church, and brought back to the pit sixty of
his own men. These he divided into gangs
of twenty each, and kept the pit in constant
work by day and night. Every Monday the
gangs changed shifts, so that night work fell
to the lot of each once in three weeks. In
this manner our bogie was laid without the
assistance of twelve clergymen, whom, Frazer
had been advised by an old lady, to engage for
the purpose.

Frazer, now no longer contemplating
suicide, concluded terms of partnership
with Hatley, and the new firm, resolving
to launch forth into a wider field, dispatched
me to London to make tracings of the
drawings, and copy the specifications of certain
brickwork to be executed in the Hunton
Bridge district. This work they obtained;
the management of the Tring ballast pit
was placed jointly with the Northchurch
tunnel contract under the direction of Hatley,
and I was placed upon this new work. I
was a fair draughtsman, understood the
"jometry" of the thing, as the navvies called
the setting out of work; and in the truly
practical character of my present labours,
found an ample recompense for the past
twelve months of toil and privation.

A publican in the neighbourhood of
the bridges comprised in our contract had
given offence to the bricklayers, and they
had ceased to deal with him; but, no
sooner was this bridge commenced, than he
was again favoured with their custom;
although his was by no means the nearest
hostelry. Boniface, of course, was only too
happy to receive their patronage; but his
self-gratulations received a check from
always finding himself short of pots and
cans. He was ready to avow that they
had been sent to the men at their work; he
was equally certain they had not been
returned; and it was no less true that
they were nowhere to be found. He waited
a few days, and his stock continued to
decrease. The men ordered their beer in large
quantities; but, though he loved good custom
and plenty of it, the loss of pots and cans
would have compelled him to decline their
further favours, if he had not been afraid of
throwing the field open to a rival. For some
time he renewed his stock and bore his loss;
until at last he resolved to have the men
watched as they left their work, and, if
possible, to discover who the thieves were. He
watched in vain; for, as the piers of the
bridge were carried up from the foundations,
so from time to time were the publican's cans
built in with them; and to this day they
form part of the structure.

We had several north-country bricklayers
at work for us, and between two of them—
natives of Wigan, I believe—while building
the parapet walls of a bridge, there arose a
dispute which resulted in a fierce battle. The
question upon which issue was joined, was
the much-vexed one in the trade, of English
or Flemish bond,—which was which. To
decide this, a fair rough-and-tumble fight, with
some nice purring, was proposed among their
comrades, and instantly agreed to. "Send for
the purring-boots!" was the cry; and the
men jumped down from the scaffold, and
repaired to the adjacent field. The purring-
boots duly came. They were stout high-lows,
each shod with an iron-plate, standing an
inch or so in advance of the toe. Each
man was to wear one boot, with which he
was to kick the other to the utmost. A toss
took place for right or left, and the
winner of the right having a small foot
the boot was stuffed with hay to make it
fit. I refrain from particulars: I have said
enough to show the brutal nature of the
affray. It lasted more than an hour. The
victor was a pitiable object for months, and
his foe was crippled for life. Here I must
add, that the old fashion of deciding
questions by the trial of combat prevailed widely
among the first race of navvies. More
than one question of right or user so
decided has remained undisturbed to this
hour. I myself saw a pitched battle,
fought between two plate-layers to decide
whether "beetle" or "mawl," was the right
name for a certain tool—a ponderous wooden
hammer—respecting which there was a
difference among this body of men throughout
the district. The contest was fierce and
desperate, but eventually "mawl"
vanquished; and, as a consequence, "beetle" was
expunged from the platelayers' vocabulary.

Of course, these fights bear no proportion
to, nor are they to be confounded with those
in which the combatants did violence to each
other out of personal animosity, or under
the influence of drink. These disgraceful
brawls were of daily occurrence, monstrous
both for their atrocity, and, in the case of
navvies, for the numbers engaged in them,
and made the very name of these men a bye-
word and a terror. For navvies, it must be
borne in mind, do not usually fight single-
handed, or man to man; their system of
fighting is in whole gangs or "all of a ruck,"
as they term it. So, newspaper-readers may
remember that, "desperate affray with
navigators," or "fearful battle between navigators
and the police," or whoever it may be,
generally used to head the accounts given of
disturbances in which those men were
engaged; but an account of a fight between
two of them was very rarely seen.

At length, in the summer of the year
eighteen hundred and thirty-six, the fearful
depravity of the men working upon railways,
and the demoralising influence upon the
surrounding population, became matter of
public notoriety (I speak of the district
within my own observation); and missions
were organised by various religious sections of
the community for their reclamation. The
object was most praiseworthy; for by no
class was reformation more radically