I don't know much about the Sydney mines, but from the context, I can infer that the tunnels were unsafe. Whether being that they were collapsing, or they were filled with poisonous gasses.
The second statement is the most accurate.
Hope this helps!
Explanation:
Prose looks like large blocks of words. Poetry is typically reserved for expressing something special in artistic way
Answer:
In some cases, people used to look at other's shoes to see what type of wealth (or class) they had. Usually, richer people would have fancier shoes, and poorer, or middle class, would have more normal ones.