Hard as a pitman's life seems to be, yet it is agreed by those who knew the Northumbrian collieries half a century ago, that it was then much more laborious. It fell with peculiar severity on the boys employed in the pits. A boy was generally placed at this kind of work at six years old, his parents being poor, and willing to avail themselves of his small earnings. His occupation was first that of a 'trapper,' to open and shut the doors of the pit; he remained the whole day at this employment, sometimes for a period of eighteen hours, and received five pence per day as wages. He went to his labour at two o'clock in the morning, in pitchy darkness, so that it was literally true that in winter he did not see daylight from Sunday until the next Saturday afternoon, when the hour of leaving work was earlier. At twelve or fourteen years of age he became a 'putter' or a 'driver,' and worked shorter hours, but more severely than as a trapper, receiving wages much lower than those received at the present day, and working a much greater number of hours. At length, at the age of seventeen or eighteen, his strength enabled him to become a 'hewer,' in which employment he was destined to pass the rest of his life, and in which he earned about one-half the average wages of a hewer at the present day.

THE PITMEN; THEIR DWELLINGS, HABITS, AND PECULIARITIES.

The pitmen are in every sense a peculiar race. Their life is half passed in the bowels of the earth, shut out from the light of day. Their thoughts and occupation are with coals from early boyhood to old age; and a very narrow circle indeed it is within which their sympathies extend. They are almost utterly ignorant of the world which exists beyond the colliery world; and any further excursion than an occasional one to Newcastle is truly a great event.

In many parts of England, the houses of the workingclasses are better than the furniture; but among the pitmen of Northumberland and Durham the furniture

selves, or both. The pitmen's houses are erected either by the proprietor of the colliery, or by certain petty companies, who speculate in the building and letting of them to the coal-owners, at rents varying from three to four pounds per annum. All the pitmen's houses are near the pits; so that when a pit is abandoned, the village is abandoned also; and in such case presents a most desolate appearance. The houses are of three degrees of value; the best possess two rooms on the ground floor, with a kind of loft above; the next best have only one room on the ground-floor, with a loft above; while the worst consist of but one single room. Some colliery villages, where probably the owners pay more personal attention to the comforts of the men, are of a superior character; but the average seem to be about on a level with those here described. Yet these dirty dwellings have, for the most part, better furniture within them than is to be found in houses of a parallel cast elsewhere. Eight-day clocks, mahogany chests of drawers, and four-post bedsteads, are said to have become quite a common object of ambition among the pitmen, and as forming items for consideration at the time of marrying.

It is rather remarkable, and contrary to what might perhaps be expected, that the medical men of the colliery districts do not speak highly either of the physical strength or of the courage of the pitmen. In the evidence collected by the 'Children's Employment' Commissioners, a few years ago, Mr. Morrison, a surgeon, makes the following remarks:-"The outward man' distinguishes a pitman from every other operative. His stature is diminutive, his figure disproportionate and misshapen, his legs being much bowed; his chest protruding (the thoracic region being unequally developed); his countenance is not less striking than his figure, his cheeks being generally hollow, his brow overhanging, his cheek-bones high, his forehead low and retreating; nor is his appearance healthful. I have seen agricultural labourers, blacksmiths, carpenters, and even those among the wan and distressed stocking-weavers of Nottinghamshire, to whom the term 'jolly' might not be inaptly applied; but I never saw a jolly-looking' pitman." Mr. Morrison partly traces this to the fact, that the whole of the pitmen have been pit-boys at an earlier age, during which the form is injured by the cramped positions occupied by the boys in the mine; but he also adduces other reasons:-" Pitmen have always lived in communities; they have associated only among themselves;

consists of houses built in pairs, and the pairs placed in rows. The space between the fronts of the houses, forming the street, is unpaved and undrained; but the space between the backs of the houses (where gardens would be in houses of a better class) not unfrequently exhibits a joint-stock dust-heap and dunghill running along the avenue, flanked here and there by pigsties and heaps of coals,—all in such a state as to show that the masters neglect the men, or the men neglect them

themselves. Even their amusements are hereditary and peculiar. They almost invariably intermarry ; and it is not uncommon, in their marriages, to commingle the blood of the same family. They have thus transmitted natural and accidental defects through a long series of generations, and may now be regarded in the light of a distinct race of beings." Whether seen in the pits or out of them, the pitmen are a singularlooking race. In the dingy lanes which surround many of the collieries, pitmen may often be seen returning

home from their 'eight-hours' shift' of labour, nearly as black as the coal on which they have been at work. Their dress, a tunic, or short frock, of coarse flannel, and trousers to match, becomes soon saturated with moisture and coal-dust. The complexion of the men, when it can be seen in its own proper hue, is generally sallow. Owing to the unusual light by which they pursue their occupations, the eyelids often become swollen, and the eyes assume a diminutive appearance: the strong light of day is sometimes painful to them. Everybody seems to award credit to the wives of the pitmen, as being indefatigable in their endeavours to keep all right and tidy at home, so far as the arrangements of the houses and the employments of the people will permit. The household duties of a pitman's wife are very numerous. Her husband, brother, father, sonsas the case may be-are often divided into two groups, such as "putters" and "hewers," who work at different hours; the former go into the pit when the latter leave, and the hours of labour and of rest are consequently not the same in the two cases. But the ever-busy housewife has to be ready for both. Every man or boy, immediately on coming from the pit, has a thorough and hearty ablution (for the pitmen, to their credit be it said, have the character of being personally clean when not at work, whatever their villages and houses may be), and then either changes his dress, or partakes of a meal, and then goes to bed. The flannel-dress, too, in which the pit-work is done, has to be subjected pretty frequently to the action of soap and water.

One of the gentlemen before named, Mr. Morrison, who was the medical attendant at the great Lambton collieries, gives a picture which shows that the pitmen have the means of living happily and comfortably, if their moral and mental development were a little further carried out :-" The children of colliers are comfortably and decently clothed. Cleanliness, both in their persons and houses, is a predominant feature in the domestic economy of the female part of this community. The children, although necessarily left much to themselves, and playing much in the dirt, are never sent to bed without ample ablution. Pitmen, of all labouring classes I am acquainted with, enjoy most the pleasure of good living; their larders abound in potatoes, bacon, fresh meat, sugar, tea, and coffee, of which good things the children as abundantly partake as the parents: even the sucking infant, to its prejudice, is loaded with as Imuch of the greasy and well-seasoned viands of the table as it will swallow. In this respect the women are foolishly indulgent, and I know no class of persons among whom infantile diseases so much prevail. Durham and Northumberland are not dairy counties, consequently the large population (excepting the hinds in the northern part of Northumberland) are very inadequately supplied with milk. Did this wholesome and nutritious beverage more abound, probably the infant population would be more judiciously fed." In some of the colliery villages there are public bakehouses, one to a certain number of houses, and each containing a large brick-built oven. Early in the morning the wife and daughters of

a pitman may be seen assembled at these places, gossiping with their neighbours, and baking the week's bread for their family. To a person who has no previous conception of the capaciousness of a pitman's appetite, the number and bulk of these loaves will be a matter for marvel.

Follow the pitmen to Newcastle-their great metropolis-and we find them still a characteristic race. Their velveteen dresses, with large and shining metal buttons, mark them out from the rest of the population. Mr. Holland states that the pitmen used formerly (perhaps more so than at present) to be fond of gaudy colours. Their holiday waistcoats, called by them posey jackets, were frequently of very curious patterns, displaying flowers of various hues: their stockings were blue, purple, or even pink or mixed colours. Many of them used to have their hair very long, which on weekdays was either tied in a queue, or rolled up in curls; but when dressed in their best attire, it was commonly spread over their shoulders. Some of them wore two or three narrow ribands round their hats, placed at equal distances, in which it was customary to insert one or more bunches of primroses or other flowers. Such were the pitmen of past days; and many of their holiday peculiarities still remain.

THE HOSTMEN AND KEELMEN.

The keelmen of the Tyne belong rather to the past age than the present. Steam-engines and railways are gradually effecting changes in the mode of shipping and transporting coals; and the keelmen are becoming less and less essential to the working of the system. Yet we cannot afford to lose sight of them as memorials of a past state of things, as members of a social machine which has played its part, they deserve a word or two of notice. Their own Keelmen's Hospital would reproach us, if we quite neglected them. It is, perhaps, the only hospital in the kingdom built and supported by the working classes for the benefit of their own members.

These keelmen have been known for at least four centuries. There was a complaint made in 1421, that the Crown was defrauded of certain coal-dues at Newcastle, by the merchants using keels which would contain twenty-two or three chaldrons each instead of twenty; and it was thereupon ordered that the keels should be of definite size and shape. "Keel" was one of the Anglo-Saxon names for a ship; and the same name was applied to the barges used in conveying coals from the staiths to the ships. These coal-keels are steered by a large kind of oar at the stem, called a swape; while a kind of pole, called a puy, is employed to push on the keel in shallow water; the captain of the keel is called the skipper, and his cabin is the huddock. When the water is so shallow as to render the use of sails or oars inconvenient, the keels are thus propelled : Two men, called keel-bullies, are on each side of the vessel, thrust their poles or puys in the muddy bed of the river, rest the upper end against their shoulders,

latter body was established in conjunction with the Company of Merchant-Adventurers in the time of Henry IV. These hostmen were incorporated by Queen Elizabeth, who, having tried in vain to get her due of two shillings per chaldron for all coals shipped. in the Tyne, gave the hostmen a charter, on condition that they would ensure to the crown one shilling for every chaldron so shipped. The ostmen, or hostmen, were a kind of coal-brokers, midway between buyers and sellers; and the name is supposed to have implied

There are certain points of difference between the keels of the Tyne and those of the Wear. Sir George Head, after speaking of the noble bridge over the Wear at Sunderland, says, "From a height commanding a bird's-eye view of the river below, the neat trim Sunderland keel, compared with the heavy lighter on the Tyne-wherein a mountain of coal is confined by a fortification of moveable boards-appears to considerable advantage. The Sunderland keel resembles in shape the horizontal section of a walnut, divided into eight compartments, each containing a square iron tub, fitting like a canister in a tea-chest. Instead, therefore, of the laborious practice, on the Tyne, of shovelling the cargo by hand from the keel into the vessel, each of these tubs is lifted up bodily by machines, and the contents--fifty-three hundred-weight, or a Newcastle chaldron- tilted at once into the hold of the receiving vessel a modern improvement, whereby, though the public profit generally, the loss and hardship press partially on a particular class of men. The hardy laborious race of keelmen are more and more, every day, deprived of their ancient occupation; as, by means of new appliances, vessels are laden at the wharfs and staiths which formerly received their loads shovelled on board, in the stream, by their hands." This change in the mode of shipping the coal is extending still more rapidly, both on the Tyne and the Wear; and it is on this ground that we may regard the keelmen as a race belonging to. past days. The same writer continues, "I saw one of these keels unladen at a wharf close to the bridge. A score, or more, lay moored together-each of the shape described, similar in size and figure, and displaying an outline of geometrical precision. The one to be unladen being alongside the sloop destined to receive her load, and both close to the wharf, the process was as easily effected as described. A huge crane let go its grappling-chain within the keel; this was in a moment fixed to one of the tubs; the tub was lifted, swung over the sloop, tilted, swung back again, disengaged from the tackle, and a fresh one hooked on. By the assistance of one man, the machine on shore continued its office with the same apparent ease that an elephant swings his proboscis out of his cage, and in again to pick up an apple."

There has always been an intimate connexion in the Tyne between the keelmen and the hostmen. This

many, or the eastern parts of Europe. Their brokerage appears to have included the whole responsibility of shipping the coal purchased; so that the keelmen were the servants of the hostmen. Down to the year 1600, if not later, the coals were brought from the pit-mouth to the staiths in wagons, or wains, along the common roads; but a great step in advance was made when tramways were laid down, to facilitate the transport of the coal. The hostmen have now changed their designation-or others have changed it for them-to fitters: the coal-fitters' of the Tyne are identical with 'hostmen,' but neither term serves to indicate with any great clearness the nature of the employment.

There is a record in existence which shows that, in 1602, there were twenty-eight hostmen, or coal-fitters, at Newcastle, who employed eighty-five keels. The numbers of both these classes gradually increased for many generations; the fitters are now, perhaps, more numerous than ever, but the keelmen have for some years past been declining in number. The old bridge at Newcastle has had much to do with perpetuating the keelman-system. If the colliery vessels were wished ever so urgently to ascend the Tyne, the bridge effectually stops them; so that keels, or some similar contrivance, are essential. In the improved mode of shipping coal, where no impediment exists to the approach of the coal-ship, it is brought to the shore, underneath a large and lofty timber-structure, called a staith, which overhangs the river, and which is connected by railway with the pit's mouth. The laden wagons are brought to this staith, and the coals are at once deposited from them into the hold of the vessel, without the intervention of any keelmen's assistance. It is said that ninepence per chaldron is saved by this using of the staith; if so, the keelmen have indeed a powerful antagonist to compete with.

The father of the two great lawyers whose names have before occupied our notice-Lords Eldon and Stowell-was a hostman of Newcastle: he was William Scott, descended from one of the numerous branches of the Scotts of Scotland. Mr. Twiss gives a conversation between Lord Eldon and his niece, Mrs. Forster, in which the keelmen of his early days are mentioned. Mrs. Forster remarked-"I remember, uncle, hearing of Master Jacky being celebrated for the hornpipes he danced at Christmas: there was an old keelman in the hospital at Newcastle, who talked of your hornpipes." To this Lord Eldon replied, "Oh yes, I danced hornpipes at Christmas, when my father gave a supper