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Statement of the Miners' Association.

COLCHESTER, Jan. 7, 1862.

To the People of Quincy: WHEREAS, We, the miners and haulers of Colchester, understanding that we were wrongfully represented to the people of Quincy, take this opportunity to explain our grievances, and to prove the justness of our cause, and reasonableness of our proposition to our employers. We believe we are justifiable in asking the price we have proposed, and that it will only compensate us for our labor and be our just right. That price is three cents and a half per bushel for digging, and one and a quarter cts per bushel for haulting.

1. We, as miners, being "dissatisfied" with the weight of coal in Quincy, in not receiving or seeing any railroad returns, wish our coal weighed in Colchester.

2. One of our employers having a store in Colchester, we are indirectly compelled to spend our money there, and pay from forty to fifty per cent more than at other stores, or in Macomb city.

3. We have had five and a half cents for digging in the same vein about four years ago, when it was all near at hand, and required very little labor to wheel it out. Now it is three or four times the distance under ground, and our employers want us to dig it for three cents per bushel, and for hauling the same distance two cents per bushel was paid, and now our employers want us to do the same work for one cent per bushel. We propose to deliver coal on the railroad at five and three quarter cents per bushel. These are our terms and on this ground we stand out.

4. If the people in Quincy will aid us in petitioning the Legislature to pass an act to allow every man the same privilege in shipping coal at the same price on the railroad, and then the digger and hauler can have their price, and the price of coal in Quincy need not be raised.

5. We, as a body of working men, thank you for your former patronage and solicit the continuance of the same, but we cannot give our labor entirely away. Any person wishing to know further particulars can write to the "Miners' Association," Colchester, McDonough county, Illinois.

6. We should have signed our names to the above, but there have been so many good men discharged for similar things before, that we think it prudent to withhold them.

Paper friendly to our cause, please copy.