THE
PETE RITE. Von. Iv .
OCTOBEII, 1882.
No .
1 .
THE INNER LIFE OF THE BLACK COUNTRY. 110 has not seen a Coal Pit ?
W
Ay,
who ? But few indeed itt
this age of hot activity and boiling bustle have not looked
upon at least the outside of a pit, and become somewhat familiar with its noise and whirl ; its dirt acid sooty blackness ; the huge black pitheap ; the begrimed engine-house ; the rattle of the cage up and down the shaft ; the clank of chains ; and the deep bellowing roar of pitmen's lungs . Perhaps but few of my readers have been down a pit, and fewer still have the wish to explore the dark abyss . But if you put yourselves in my hands for a short time, I shall take you in imagination to a pit in the county of Durham, to witness and take part in the festivity below ground. It was Christmastide, though the open weather would fain give the lie to the assertion, and about six o'clock in the evening, when five of us set out to make night horrible with shouts and revelry . Our dress was not particularly pitmanlike, being composed of cast-off clothing of various shapes and still more various hues . In a pitman's eyes we were habited with extreme neatness and plainness, as the pitman is proverbially addicted to all such colours as are in his opinion not in the least calculated to arrest attention . " I'll ha' noun o' yoor bawdy collore, gie me plain reed, yaller and bloc .'' But we draw near to the pit ; the flare of torches and lamps tells us that . There at to top of the shaft, round a blazing fire, sits a motley group of a somewhat nondescript character . A jolly red farmer, next a grizzly pitman ; a pale-faced tradesman shivering in his shoes at the thought that soon he will be on his downward path, descending he