SHARP PRACTICE.
Sir Francis Head, Bart., in his Stokers and Pokers, remarks:—“During the construction of the present London and North Western 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, full-blown, 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’S REASON FOR NOT GOING TO CHURCH.
A navvy at Kilsby, being asked why he did not go to church? duly 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.
SNAKES’ HEADS.
One of the earliest forms of rails used by the Americans consisted of a flat bar half-an-inch thick spiked down to longitudinal timbers. In the process of running the train, the iron was curved, the spikes loosened, and the ends of the bars turned up, and were known by the name of snakes’ heads. Occasionally they pierced the bottoms of the carriages and injured passengers, and it was no uncommon thing to hear passengers speculate as to which line they would go by, as showing fewest snakes’ heads.