more to your liking if they were allowed an education and taught to read and write.”

  Murd’s face darkened.

  “If the miners learn to read and write,” he said in a cold hard voice, “it would be easier for troublesome ideas to spread. And if the miners become educated as you suggest, who would bring the coal out of the ground?”

  Murd’s visage tightened. Every line in his face was cruelly compressed.

  “The rule of my life is to not allow myself to be thwarted by anybody. Anybody. Everyone profits from the neediness of others. Men of business build our fortunes on the weakness of mankind. I am reviled and threatened every day by one man or another, and things roll on just the same. I do not grow poorer either.”

  “You are immoral, sir.”

  “Your opinion is of no interest to me.”

  “Perhaps not. But I do not regret having voiced it.”

  “You talk like a child.”

  “My comfort is that I am speaking the truth. Truth that should have been spoken long ago.”

  “You are an impudent young man.”

  Edwin weighed his next words.

  “Have you ever been in a mine?”

  “I decline to answer that question.”

  “You decline?”

  “Your impertinence will not be tolerated.”

  “Where, sir, are the graces of your soul?”

  Throughout the conversation, Murd had conducted himself in an imperious manner. Now his features grew even more forbidding, and he spoke as coldly as if he were made of snow.

  “I have been much too lenient with you. You are dismissed from your employment immediately.”