the roof, that the assistant-engineer, Mr. Charles Lean, in charge of the party, jumped overboard, and then, swimming with a rope in his mouth, he towed the raft to the foot of the nearest working shaft, through which he and his men were safely lifted up into daylight, or, as it is termed by miners, " to grass."

The water now rose in the shaft, and as it is called "drowned out" the works. For a considerable time all the pumping apparatus appeared to be insufficient. Indeed the effort threatened to be so hopeless that the Directors of the Company almost determined to abandon it, but the engineer-in-chief, relying on the power of his engines, prayed for one fortnight more; before that period expired Science triumphed over her subterranean foe, and thanks to the inventors of the steam-engine-the water gradually lowered.

By the main strength of 1250 men, 200 horses, and 13 steamengines, not only was the work gradually completed, but during night and day, for eight months, the astonishing and almost incredible quantity of 1800 gallons per minute from the quicksand alone was raised by Mr. Robert Stephenson and conducted away!!

Indeed such is the eagerness with which workmen in such cases proceed, that, on a comrade being one day killed at their side by falling down the shaft, they merely, like sailors in action, chucked his body out of the way and then instantly proIceeded with their work. In the construction of the tunnel there were lost twenty-six men, two or three of whom were "navvies," killed in trying, "for fun," as they termed it-to jump one after another across the summits of the shafts.

The time occupied from the laying of the first brick to the completion of the work was thirty months. The number of bricks used was 36,000,000, sufficient to make a good footpath. from London to Aberdeen (missing the Forth) a yard broad!

On the completion of this great work the large populous village which had been constructed on its summit was of course suddenly deserted; it has since completely disappeared, and, instead of the busy scenes it once witnessed, there is now nothing heard on the dreary summit of the Kilsby Tunnel but the desolate

moan of the rumbling train, or the occasional subterranean whistle of its engine; these noises being followed by the appearance of a slight smoke slowly meandering upwards from the two great shafts of the tunnel.

During the operations we have just described, an artificer who had been working in the tunnel was ascending one of the shafts when, the back of his coat happening to get into an angular crevice of the partition, called by miners a "brattice," which separated the shaft from the pumps, it became so completely jammed therein that the man was obliged to let go the rope, and accordingly, while dangling over his head it rose to the surface, he remained, to the utter astonishment and dismay of his comrades, suspended about 100 feet from the bottom, until some of them descended and rescued him by cutting away the imprisoned piece of his coat, which, on being afterwards extricated, was long preserved in the engineer's office as a trophy demonstrating the strength of good honest English broadcloth.

At the same shaft an accident of exactly a contrary nature subsequently occurred. In order to execute some trifling repair to the brattice, there was, during a desperate cold night, suspended, about half-way down the shaft, a temporary scaffolding on which several artificers were working by candle-light, when all of a sudden a well-known powerful," navvy," named Jack Pierson, fell from the surface with such momentum, that, breaking through the frail scaffolding as if it had been tinder, he was in a few seconds heard to go souse into the water at a considerable depth beneath!

As soon as the men on the scaffold had recovered from their surprise they naturally all at once were animated with a desire to save their comrade. One lustily roared out for rope; another vociferously proposed something else; while several navvies, bawling from the surface, were each as eagerly and as loudly prescribing his own remedy. In the midst of this confusion the stentorian voice of Jack Pierson himself was heard, from the very bottom of the pit, calmly to exclaim,

"DARM YOUR EYES, MAKE LESS NOISE AND POOL ΜΕ ROUT!!

His rough command was instantly attended to, and he was moreover carried to his bed, where, poor fellow! he lay many weeks unable to move.

Besides the 1250 labourers employed in the construction of the tunnel, a proportionate number of suttlers and victuallers of all descriptions concentrated upon the village of Kilsby. In several houses there lodged in each room sixteen navvies, and as there were four beds in each apartment, two navvies were constantly in each; the two squads of eight men as alternately changing places with each other in their beds as in their work.

Such was the demand for lodging that it was, as we have stated, found necessary to construct a large village over the tunnel for the accommodation of the workmen, and, as they generally allowed themselves three meat meals a-day, it has been asserted that more beef was eaten at Kilsby during the construction of the tunnel than had previously been consumed there since the Deluge.

As these navigators are now before us, we trust that our readers will not only be curious but desirous to know a little more of the habits of a set of men who have lately added so materially to the prosperity of the country as well as to our luxuries, by the numerous railways which, by the honest sweat of their brows, they have one after another executed.

We need hardly say that, as regards their physical strength, they are the finest Herculean specimens of the British race; and, as is generally the case, in proportion as they are powerful so are they devoid of all bluster or bravado.

Those who have commanded large numbers of them state that they are not only obedient to all above them, even to their own "gangers," but that, although they have-we think very justlyoccasionally required a permanent increase of pay, they have never meanly taken advantage of a press of business to strike for wages. Indeed the conduct of a "navvy," like his countenance, is honest and open. If from illness or misfortune he is unable to work, he and his family are maintained by his comrades; in truth the same provision is made among them for what are called by navvies their "tally-wives," a description of relationship exceedingly difficult correctly to describe

As they earn high wages, it is a fashion among them to keep dogs; and as rather a noble trait, we may mention that there have been several instances where 107. has been in vain offered to to induce him to sell his dumb favourite.

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a navvy Generally speaking they are not addicted to poaching; but when not at work they usually amuse themselves by playing at skittles, at quoits, by drinking, and occasionally by fighting; and although the latter species of recreation is no doubt reprehensible, yet surely it is better for a man to walk homewards at night with a pair of black eyes and a bloody nose, than with an I O U cheque in his pocket for ten thousand pounds, gained by what the fashionable world terms "at play" from a companion whose wife he has made destitute, and whose children he has probably ruined!

At a navvy's funeral 500 of his comrades in their clean short white smock-frocks, with thin black handkerchiefs tied loosely round their throats, are seen occasionally in procession walking in pairs hand in hand after the coffin of their mate. In short, there exists among them a friendly "esprit de corps," which not only binds them together, but renders it rather dangerous for any stranger to cheat, or even to endeavour to overreach them.

During the construction of the present London and NorthWestern Railway, a landlady at Hillmorton, near Rugby, of very sharp practice, which she had imbibed in dealings for many years with canal boatmen, was constantly remarking aloud that no navvy should ever "do" her; and although the railway was in her immediate neighbourhood, and although the navvies were her principal customers, she took pleasure on every opportunity in repeating the invidious remark.

It had, however, one fine morning scarcely left her large, fullblown, rosy lips, when a fine-looking young fellow, walking up to her, carrying in both hands a huge stone bottle, commonly called "a grey-neck," briefly asked her for "half a gallon of gin;" which was no sooner measured and poured in than the money was rudely demanded before it could be taken away.

On the navvy declining to pay the exorbitant price asked, the

landlady, with a face like a peony, angrily told him he must either pay for the gin or instantly return it.

He silently chose the latter, and accordingly, while the eyes of his antagonist were wrathfully fixed upon his, he returned into her measure the half-gallon, and then quietly walked off; but having previously put into his grey-neck half a gallon of water, each party eventually found themselves in possession of half a gallon of gin and water; and, however either may have enjoyed the mixture, it is historically recorded at Hillmorton that the landlady was never again heard unnecessarily to boast" that no navvy could do' her."

A navvy at Kilsby, being asked why he did not go to church? dully answered in geological language-"Why, Soonday hasn't cropped out here yet!" By which he meant that the clergyman appointed to the new village had not yet arrived.

The contrast which exists between the character of the French and English navigator may be briefly exemplified by the following trifling anecdote:

In excavating a portion of the first tunnel east of Rouen towards Paris, a French miner dressed in his blouse, and an English "navvy" in his white smock jacket, were suddenly buried alive together by the falling in of the earth behind them. Notwithstanding the violent commotion which the intelligence of the accident excited above ground, Mr. Meek, the English engineer who was constructing the work, after having quietly measured the distance from the shaft to the sunken ground, satisfied himself that if the men, at the moment of the accident, were at the head of "the drift" at which they were working, they would be safe.

Accordingly, getting together as many French and English labourers as he could collect, he instantly commenced sinking a shaft, which was accomplished to the depth of 50 feet in the extraordinary short space of eleven hours, and the men were thus brought up to the surface alive.

The Frenchman, on reaching the top, suddenly rushing forwards, hugged and embraced on both cheeks his friends and acquaintances, many of whom had assembled, and then, almost