James Greenwood

“ A hideous sunken patch, hedged all about with mountains of jagged slag and pit refuse seething, boiling, and bubbling in the midst of dense smoke and steam, spurting up sudden and fierce in unexpected gusts like the jets from the touchholes of great cannon; while below all manner of fire seems to peep up out of the ground or leap a-tiptoe high up into the air as our flame-headed London monument. ”

“ A negro is merely slate-coloured beside him, a chimney-sweep a person of dusky complexion; coal is black, but the pitman is blacker than coal, a shinier black; he has jetty grit in his hair and in his eyebrows, and it glistens in the very lashes of his eyes, heightening the contrast to his eyeballs, which roll in their orbits like marbles of white china. ”

“ But this is not the individual regarding whom I have suggested that Sir Wilfrid would probably hesitate ere he attacked him with the virtuous intention of dispossessing him of his beer at the moment when lie is at the point of indulging in it - it is the pitman who has recently come up. A score of these honest delvers of coal, roistering in a dingy room by firelight - the miner can see almost as well in the dark as by aid of gas or candle - is an appalling sight. There is no creature in existence that is as black as a pitman. ”

“ The entrance to Black Horse-lane is rising ground, and standing there with the back to the street, one looks down into a hollow, and at first sight, especially at dusk of evening, it appears as though nothing less than a dreadful earthquake had just commenced, and that presently the towering black chimney shafts, marked by the ragged caps of flame, must come toppling down with a crash. ”

“ But, if he may be judged from his appearance, the pale-faced potter is a man of quite another kind. It is by no mean; a cheerful spectacle this turning out of pottery hands in the dusk of evening. One and all - and there seem to be as many women as men, and as many children as either - they are as white as bakers, as the most careless of journeymen, who recklessly splash their shabby clothes with flour slop, and are not at all particular as to how much flour finds lodgement in their hair and whiskers, and in the folds of their neckerchiefs. ”

“ I am of course unable to say whether the same influences prevail with the collectors of dog tax at Hanley, but it must he patent to the most ordinary observer that, if it does, the amount returned must represent a very inconsiderable sum. Of the dogs that exist under the earth in this region of smoke and fire I cannot pretend to any knowledge, but on the earth's surface they literally swarm. It does not appear that any particular breed of dogs find favour at Hanley to the exclusion of all others. ”

“ Males and females, grown-up and children, they are all of the same type. "All work and no play" has made the dullest of "boys" of them, and their white figures stalk through the smoke which fills the streets in a manner that suggests but one idea - that they are hurrying home to get to bed as soon as possible to rest their weary limbs, and fortify themselves against the drudgery of tomorrow. ”

“ Mullany frankly admitted in our presence that he knew all about the Hanley dog fight; that Brummy, otherwise Physic, was the man who had fought the animal; that Brummy had found two pounds towards the stake that was fought for; and that there were not more than thirty persons present at the fight. Mr. Mullany, however, when pressed on the point, stoutly denied being one of the thirty. His intimacy with Mr. Physic, however, appeared to be almost brotherly. He described his friend as being almost like a gentleman when quite sober, but as being more like a devil than a man when he was drunk. ”

“ Nor, when a man grew somewhat used to the smarting mist, and could look about him a little, was there the least reason for wondering that Longton should be so afflicted. From one end to the other, it is chockfull of manufactories where pots and pans and plates and dishes are turned out every day by the hundred thousand, and kilns may be counted ten and a dozen in a single street. And let it be understood a pottery kiln is no mere chimney shaft. ”

“ In all probability there ate at sonic of the worst of these localities - at Longton, for example - scores of young men and women whose belief is that the sun is ray less and lemon-coloured, and that the world at large is shrouded constantly in chimney-smoke. What their first sensations would be on making acquaintance with perfect light, and pure air, and dazzling sunshine, is doubtful. ”

“ I think I see that scared-visage young fellow lingering, long after dark, on the great furnace-clinker he has utilised as a seat at the mouth of Black Horse-lane, contemplating the life that coal-miners and iron smelters and casters and forgers lead, and weighing in his sobered mind whether the inconveniences of the agricultural frying-pan are not probably more endurable than a sweating, toiling, grimy existence in this ugly district of smoke and fire, despite the advantage of increased wages ”

“ Besides, leave alone his visage and his eyes, that blink at the glare of gaslight, and his horny hands dotted with dull blue scars, and with the finger nails as blunt as though they had been filed, however a pitman may be attired and wherever he may be met, he can at once be known to be the man he is the moment he opens his mouth-not by the style of language that issues there from, but by the dazzling whiteness of his teeth, scrubbed constantly by the ebon grit, and by his gums, which from the same cause, are ruddier than coral. ”

“ By the time a half-pint brandy measure had been filled at my expense, and emptied by the Old Hand and his friend, his good temper was quite restored, and - may Sir Wilfrid forgive me - a little drop more made him quite kind and confidential. With a friendly slap on the shoulder he swore that I was the right sort, and that if I liked to meet him to-morrow night, although he couldn't promise me "all a dog-fight," I should be treated to a bit of sport it would do any man's heart good to see. ”

“ With a roaring and rattling noise, with a body big as a tun, and with outstretched arms and forked fingers, the flames leap from the squat chimneys of the iron smelters, or the fires are smouldering, winking, and blinking in various colours - green, yellow, and crimson - and everywhere seemingly striving to tear a way through the heavy black pall that is stifling them. ”

“ As regards the revolt of the men generally, the pitmen were unanimous in their expressions of approval; and one gentleman who had brought up out of the pit his coal-pick, and who drove its blade deep between the floor bricks by way of illustrating what should be done, if he had his way, with every pig-headed old farmer in England, so pleased the rest that, upstanding, every pitman present emptied his quart of the much or little it contained in the speaker's honour. ”

“ On that bright Sunday morning, every form was as completely occupied as are the seats in the pit of a theatre when a popular piece is being played, and all by working folk, while scores of other work-people, too late for the front rows, sauntered over the hot asphalt, patiently waiting for a chance to sit down and enjoy at their ease the beauties of nature, and listen to the refreshing trickling of the plashing fountain. ”

“ A little fellow as regards height, but wonderfully deceiving as regards bulk," Mr. Mullany replied. "It is a dodge of his, when in a smoke-room where there is company, to turn the talk to measurement of chests and that, and then to wager his chest measurement against that of somebody else; and, though he stands only five feet one or two, he measures fair three feet four round the naked chest, and as for his fists, they are bigger than mine," said Mr. Mullany, who is a stout-built young man of five feet nine or ten in height, and not altogether innocent of pugilistic practices. ”

“ Perhaps snow at Longton is black - it is quite impossible that the fleecy particles could penetrate the tangle of thick chimney stuff overhead and descend white - and that the roads, and paths, and the people, and the cabbage of the greengrocers, and the meat in the butchers' shops, are one and all, thickly covered with feathery grime ”

“ There was a man black as ink, and evidently a pitman, and two deplorably thin and ragged little girls, who appeared to have been to meet father returning from his works - not, however, because of his loving impatience to behold them as soon as his day's toil was over, but to gladden his eyes with the sight of a female dog, of the retriever breed, and two fine pups. ”

“ A home for starving dogs would be almost as much out of place at Hanley as an asylum for indigent bees on a common, where the yellow gorse is in flower. I believe that the town in question would hold itself in lasting disgrace if a starving or even a lean or ill-conditioned cur were seen prowling about its streets. Neglected children maybe found in plenty; but there is no lack of fatness or sleekness amongst the dogs. The fact is, the hard-working pitman of these parts is not a child-fancier - he is a dog-fancier. ”

“ When he sits, as be almost invariably does, with his great black hands spread out on his knees, he has the appearance of a creature that is about to spring at you. There are miners rough and miners smooth, and I am now speaking of the former; and I say that a man must possess a fine spirit who while a score of such jolly fellows were clinking cans, and using towards each other - quite in a friendly kind of way - such language as to suggest the notion that the pit from which they had recently emerged must have been the bottomless one, would go in amongst them and snatch away their beer. ”

“ Of bull pups, and bull terriers, and other fighting varieties, there is a fair sprinkling; but the homely maxim respecting the loaf seems here to apply to the animals in question, and a half-bred dog is regarded as better than one of no breed at all. Anything in dog's hide, with teeth to bite and a tail to wag, is acceptable to those who cannot afford better. One discovers, especially in the slums, whole streets, the inhabitants of which are, apparently, incapable of indulging in canine or any other luxury, bitten to a man with the dog-keeping mania. ”

“ Tapley, at this first interview, "I knew at once, when I read the account in the Telegraph who it was that fought the dog, although Mr. Greenwood made a queer mistake in the names. It isn't the dog that's named Physic, it's the man. Richard Physic is his name, though he's commonly known as Brummy." ”

“ The most serious result, however, and one that would be almost inevitable, would be the immediate revolution that would ensue in the pottery trade. It is only reasonable to assume that least half the enlightened excursionists would never return to Longton. A very few hours' acquaintance with the new life with which the sweet and bracing air of the sea and the downs would endow them would effectually settle the question of staying where they were, and picking up a living somehow - anyhow - or going back to be once more enshrouded in the black smoke from the Pottery kilns ”

“ When at full blast, as miners say, it is an awful spectacle, and one that would possibly daunt the courage of even doughty Sir Wilfrid himself, supposing him to have conceived the idea of bearding the lion of beer in its den, and of commencing the campaign in the neighbourhood of Brierly or Hanley. The pitman fresh from home, and taking his accustomed "last pipe" and his evening wet before he is lowered into the black bowels of the earth, is not a very remarkable-looking individual. ”

“ In case the bull-dog should be lucky enough to pin his enemy, the man had only to cry out "I'm done," and means would be promptly taken to compel the victor to loosen his grip. On "Brummy's" part, to win the fight, he was to knock the bulldog "out of time" - in other words, either to stun it or so punishes it that, despite all it's master's urging, it would refuse to face the dwarf again after a full minute's notice. ”

“ It may possibly be borne in mind that some time after the occurrence of the fight the Mayor of Longton - which adjoins Hanley - created some sensation by the public announcement that a gentleman, for whose integrity he could vouch, had made known to him the fact that on the morning following the night on which the combat took place, and while in a railway carriage, he had overheard two men talking about a man and dog fight which had taken place at Hanley the night previous, and at which one of the men was present. ”

“ He is dressed in his "flannels," which are as thick as ordinary blanketing, and his frock is all open at his hairy chest, which is laden with so much pounded coal as to suggest the possibility of kindling a fire there by the aid of a stick of wood and a Lucifer match. He is not a tall man, but he is immensely broad, his shoulders are rounded, and he carries his shaggy head as a man who does not often enjoy the luxury of standing upright. ”

“ There was, happily, a wide chimney-place, and the stove had been moved. A bit of board based on brick-bats made out of this quite a commodious and airy recess and I was glad to share it with two promising young pit-lads, who, with a view to thoroughly enjoying the festivities of the evening, had brought a bottle of rum with them. ”

“ The engine that heavily groans, the engine that shrilly shrieks, the engine that is spasmodic in its ejaculations and utters intermittent yells and roars as though some of the fiery demons in attendance were torturing it by pulling out its teeth ”

“ The kilns of Longton are brick-built, squat-bellied bottles, with wide gaping mouths, out of which issues, as though by necromantic art, a constant out-rolling of vapour that looks as substantial as wool, and a little of which must go a long way towards poisoning any current of pure air it may happen to fall in with. ”