grate, watching in dreaming unconsciousness the various shapes and fantastic forms appearing and disappearing in the bright, red heat of thy fire-here a beautiful mountain, towering with its glowing top above the broken and diversified valley beneath-there a church, with its pretty spire peeping above an imagined village; or, peradventure, a bright nob, assuming the ken of human likeness, thy playful fancy picturing it the semblance of some distant friend-I say, whilst thou art sitting in this fashion, dost thou ever think of that race of mortals, whose whole life is spent beyond a hundred fathoms below the surface of mother earth, plucking from its unwilling bosom the materials of thy greatest comfort?

The pitman enables thee to set at nought the "pelting of the pitiless storm,"

and render a season of severity and pinching bitterness, one of warmth, and kindly feeling, and domestic smiles. If thou hast never heard of these useful and daring men, who

"Contemn the terrors of the mine,
Explore the caverns, dark and drear,
Mantled around with deadly dew;
Where congregated vapours blue,

Fir'd by the taper glimmering near,
Bid dire explosion the deep realms invade,
And earth-born lightnings gleam athwart th' infernal
shade ;"*

-who dwell in a valley of darkness for thy sake, and whose lives are hazarded every moment in procuring the light and heat of the flickering flame-listen with patience, if not with interest, to a short account of them, from the pen of one who is not unmindful of

"The simple annals of the poor."

The pitmen, who are employed in bring ing coals to the surface of the earth, from immensely deep mines, for the London and neighbouring markets, are a race entirely distinct from the peasantry surrounding them. They are principally within a few miles of the river Wear, in the county of Durham, and the river Tyne, which traces the southern boundary of Northumberland. They reside in long rows of one-storied houses, called by themselves " pit-rows," built near the chief entrance to the mine. To each house is attached a small garden,

"For ornament or use,"

and wherein they pay so much attention to the cultivation of flowers, that they frequently bear away prizes at floral exhibitions.

Within the memory of the writer, (and his locks are not yet "silver'd o'er with age," the pitmen were a rude, bold, savage set of beings, apparently cut off from their fellow men in their interests and feelings; often guilty of outrage in their moments of ebrious mirth; not from dishonest motives, or hopes of plunder, but from recklessness, and lack of that civilization, which binds the wide and ramified society of a great city. From the age of five or six years, their children are immersed in the dark abyss of their lower worlds; and when even they enjoy the "light of the blessed sun," it is only in the company of their immediate relations: all have the same vocation, and all stand out, a sturdy band,

HUDDESFORD.

separate and apart from the motley mixture of general humanity.

The pitmen have the air of a primitive race. They marry almost constantly with their own people; their boys follow the occupations of their sires-their daughters, at the age of blooming and modest maidenhood, linking their fate to some honest "neebor's bairn:" thus, from generation to generation, family has united with family, till their population has become a dense mass of relationship, like the clans of our northern friends, "ayont the Cheviot's range." The dress of one of them is that of the whole people. Imagine a man, of only middling stature, (few are tall or robust,) with several large blue marks, occasioned by cuts, impregnated with coaldust, on a pale and swarthy countenance, a coloured handkerchief around his neck, a posied waistcoat" opened at the breast, to display a striped shirt beneath, a short shorter than the jackets of our seamen, blue jacket, somewhat like, but rather velvet breeches, invariably unbuttoned and untied at the knee, on the "tapering calf" and finished downwards by a long, lowa blue worsted stocking, with white clocks, before you, equipped for his Saturday's quartered shoe, and you have a pitman canny Newcastle," or for his Sabbath's gayest holiday.

66

cruise to 66

66 pay

On a Saturday evening you will see a long line of road, leading to the nearest large market town, grouped every where with pitmen and their wives or lasses,' laden with large baskets of the "stomach's comforts," sufficient for a fortnight's consumption. They only are paid for their labour at such intervals; and their weeks are divided into what they term week," and "bauf week," (the etymology of "bauf," I leave thee, my kind reader, trudging home with their spoils-not unto find out.)-All merry and happyfrequently the thrifty husband is seen "half seas over," wrestling his onward way with an obstinate little pig, to whose hind leg is attached a string, as security for allegiance, while ever and anon this third in the number of "obstinate graces," seeks a sly opportunity of evading its unsteady guide and effecting a retreat over the road, and "Geordie" (a common name among them) attempts a masterly retrograde reel to regain his fugitive. A long cart, lent

given the pitman the benefit of this term from befler or baffolier, to mock or affront; "aiblins," it may be a corruption of our English term "balk," to disappoint.

* Quære? Whether some wag has not originally

by the owners of the colliery for the purpose, is sometimes filled with the women and their marketings, jogging homeward at a smart pace; and from these every wayfarer receives a shower of taunting, coarse jokes, and the air is filled with loud, rude merriment. Pitmen do not consider it any deviation from propriety for their wives to accompany them to the alehouses of the market town, and join their husbands in their glass and pint. I have been amused by peeping through the open window of a pothouse, to see parties of them, men and women, sitting round a large fir table, talking, laughing, smoking, and drinking con amore; and yet these poor women are never addicted to excessive drinking. The men, however, are not particularly abste. mious when their hearts are exhilarated with the bustle of a town.

When the pitman is about to descend to the caverns of his labour, he is dressed in a checked flannel jacket, waistcoat, and trowsers, with a bottle or canteen slung across his shoulders, and a satchell or haversack at his side, to hold provender for his support during his subterrene sojourn, At all hours, night and day, groups of men and boys are seen dressed in this fashion wending their way to their colliery, some carrying sir Humphrey Davy's (called by them "Davy's") safety-lamp, ready trimmed, and brightened for use. They descend the pit by means of a basket or "corfe," or merely by swinging themselves on to a chain, suspended at the extreme end of the cordage, and are let down, with inconceivable rapidity, by a steam-engine. Clean and orderly, they coolly precipitate themselves into a black, smoking, and bottomless-looking crater, where you would think it almost impossible human lungs could play, or blood dance through the heart. At nearly the same moment you see others coming up, as jetty as the object of their search, drenched and tired. I have stood in a dark night, near the mouth of a pit, lighted by a suspended grate, filled with flaring coals, casting an unsteady but fierce reflection on the surrounding swarthy countenances; the pit emitting a smoke as dense as the chimney of a steam-engine; the men, with their sooty and grimed faces, glancing about their sparkling eyes, while the talking motion of their red lips disclosed rows of ivory; the steam-engines clanking and crashing, and the hissing from the huge boilers, making a din, only broken by the loud, mournful, and musical cry of the man stationed at the top of the pit shaft," calling down to his companions

in labour at the bottom. This, altogether, is a scene as wild and fearful as a painter or a poet could wish to see.

All have heard of the dreadful accidents in coal-mines from explosions of fire-damp, inundations, &c., yet few have witnessed the heart-rending scenes of domestic calamity which are the consequence. Aged fathers, sons, and sons' sons, a wide branching family, all are sometimes swept away by a fell blast, more sudden, and, if possible, more terrible, than the deadly Sirocca of the desert.

Never shall I forget one particular scene of family destruction. I was passing along a" pit-row" immediately after a firing," as the explosion of fire-damp is called, when I looked into one of the houses, and my attention became so rivetted, that I scarcely knew I had entered the room. On one bed lay the bodies of two men, burnt to a livid ash colour; the eldest was apparently sixty, the other about forty-father and son:on another bed, in the same room, were "streaked" three fine boys, the oldest not more than fifteen-sons of the younger dead-all destroyed at the same instant by the same destructive blast, let loose from the mysterious hand of Providence and I saw-Oh God! I shall never forget-I saw the vacant, maddened countenance, and quick, wild glancing eye of the fatherless, widowed, childless being, who in the morning was smiling in her domestic felicity; whose heart a few hours before was exultingly beating as she looked on her gudeman and bonny bairns." Before the evening sun had set she was alone in the world; without a prop for her declining age, and every endearing tie woven around her heart was torn and dissevered. I passed into the neat little garden-it was the spring time-part of the soil was fresh turned up, and some culinary plants were newly set:-these had been the morning work of the younger father-his spade was standing upright in the earth at the last spot he had laboured at; he had left it there, ready for the evening's employment: -the garden was yet blooming with all the delightful freshness of vernal vegetation; its cultivator was withered and dead-his spade was at hand for another to dig its owner's grave.

66

Amidst all their dangers, the pitmen are a cheerful, industrious race of men. They were a few years ago much addicted to gambling, cock-fighting, horse-racing, &c. Their spare hours are diverted now to a widely different channel; they are for the most part members of the Wesleyan sects;

and, not unfrequently in passing their humble but neat dwellings, instead of brawls and fights you hear a peaceful congregation of worshippers, uttering their simple prayers; or the loud hymn of praise breaking the silence of the eventide.

The ancient custom of sword-dancing at Christmas is kept up in Northumberland, exclusively by these people. They may be constantly seen at that festive season with their fiddler, bands of swordsmen, Tommy and Bessy, most grotesquely dressed, performing their annual routine of warlike evolutions. I have never had the pleasure of seeing the Every-Day Book, but I have no doubt this custom has there been fully illustrated.

Some years ago a Tynemouth vessel, called the Northern Star," was lost, and the following ballad made on the occasion: the memory of a lady supplies the words

For the Table Book.

THE NORTHERN STAR.

The Northern Star

Sail'd over the bar,

Bound to the Baltic sea

In the morning grey
She stretch'd away,-
'Twas a weary day to me.

For many an hour

In sleet and shower

By the lighthouse rock I stray, And watch till dark

For the winged bark

Of him that is far away.

The castle's bound

I wander round

Amidst the grassy graves," But all I hear

Is the north wind drear,
And all I see are the waves.

Oh roam not there

Thou mourner fair,

Nor pour the useless tear; Thy plaint of woe

Is all below

The dead-they cannot hear,

The Northern Star

Is set afar,

Set in the Baltic sea,

And the waves have spread

The sandy bed,

That holds thy love from thee.

Tynemouth-castle, the grounds of which are used as a cemetery.

British Mines.

For the Table Book.

Mines of gold and silver, sufficient to reward the conqueror, were found in Mexico and Peru; but the island of Britain never produced enough of the precious metals to compensate the invader for the trouble of slaughtering our ancestors.

Camden mentions gold and silver mines in Cumberland, a mine of silver in Flintshire, and of gold in Scotland. Speaking of the copper mines of Cumberland, he says that veins of gold and silver were found intermixed with the common ore; and in the reign of Elizabeth gave birth to a suit at law between the earl of Northumberland and another claimant.

Borlase, in his History of Cornwall, relates, "that so late as the year 1753, several pieces of gold were found in what the miners call stream tin ; and silver is now got in considerable quantity from several of our lead mines."

A curious paper, concerning the gold mines of Scotland, is given by Mr. Pennant, in the Appendix, No. 10. to his second part of a "Tour in Scotland, in 1772;" but still there never was sufficient gold and silver enough to constitute the price of victory. The other metals, such as tin, copper, iron, and lead, are found in abundance at this day; antimony and manganese in small quantities.*

Of the copper mines now working in Cornwall," Dolcoath," situated near Camborn, is the deepest, having a 220 fathom level under the adit, which is 40 fathoms from the surface; so that the total depth is 260 fathoms, or 1560 feet: it employs upwards of 1000 persons. The "Consolidated Mines," in Gwennap, are the most productive perhaps in the world, yielding from 10l. to 12000l. a month of copper ore, with a handsome profit to the shareholders. "Great St. George" is the only productive mine near St. Agnes, and the only one producing metal to the "English Mining Association."

Of the tin mines, "Wheal Nor," in Breague, is an immense concern, producing an amazing quantity, and a large profit to the company. "Carnon Stream," near Perran, is now yielding a good profit on its

A Missouri paper states, that copper is in such abundance and purity, from the falls of St. Anthony to Lake Superior, that the Indians make hatchets and ornaments of it, without any other instrument than the hammer. The mines still remain in the possession of the Indians.

capital. It has a shaft sunk in the middle of the stream. The washings down from so many mines, the adits of which run in this stream, bring many sorts of metal, with some curious bits of gold.

Of late years the mine called Wheal Rose, and some others belonging to sir Christopher Hawkins, have been the most prolific of lead, mixed with a fair proportion of silver. Wheal Penhale, Wheal Hope, and others, promise favourably.

As yet Wheal Sparnon has not done much in cobalt; the quality found in that mine is very excellent, but quantity is the 66 one thing needful.”

The immense quantity of coals consumed in the numerous fire-engines come from Wales; the vessels convey the copper ore, as it is brought by the copper companies, to their smelting works: it is a back freight for the shipping.

Altogether, the number of individuals who derive their living by means of the mineral district of Cornwall must be incalculable; and it is a great satisfaction to know, that this county suffered less during the recent bad times than perhaps any other county.

April 30, 1827.

SAM SAM'S SON.

Angling

AT THAMES DITTON.

For the Table Book.

Thames Ditton is a pretty little village, delightfully situated on the banks of the Thames, between Kingston and Hampton Court palace. During the summer and autumn, it is the much-frequented resort of the followers of Isaac Walton's tranquil occupation.

The Swan inn, only a few paces from the water's edge, remarkable for the neatness and comfort of its appearance, and for the still more substantial attractions of its internal accommodation, is kept by Mr. John Locke, a most civil, good-natured, and obliging creature; and, what is not of slight importance to a bon-vivant, he has a wife absolutely incomparable in the preparation of "stewed eels," and not to be despised in the art of cooking a good beefsteak, or a mutton-chop.

But what is most remarkable in this place is its appellation of " lying Ditton "from what reason I have ever been unable to discover, unless it has been applied by those cockney anglers, who, chagrined at

their want of sport, have bestowed upon it that very opprobrious designation; and perhaps not entirely without foundation for when they have been unsuccessful in beguiling the finny tribe, the fishermen, who attend them in their punts, are always prepared to assign a cause for their failure; as that the water is too low or not sufficiently clear-or too muddy—or there is a want of rain-or there has been too much of that element-or-any thing else-except a want of skill in the angler himself, who patiently sits in his punt, watching the course of his float down the stream, or its gentle diving under the water, by which he flatters himself he has a bite, listening to the stories of his attendant, seated in calm indifference at his side, informing him of the mortality produced among the gelid tribe by the noxious gas which flows into the river from the metropolis, the alarming effects from the motion of the steam-boats on their fishy nerves, and, above all, from their feeding at that season of year on the green weeds at the bottom.

However, there are many most skilful lovers of the angle who pay weekly, monthly, or annual visits to this retired spot; amongst whom are gentlemen of fortune, professional men, and respectable trades. men. After the toils of the day, the little rooms are filled with aquatic sportsmen, who have left the cares of life, and the great city behind them, and associate in easy conversation, and unrestrained mirth.

One evening last summer there alighted from the coach a gentleman, apparently of the middle age of live, who first seeing his small portmanteau, fishing-basket, and rods safely deposited with the landlord, whom he heartily greeted, walked into the room, and shaking hands with one or two of his acquaintances, drew a chair to the window, which he threw up higher than it was before; and, after surveying with a cheerful countenance the opposite green park, the clear river with its sedgy islands, and the little flotilla of punts, whose tenants were busily engaged on their gliding floats, he seemed as delighted as a bird that has regained his liberty: then, taking from his pocket a paper, showed its contents to me, who happened to be seated opposite, and asked if I was a connoisseur in" single hair;" for, if I was, I should find it the best that could be pro

he

cured for love or money. I replied that I seldom fished with any but gut-lines; yet it appeared, as far as I could judge, to be very fine. "Fine!" said he, "it would do for the filament of a spider's-web; and yet